WaPo, Newsweek’s Stumper blog, Politico, and several others use headlines today rechristening former favorite Hillary Clinton as the new “underdog” of the race. Allow us to offer a clarification of terms. The underdog is the individual or team expected to lose going into a particular contest. Once the contest is actually taking place, the underdog can pull a surprise upset or perform as expected, but, even if he wins, he remains the underdog. Conversely, UCONN’s players do not become the underdogs because they are down fifteen points at half-time. They’re still the favorites, they’re just losing.
Michael Canyon Meyer is a freelance journalist and former CJR staff writer. Follow him on Twitter at @mcm_nm.
the kicker
