Daily Inspiration Quote by Dick Schaap

Self-indictment is a journalist's cleanest kind of bravado, and Dick Schaap packs it into eight words. "Cliches and adjectives permeated my prose" reads like a confession, but it functions more like a craft warning label: this is what happens when you write on deadline, chase color, and let the easy music of sportswriting carry you where reporting should.

The verb "permeated" does sly work. It isn't "appeared" or "snuck in". It's saturation, a kind of contamination. Schaap implies the problem isn't a few lazy phrases; it's an atmosphere in the writing, the way habitual language can replace actual seeing. Cliches are social shorthand, the pre-fabricated feelings a reader recognizes instantly. Adjectives are their accomplices: quick emotional cues that let a sentence pretend it has observed something when it has only judged it.

Coming from Schaap, a celebrated chronicler of athletes and spectacle, the line also carries insider context. Sports journalism is built to tempt cliche because the events arrive already myth-shaped: heroes, heartbreak, redemption arcs, "must-win" moments. Adjectives become the sugar that helps the myth go down. By admitting to both vices at once, Schaap isn't just apologizing; he's puncturing the genre's incentives.

The subtext is almost ethical: if your prose is "permeated" by ready-made language, your thinking probably is too. It's a reminder that style isn't decoration in journalism. It's epistemology. The words you reach for determine whether you're documenting reality or recycling a story you've heard a hundred times.