You get used to the innate modesty of GAA players and the quiet little phrases they use to deflate themselves:
"Just lucky, I suppose."
"It went in, thankfully."
"I suppose we really weren't 25 points a better team, but sure that's the way it goes."
All those dressing-rooms, all those respectful quotes. You see hugs and handshakes, but you don't see high fives, you don't see chest-thumping. You never see a man get up on the chair and brag for all he's worth. Never.
So stand close to Mister Maurice Greene. Warm your hands on the heat emanating from The Baron of Boasting, His Highness of Hubris. It is a profound culture shock, is it not? How can you stop yourself from interrupting him - respectfully - and asking: What happens if you lose, Maurice? Will you feel a bit silly?
Maurice Greene will never feel silly, of course. He doesn't understand the concept. Maurice is the original self-made guy who worships his creator. Maurice is wired to some other connection, and all you know is that he's getting so much juice that you'd rather not be paying the bill, thanks.
Maurice thinks a hard day's work is 10 seconds of sprinting and 60 minutes of boasting. Who can argue? It's a hard call to know which he does best, the running or the bragging. His car registration is Mo-Gold, for crying out loud. And the car isn't a Ford Fiesta. Maurice makes Muhammad Ali look self-effacing. It's Saturday in the media tent in Sacramento. Maurice Greene has blown in here like a tropical storm, along with Jon Drummond and Curtis Hanson, the two runners-up in the US Olympic Trials 100 metres final. The chaps are off to Sydney. Work done, Maurice lights up his million-dollar smile and lets his tongue out for some exercise. "Go free, Tongue!" he cries.
"Run wild, be unfettered, express yourself, knock yourself out baby." And his tongue does just that while Drummond and Hanson struggle to keep up with lesser boasts, smaller boasts, the mere common-or-garden boasts of the mildly delusional. Greene gets most animated, though, when he points out that the three runners on the podium are all members of the HSI club. Greene is pumped by the thought, begins whooping insanely. Drummond and Hanson are suddenly alive to it also. HSI Man. One Way to Go. We're The Team.
If brashness has a chat room these days it is HSI, and these guys are logged on 24/7. Emanuel Hudson is the H in HSI, and he hovers behind the volcanically erupting Greene wearing a patient, Cheshire cat smile. A lawyer by trade, he fields those questions which Greene refers to "my man here" and listens in mock dread while Greene handles the rest.
The S in HSI is John Smith, the controversial track coach at UCLA. Smith is a tough former runner himself, a big-shot back in the 1970s. The I stands for international. HSI own sprinting right now. Internationally.
Not just that, though; institutionally, HSI represents the full evolution of sprinting from being the domain of laid-back Caribbean stars like Don Quarrie of Hasely Crawford, or pasty Brits like Alan Wells, to being the habitat of preening panthers. Sprinting is now the world's top sport for self-promotion. The syndrome has become so acute that HSI athletes have begun promoting HSI itself, as if HSI were some sort of higher entity.
Ato Boldon flew a flag with the HSI initials on it when he won in Lausanne last summer, Inger Miller did the same in Seville at the World Championships after she swiped gold in the 200 metres. Hanson, Drummond, Greene and Miller all gave thanks to HSI within a short space of time on Saturday.
All the members (there are 21) like to talk big and run fast, but Maurice Greene is their undisputed king. HSI is made in his image and the culture of HSI, the trash-talking swagger and high-fiving style, has become the dominant culture in the sport. HSI runners are always pumped, always loud, always having a funfair or a funeral in their heads. Maurice is just more HSI than the HSI folks themselves.
Like it or not, HSI represent the greatest fear and the greatest hope for US track and field. If track and field is ever to get a lift in America it needs the avid, fanatical, self-promotion which HSI bring to the event. Watching Greene, Hanson and Drummond on Saturday after their media conference was instructive. They strode out of the tent into the California sun and chased cameras around for 15 or 20 minutes trying to get their pretty mugs on TV.
They have influenced the culture of US athletics in other ways, too, positive ways mainly. Track and Field is an event which has most Americans looking to spend a weekend at the dentist rather than watch it on TV. The new culture of boasting is making a breakthrough through. Marion Jones has been punching more than her weight in the big talk stakes in the past couple of weeks, while Michael Johnson has even stepped out of the study to run his mouth a little and to give is hair slightly more of a gangster look. Mr and Mrs America have never been more taken with athletics.
The result is that Sacramento is a box office hit. Duelling sprinters getting on each other's nerves and trampling on each other's good lines are an irresistible draw. The Hornet Stadium this week is filled to capacity every day with all attendance records for US Olympic Trials lying in smithereens. You can hear a needle drop every time a sprint takes off.
If track and field is to survive, and, more especially, if it is ever to become more than the excuse for an occasional beano, it needs the braggarts, the larger-than-life characters who can force their way into the living room. Marion Jones has a foot in the door of popular consciousness. Maurice Greene and his deftly self-promoting buddies could be next.
Now is the time for boasting, now is the time for chest beating and now is the time for your host and demonstrator, Mister Maurice Greene, to step into the limelight to try to win a sceptical world back onto the mainstream agenda.