Real Men Of De-Genius

[RunningMild]

I just read this article on Page 2 (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hruby/090722) (ESPN) and thought that, not only is it funny, but it's a really interesting concept. Who else in sports, pop culture, or any other field can be called a 'De-Genius'?

For those who cbf clicking the link:

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Henry Ford's first car company went bust. Marilyn Monroe was dropped by a studio for being unattractive. Winston Churchill flunked sixth grade. If the long history of accomplishment teaches us anything -- beyond the ease of Googling said history -- it's that failure often comes before success.


But what about success preceding failure?


Year after year and season after season, accomplished individuals in sports and the world beyond are hailed as geniuses, singular talents whose acumen transcends circumstance. Bill Belichick is a defensive mastermind. No one gets more from his players than Phil Jackson. Joe Torre can win anywhere. Just as often, however, the genius tag is misplaced. Premature. Flat-out wrong. (See Willingham, Ty). As such, what's needed is a De-Genius designation, a term applicable to those whose initial burst of brilliance proved illusory.


Jon Gruden? De-Genius since 2003.


Lauryn Hill? De-Genius since "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill."


Norv Turner? Uh-uh. Never really qualified as a genius in the first place.


Keep in mind: A De-Genius is not a simple failure. De-Geniuses are people who triumphed so spectacularly they seemed truly special -- then flopped so miserably that their entire modus operandi came into question.


For a start, here's a George Lucas one that was added after the article was published:

George Lucas

Mistaken identity: Directing peer to Steven Spielberg.
Genius credentials: Directed the original "Star Wars," created the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" franchises, founded the animation studio that later became Pixar.
Genius moment(s): Han Solo's shooting first, the Jedi mind trick, failing Darth Vader for the last time, Lucas waiving his up-front directing fee for "Star Wars" in favor of owning licensing rights believed to be worthless at the time. (The AT-AT walker under our early-1980s Christmas tree begs to differ.)
Genius reconsidered: Neither directed nor wrote the screenplay for "The Empire Strikes Back," by far the best "Star Wars" film.
Genius reconsidered (II): "The Ewok Adventure," Ewoks in general.
Genius reconsidered (III): "Howard the Duck." You are not forgotten!
Genius reconsidered (IV): Digital "Star Wars" redux has Greedo shooting first.
Genius reconsidered (V): Lucas sold Pixar to Steve Jobs, who later sold it to Disney for $7.4 billion.
De-Genius moment (I): Jar-Jar Binks; "Yippee!"; Jedi Jimmy Smits; every word of maple-bat dialogue and pretty much everything else about the new "Star Wars" trilogy, except for casting the same guy who played the Emperor the first time around. Oh, and the double-bladed lightsabers. Those are totally awesome.
De-Genius moment (II): "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" did not happen.
The real genius: Whoever talked Lucas into not making any more "Star Wars" movies for all those years.

(I would have added a De-Genius moment of 'The Clone Wars TV series, which is not written or directed by George Lucas yet has more in common with the original trilogy than the new trilogy did' :p ).

Here are a few others off the top of my head:


Vince Russo

Mistaken identity: Pro-wrestling's premier booker.
Genius Credentials: Hand-picked from obscurity by WWF head honcho Vince McMahon to join creative team (based on the strength of his work on WWF Magazine), oversaw the 'Attitude Era' aka. the most successful and industry-defining era in the history of wrestling.
Genius Moments: Pretty much any storyline or character he was involved with from aforementioned Attitude Era
Genius Reconsidered: After switching to WCW and becoming head booker, Russo recycled his WWF material, didn't innovate at all, and selfishly booked himself into the top storylines.
De-Genius Moment: WCW deteriorates so quickly under Russo that it eventually goes broke and is sold off to McMahon.
De-Genius Moment (II): Russo becomes a lead booker at TNA and- you guessed it- recycles all of his old material, just in case you weren't sick of it yet.
The Real Genius: Vince McMahon, who edited all of Russo's WWF writing.


Terry Wallace

Mistaken identity: AFL Super Coach
Genius Credentials: Coached the Western Bulldogs into multiple finals series, got impressive results (early on) from a basket-case playing list at Richmond.
Genius Moments: Engineered Essendon's only defeat in the 2000 season, saved Matthew Richardson's career by playing him further up the field (first as a centre-half forward, then as a midfield winger), took Richmond from 16th spot to 9th in the space of two seasons ('05 and '06), signed Fremantle cast-off Graham Polak who showed potential All-Australian form at his new club.
Genius Reconsidered: Richmond drop from 9th to 16th in the space of one season ('07), draft picks are traded for ageing players such as Mark Graham and Kent Kingsley.
De-Genius Moment: By the fifth year of his much-vaunted 'five year plan', Richmond are performing worse than when he was first signed. Replaced during 2009 season by interim coach Jade Rawlings, who's 2009 results have been more impressive than Wallace's 2009 results.
The Real Genius: The talented Bulldogs list of the early 2000s, Nathan Brown (who would have been a superstar regardless of who was coaching him) and Matthew Richardson.

[AranchineD]

J. K. Rowling

Mistaken identity: Savior of children's literacy, one of the best authors of our time
Genius Credentials: Wrote three extremely entertaining books in the Harry Potter series
Genius Moments: Prisoner Of Azkaban, which perhaps managed to spawn the only good movie for the series, is an extremely entertaining book, managing to include all the elements of 'growing up' for the character interspersed with the whole exploration of the 'magic' world, without much filler
Genius Reconsidered: Goblet Of Fire, which managed to double the page count from Prisoner Of Azkaban while halving the amount of actual content.
De-Genius Moment: All books post Goblet Of Fire, where new plot lines with no relevance or consideration for previous books, or just flat out contradict the first few books, ending in a book which pretty much just did away with everything the previous books had been setting up, introduced it's own expositions and then resolved them all at the same time, making reading the whole series a waste of time.
The Real Genius: Every single other author who has written a book aimed at children or teenagers in the past decade and a bit (except Stephanie Meyer)

[Lazlow]

Damon Hill

Mistaken Identity: actually... he is a rather good driver, just not a smart one.
Genius Credentials: 1996 FIA Formula One Champion
Genius Moments: 1995 Australian Grand Prix - second time a driver had won a race 2 laps clear of 2nd place.
Genius Reconsidered: Despite winning the '96 championship he knew he was going to be dropped by Williams. But rather than sign up for McLaren or Ferrari who were after his services, he chose lowly Arrows.
De-Genius Moment: Living out his career struggling with Jordan, whom had convinced Hill to stay on.
The Real Genius: Patrick Head and Adrian Newey, the two brains behind the FW17, FW17B and FW18 that gave Hill his results in 95/96.

[RunningMild]

What was contained in the deleted posts?

[Lazlow]

Blue called Michael Jackson a pedo and his fans deluded, I made fun of Blue using this threads particular format, and Super Mario simply called Blue an idiot.

[Spudzilla]

How dare Blue talk of a celebrity like that who died only a few weeks ago!

[ElPresidente]

J. K. Rowling

Mistaken identity: Savior of children's literacy, one of the best authors of our time
Genius Credentials: Wrote three extremely entertaining books in the Harry Potter series
Genius Moments: Prisoner Of Azkaban, which perhaps managed to spawn the only good movie for the series, is an extremely entertaining book, managing to include all the elements of 'growing up' for the character interspersed with the whole exploration of the 'magic' world, without much filler
Genius Reconsidered: Goblet Of Fire, which managed to double the page count from Prisoner Of Azkaban while halving the amount of actual content.
De-Genius Moment: All books post Goblet Of Fire, where new plot lines with no relevance or consideration for previous books, or just flat out contradict the first few books, ending in a book which pretty much just did away with everything the previous books had been setting up, introduced it's own expositions and then resolved them all at the same time, making reading the whole series a waste of time.
The Real Genius: Every single other author who has written a book aimed at children or teenagers in the past decade and a bit (except Stephanie Meyer)

Boo!

As a man who was an ardent Harry Potter hater (the character, I erroneously believed, was ripped off Neil Gaiman's Timothy Hunter) it took one trip to NYC where I read the first book on the plane and after that I was hooked. Finished the series before I got on the plane to fly back.

For me it was the latter books that were the real triumph and much better page turners. So nyer. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed each movie to date. So double nyer. :P

[AranchineD]

Never said they couldn't be entertaining books, but certainly not canon worthy works of literature some people think them to be.

[buckstwits]

George Lucas' genius credentials doesn't include American Graffiti

wtf?

[Slippery]

Boo!

As a man who was an ardent Harry Potter hater (the character, I erroneously believed, was ripped off Neil Gaiman's Timothy Hunter) it took one trip to NYC where I read the first book on the plane and after that I was hooked. Finished the series before I got on the plane to fly back.

For me it was the latter books that were the real triumph and much better page turners. So nyer. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed each movie to date. So double nyer. :P

You watched and enjoyed the first two HP movies Prez! :eek:

You're joking...right?

Guh those movies were garbage

[ElPresidente]

Sure they didn't do enough on the whole house points thing which was obviously a much bigger focus in the novels but beyond that it was pretty true to my expectations.

I mean we're not talking great literature here folks. It is just a series of really fun childrens books that adults can enjoy. The movies are just fine thank you very much.

[Halt, Hammerzeit]

George Lucas' genius credentials doesn't include American Graffiti

wtf?

I don't think people realise Lucas did stuff before SW and Indy.

[ElPresidente]

American Graffiti is a brilliant movie and proof that while Lucas may have lost it as he's gotten older he did at one stage of his life most definitely have it.

[sausage]

I'll just chime in here with a prediction choice; Stephen Hawking. I reckon this curled up, wretched excuse for a physical form will drop a huge clanger before he dies. This clanger will be all the more clangtastic due to it emanating from his patented computer-generated voice; which makes "I'm going down to the dairy for a loaf of bread and tampons" sound like quantum theory.

[Blue]

Blue called Michael Jackson a pedo and his fans deluded, I made fun of Blue using this threads particular format, and Super Mario simply called Blue an idiot.Don't put words in my mouth, or misquote me, you ****.

There, you can quote me on that.

[Spudzilla]

Nice try, Blue.

[Watchers]

Oh, Blue. You rapscallion.

[Blue]

Nice try, Blue.Pardon?

I never once said that Michael Jackson's fans were "deluded". It's a blatant lie.

[fishfishmonkeyhat]

I once said that Michael Jackson's fans were "deluded".

Well now it all comes out.

[Blue]

Well now it all comes out.See, Hyper used to be like this. But not anymore.

[AranchineD]

See, Hyper used to be like this. But not anymore.

I know, I know, but I really don't feel like posting here much anymore.

[Watchers]

Maybe you should leave, Aran. Then come back for no apparent reason.

[AranchineD]

You know, that sounds like an absolutely bril-

[Azzaman]

He'll be back.

[AranchineD]

-liant idea watchers.

[Watchers]

Huzzah.

[Nemzilla]

I think he keep coming back because based on your sig you are his long lost twin!

[Watchers]

That has already been established.

[AranchineD]

I'm the evil twin though, you should see the scars on the side of watchers body where I bit him all the time!