Ovid lies here, the poet, skilled in love's gentle sport;
By his own talents he worked his undoing.
Oh, you who pass by, if ever you have loved,
Think it not a burden to wish him calm repose.
It's the bane of both the news and sports businesses, both electronic and print - 'You heard it here first!' Who cares? That's nothing but a vanity play. If it's not right, it's garbage.
I tell the players that they can't relive any day in their lives and that they can't relive the minutes of a game, so they should make a great effort, a Mount Everest type effort, to live up to their potential. Success is a communal type thing, and if we win, then everyone can be considered successful and we can move uptown together.
This boldness in telling the truth overshadows sport greatly. You couldn't get Joe Frazier or no boxer on this show and get interest in a subject like this. He couldn't talk about it.
I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. I don't want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism; and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master.
There are always in life countless tendencies for good and for evil, and each succeeding generation sees some of these tendencies strengthened and some weakened; nor is it by any means always, alas! that the tendencies for evil are weakened and those for good strengthened. But during the last few decades there certainly have been some notable changes for good in boy life. The great growth in the love of athletic sports, for instance, while fraught with danger if it becomes one-sided and unhealthy, has beyond all question had an excellent effect in increased manliness.
These are the forgeries of jealousy; And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.