THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408070208
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
In its current issue, Time magazine goes searching for hip and arrives at the shaky conclusion that hip is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Hip isn't what it used to be, Time discovers. But what is?
The article points out the difficulty of locating and defining true hipness. No such confusion exists in the narrow world of fun and games, that we call sports. What is hip and what is not hip - cool and not cool - is obvious to those who pay attention.
Hip is the winner of the most recent championship or an athlete who has passed his latest urine test.
What is hip and not hip is subject to change. Deion Sanders used to be hip. Now he's almost passe.
Hakeem Olajuwon is hip, Patrick Ewing is not hip and Shaquille O'Neal is proof that hip can be manufactured and marketed like soft drinks.
Grant Hill is very hip. When Scottie Pippen turned into Sitting Bull, he stopped being hip.
Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr. are the height of baseball hipness. Jose Canseco is still a tape-measure home run from hip.
National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman is nouveau hip. Baseball's Bud Selig is to hip what the shopping channels are to good taste.
Camden Yards is still very cool. The Seattle Kingdome is not. Keith Olbermann is hip. Chris Berman never was.
White Ford Broncos are hip. John Madden's bus is no longer hip. Alexi Lalas is hip. Dennis Rodman is not hip, no matter what hair rinse he's using these days.
Brazilian soccer? Hip.
Colombian shootouts? Help!
Bicycle kicks are cool. Bike races are not. Wearing a baseball cap backward is hip. The salary cap is not hip.
Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith is on the ultimate NFL hip trip. Thurman Thomas can't get the handle on hip.
Those bobbing-head dolls from the ESPN baseball spots are hip. Nike commercials that try so hard to be hip are not hip.
Don King is not hip. George Foreman is not only hip, he's hipper than most.
Buddy Ryan is hip, which tells us something about the state of pro football. Bobby Bowden is not hip, which says a lot about the price of a national title.
Martina Navratilova is leaving tennis hipper than ever. Jennifer Capriati is not hip. Forrest Gump is. Wake Forest is not.
Tattoos on athletes are the latest thing. Shaving messages into your hair is yesterday's thing.
Robert Shapiro is hip. Spike Lee, the nattering Knicks fan, is not.
What does it say for our national character that, right now, Tonya Harding is very hip?
The Cleveland Indians uniforms are today. The Wave is at low tide. Harbor Park is hip. Foreman Field is not.
Bob Costas is hip and knows it. Frank Gifford is not and needs to be told. European golfers are in. American golfers are out, especially at major events.
Kenny Lofton is hip. Rickey Henderson is not. Grass fields are hip. Artificial turf is not.
Going to Disney World is not hip. But going on Letterman is. Two-point conversions are hip. Penalty kicks are not.
Women's baseball is hip. Slo-pitch softball is unhip. Pernell Whitaker is hip. Heavyweight boxing is not.
Darryl is hip and Dwight is not hip, though these two could flip-flop at any moment.
The Dream Team was hip. Dream Team II is a pale imitation of hip. The bleacher seats at Wrigley Field are hard, but hip. Sky boxes are not hip.
Mike Krzyzewski is so unhip he's hip. Pat Riley used to be so cool; now he's a parody of a big-city hipster.
Harry Caray singing ``Take Me Out to the Ballgame'' is one of baseball's hipper images. But Reggie Miller's lip is not hip.
So what is the hippest of the hip in sports today?
Probably Bo Jackson's artificial hip. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
COSTAS
GIFFORD
STRAWBERRY
GOODEN
NAVRATILOVA
CAPRIATI
THOMAS
CANSECO
LOFTON
HENDERSON
HILL
PIPPEN
by CNB