Actually, grit gets used quite a lot on the sports page, especially for baseball, where gritty performances occur on a regular basis. The Arizona Diamondbacks even went out of their way last winter to trade away several talented ballplayers who just didn't have enough grit to suit their manager*. It is used totally non-ironically by sportswriters and front offices, usually to describe mediocre white ballplayers who "know how to win," and totally ironically by snarky bloggers and other online commentators to describe the same, usually to highlight the mediocrity.

* Most of the non-gritty players wound up playing in the playoffs with the Atlanta Braves whilst the gritty D'Backs are watching the games on TV.

My high school had both a fight song and an alma mater, both ripped off from the college we were the prep for. When I later attended the college, I found that the only people at the college who knew either song were those of us who had gone to the prep.