Cliche Away

The 2013 World Series is in the books, and it looks like the curse is still broken.  It has become more or less a given that sports have come to define the "faith" of our nation more so than any particular brand of actual religion.  People speak in reverent tones about the "integrity of the game," about the triumphs of the human spirit.  Even in a year when a seemingly mediocre team can be world champions (let's face it, this wasn't exactly a bloody-sock sort of series), there is still a lot of sacred language bandied about with regard to the fall classic, and millions of people participated in the sacrament, even though the teams were: meh, and the play was: meh, and unless you were a Red Sox fan you probably turned off Game 6 after the flyin' Hawaiian did his RBI thing.
I have noticed another way in which sports have become like religion, in addition to claiming the adoration and devotion of millions of people and dividing us into tribes (or denominations) based on our personal preferences: sports are now over-ridden with cliches.  Watch any postgame interview, you will hear things like "the will to win," "giving it our all," "playing the right way," "holding together as a team."  Welcome to the family sports, you have climbed your way from being a diversion, to being an obsession, and now... now... you shall experience the pit of dogma.  Where your own sense of self-importance keeps you from really thinking or saying anything honest and meaningful.  The Theologians will be glad to have some company after all these years.
Don't worry, there will still be sycophantic sports reporters around to nod and record your drivel verbatim, and overall the people won't care much about what you say, as long as you keep providing them with the entertainment they crave.  I suppose, being men of action, you probably won't start to feel the sting of existential emptiness as quickly as we "spiritual" types, but believe me, cliches will suck out your soul sooner or later.  I'm speaking as an expert, the church does cliches like nobody's business.  Here are some of our greatest hits:
"Too blessed for stress."
"His pain, your gain."
"If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it."
"My boss is a Jewish carpenter."
"God is my co-pilot."
And I'm not even going to go into the ones that express some sort of heresy, in fact, I've purposely narrowed my field to things that aren't theologically or scripturally untenable, but some of the above are just downright vomit inducing.  We can take the best idea in the world and make it into a lame cliche: "saved by grace," and then use that as a talking point to illustrate how right we are compared to all those other wrong people.  We can adopt cliches in other languages and sound really awesome: Sola Scriptura, Reformata semper reformanda, which are really great, and true on levels we don't even fully understand.
Basically, I think we religious folk have so thoroughly mastered the art of sloganeering that I wonder how anyone even feels a little bit good about saying: "we gave a 110 percent," I mean come on, that's not even mathematically possible.
So sports, enjoy your massive popularity and your status as cultural and economic juggernauts, but take it from the Church, you need to learn how to say something... anything... that's really true.  Ditch the cliches, I know it's dangerous, and actually really difficult when you get down to it.  You know, come to think of it, how about we make a deal, you keep running fast and doing neat things with balls, and we'll handle helping people find meaning in the universe.  You can keep your "will to win" and we'll help people with the "will to live."
Why compete?  There's certainly enough emptiness to go around.  And all your athletes are always giving a shout out to God anyway.  We should work together!  There's no I in team.  We could be a well oiled machine!  We could be a dynasty!  Let's get the job done!  We could be number one!