I got a guarantee; you're an idiot

The definition of a guarantee, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is "the assurance for the fulfillment of a condition."\nDetroit Lions wide receiver Roy Williams had such an assurance Monday.\n"We'll win this game (against the Bears)," Williams said in The Detroit News. "You can take that as a guarantee or whatnot, but we will win this game."\nFantastic. Another attempt by our prima donna athletes to tarnish one of sport's most fabled terms: guarantee. They're symbolic in the context in which they're used, usually referring to a great accomplishment or victory. But not in this situation. \nI like Roy Williams. He's the most successful Lions receiver from Detroit's version of the famed CBS television series Survivor: Detroit receivers taken in the top 10 of the NFL Draft.\nBut any shmuck can make a guarantee. I guarantee the Hoosiers will win the Big Ten title in college football. And you can write that down. But do you know what? I hold as much water as Stephen A. Smith with a megaphone in a retirement community.\nRasheed Wallace epitomizes the lost art of the sport's guarantee. Having made four previous GuaranSheed's in the playoffs (in all irrelevant mid-series games, mind you), the guy with the bald spot on his head came up short in predicting a Game 4 win against the Cavaliers last year. \nWhat ever happened to the guarantee? It symbolizes resolve in the face of impending elimination. It captures the sanctity of sport. Only the self-assured underdogs believe they will go out that night and stun the sports pundits. They have the swagger of a champion in the presence of defeat, and in the end the guarantee holds up.\nBut when hapless morons like Roy Williams in week two of the 2006 NFL season spit out a guarantee like a sunflower seed, the mystique is stamped out. Forget the denotation of the word; the guarantee has a more emblematic meaning. And Williams, Wallace and others are tarnishing it. \nWhen you think of guarantees, you think of Joe Namath, Muhammad Ali and Mark Messier. They are immortalized because of their production in the context in which the guarantee was made. \nAli, then known as the young Cassius Clay, predicted he would knock out Sonny Liston in eight rounds in February 1964. Ali tantalized Liston, jabbing him constantly, dancing and making the baffled champion swing wildly. The loud-mouthed, eccentric Ali defeated Liston in seven rounds, one off his prediction, but he set a standard soon to be followed by other greats.\nMessier guaranteed a Rangers win against the scrappy New Jersey Devils in Game 6 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals. Down 3-2 in the series and 2-1 in the game heading into the third period, the real New York Captain netted three goals in the last period to send Game 7 back to New York. Messier later found his name inscribed on Lord Stanley's Cup for a sixth time that June.\nNamath is the household example of a sports guarantee. As 17-point underdogs in Super Bowl III to Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts, the game's MVP led the Jets to a 16-7 win. And take note that there will never (ever) be another 17-point underdog in the Super Bowl again. And the present-day NFL might never (ever) have become what it is today had the AFL not earned a victory over the NFL in that Super Bowl. And the sports guarantee would have never (ever) soared into the minds of sports fans, players and analysts had Namath not beat Don Shula's team that January night in Miami.\nThese were sports guarantees -- underdogs assured of achievable fulfillment. Ali, Messier and Namath headline these folk tales that sports enthusiasts hold dear to their hearts. These lackluster guarantees are tainting this mystique. These guarantees have sadly gone from courageous declarations by "Broadway" Joe to pasty comments by an average Joe.