December 6, 2005
THE PROBLEM WITH MOST "OF THE YEAR" AWARDS
This morning's online edition of The Indianapolis Star asks:
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was named Sports Illustratedís Sportsman of the Year. Does he deserve it, or should SI have chosen Peyton Manning?
What the Star and everyone else should be asking isn't whether Manning is more deserving of the SI award, but why Brady won the award in the first place. Thus far in 2005, including his team's three Super Bowl-related playoff game wins in January and February, Tom Brady has guided his team to a total of 10 wins, a feat hardly worthy of SI's award (especially when one considers that a handful of other NFL quarterbacks have accomplished the exact same thing over the same period of time).
In bestowing its 2005 Sportsman of the Year Award on Brady, what Sports Illustrated is really doing is recognizing Brady's accomplishments over the course of the 2001, 2003, and 2004 NFL seasons when Brady guided the New England Patriots to the 2002, 2004, and 2005 versions of the Super Bowl, a game that is played in February of the year following the designated NFL year.
The problem with "Of the Year" awards such as these is that many of them are handed out before the year ends and before one has a legitimate opportunity to analyze and evaluate one's performance for the entire year in question. And the problem is not just with sports awards:
- The updated line of Honda Civic compact cars has already been named 2006 Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine.
- The Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference has already announced its 2006 awardees.
- The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has already named its list of the safest cars in 2006.
- The International Consumer Electronics Show has named its Best of 2006 Innovation: the Kodak EasyShare-One zoom digital camera and the EasyShare Photo Printer
And the list goes on and on, all the while, 2005 hasn't even ended, yet alone 2006. "Of the Year" awards should be based on merit, not projection. Tom Brady should have won Sports Illustratedís Sportsman of the Year award last year, shortly after guiding his football team to its last Super Bowl victory. The 2006 line of Honda Civic automobiles should only be eligible to win Motor Trend magazine's 2006 Car of the Year award once the 2006 calendar year has ended and the magazine's staff has had a chance to review the line of cars based on performance.
In a related note, Sportsbook.com, a leading online gambling service, was forced to halt wagering on SI's Sportsperson of the Year award due to suspicious betting activity. According to news reports, since odds were posted on the annual designation several weeks ago, numerous wagers from the same source--a New York-based PR agency that just so happens to represent SI's owner, Time Warner--for the maximum allowable bet were placed on Brady. Then, on Friday evening, December 2nd, a leak emerged that Brady would, in fact, be this year's winner.
Posted by Mikal at December 6, 2005 9:25 AM
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I would argue, semantically, that three of your five exmaples have no problems with them. "Year" is a term that describes 365 consecutive days. A year can be from March 15 to March 15. So, in this case, the 2005 Sportsman of the Year, 2006 Car of the Year, and the 2006 awardees for Black Engineer of the year are just fine.
For things that come afterwards (Peyton Manning, etc.), they still have a full year to make their case. And they'll be named in the +1 version of the award. The year, in this case, simply serves to denote when the award was given, not a time period across which candidates are projected to have success.
What starts to be a problem is when you reference a specific year. By calling something "Best of 2006" or "safest car in 2006," you are suddenly not referencing a year (as in 365 consecutive days), but rather a specific year (as in Jan 1 XXXX to Dec 31 XXXX).
(I can, sort of, give a pass to the IIHS, since car years are usually +1 anyway, but...)
Oh, and back to football: Until Peyton proves that he's more than a regular-season player, he won't be Sportsman of the Year. Or shouldn't be. Even if the Colts go 16-0.
