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One of the hardest lessons to learn in sports and personal relationships is that, once spoken, words cannot be pulled back.
Specifically, comments that offend possess everlasting staying power.
It is reasonable to assume that Florida head football coach Billy Napier has a better understanding of this concept after digging himself into a hole with his team's fanbase following a 41-17 home loss to Miami.
On the Monday after the Gators lost their first home opener in 35 years, which had been an NCAA-best streak, Napier responded to a question about avoiding emotional responses by saying, "We got to go to work on the football part. I think we got to become a more consistent team, and we have to execute better. If we can focus on those things and not necessarily what some guy in his basement is saying in rural central Florida on social media, then we got a chance to get better."
Napier was not only chastised across media platforms for lobbing a perceived insult that was interpreted as being collective rather than personalized, he was ridiculed for the foolish nature of the basement reference itself.
"The remark was not only condescending to Florida fans who spend their time and money to watch and support the program, but it's also factually-inaccurate," wrote Spenser Davis on the website saturdaydownsouth.com. "Florida homes don't traditionally have basements because of their propensity to flood and other topographical factors."
In a too-little, too-late apology of sorts on the Wednesday after the loss to Miami, Napier said, "Obviously didn't explain myself the way I should have. I want to make it very clear there was no reference to our fans. I was just talking specifically about life in general. Our young people live in an era where social media is a part of their lives."
As Napier demonstrated, even with the benefit of a "cooling-off period" for coaches and players immediately after games and a couple of days between a game and a weekly press conference, coaches sometimes cannot refrain from verbalizing their frustration and disappointment to reporters in terms that are less than tactful.
As the years passed, the attraction of a Bob Knight press conference was the expectation of piercing sarcasm, emotional outbursts and inappropriate comments.
Clips of his antics attest that an embarrassing moment in time never ages gracefully.
At Penn State, the searing irritation of a one-point home loss to Ohio State in 2018 induced James Franklin to make a pronouncement that still trails him like a lion stalking prey in a savannah.
In Franklin's immortal words, "The reality is, we've gone from an average football team to a good football team, to a great football team, but we're not an elite team yet. The work that it's going to take to get to an elite program is going to be just as hard as the ground and the distance that we've already traveled to get there.
"Right now, we're comfortable being great, and I'm going to make sure everyone in our program, including myself, is very uncomfortable, because you only grow in life when you're uncomfortable."
The dawn of each college football season since Franklin's solemn postgame vow six years ago has held the promise of the program's elevation to elite status.
Well, maybe this year.
Perhaps Bill Belichick had it right all along.
Mumbles, one-word answers and statements of the obvious are the best safeguards against jumping into hot water.
Jim Caltagirone writes a monthly column for the Mirror.