Sports: AP Male Non-Athlete of the Year

Today, the Associated Press honored NASCAR driver Jimmy Johnson as the Male Athlete of the Year.

I'll let you think about that for a moment.

I'm sure that Jimmy Johnson is a pretty good race car driver. Word is he won a bunch of races. His car is fast and he is able to move his car faster than the other guys. Sweet.

One problem: Jimmy Johnson isn't really an athlete.

Oh, the controversy! How could this poor excuse of a nonathletic blogger say such a thing? Easy, he's not an athlete. I said it again.

How could I make such a bold statement about NASCAR's greatest racer? Well, let's define what an athlete actually is.

This should be easy. We can actually take the definition from dictionary.com:

a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.

An athlete's ability is all based on their physical gifts and skills. It's a combination of speed, strength, agility, stamina and smarts that make you a good athlete.

You know what isn't an athlete? A horse or any other animal. A horse's jockey. Cars and other inanimate objects.

Not sure why this one gets so much opposition. We praise horses like they are athletes. Put them on the cover of magazines. Treat them like people. They're freaking animals, people. They do what animals do. They don't get paid. They don't get endorsements. Their owners do.

Is the jockey the athlete? Of course not. They are more of a guide. Even a coach.

It's surprising we don't give race cars the same attention we give horses. It's the car, after all, that is moving so fast. Yet, it's the car's jockey (the driver) that gets all of the credit. The -- eh hem -- athlete.

Does race car driving involve some agility, stamina and strength? Sure, some. Look, I get that the driver of a car needs to have some endurance to race around in circles for a few hours. It sucks to be in a vibrating vehicle and repeatedly turn, turn, turn 2,000 times. So driving does require the expenditure of some energy.

But so does walking. And driving to the store. And sitting at your computer, typing up a blog.

The question is whether the athletic ability of a race car driver is incredibly important. Can Jimmy Johnson run a 4.5 40? I have no idea. Can he bench 225 pounds 20 times? I doubt it. Does he even need to be an above average athlete? Nope. It's all about the car, the efficiency and communication of his team, and his skilled driving.

Driving is a skill. But driving, in itself, isn't athletic.

You know what is a good test of whether or not someone is paid to be an athlete? The person's willingness to cheat by ingesting performance enhancing drugs. If you want to be the fastest runner or swimmer in the world, you juice up. If you want to hit the most home runs, you juice up. If you want to be the biggest, strongest basketball player, you juice up. If you want to make the biggest hits and overpower your opposition, you juice up.

If you want to win in horse racing, you juice up the horse. You could juice up the jockey, but I doubt that would help. Would be funny, but wouldn't help.

If you want to win in car racing, you juice (soup) up the car. Maybe the driver could take meth, but I doubt that would help. Ultimately, the athletic ability of the driver means very little. Their skills matter (which is like saying math skills are important to a mathematician). But it's mostly about the car.

Without the car, you'd just have a bunch of dudes sitting on a track. Or, to put it another way, the most athletic driver in the history of race car driving will never win a race if they're driving a Toyota Corolla. Just as the most athletic jockey will never win a race if they're riding a Shetland pony.

There are a lot of NASCAR fans who are passionate about the sport's cars and drivers. This shouldn't change that. I don't get NASCAR, mind you, but you're welcome to enjoy it.

Enjoy the cars, racing endlessly around the track. And the cars' jockeys.