Quote of your career...

Where was this?

 

"Commitment isn't something you do when you feel like it; it's something you do to help you get to a place you promised yourself you are going to be. It means doing the hard things, it means making the hard decisions, it means taking a hard look at yourself and measuring yourself against where you really want to be. It's not feeling good, sometimes. Commitment is a journey; it's not something that happens overnight, I think if you ask any of these kids, they will tell you that they said all the right things over the course of the season, and there came a point when they realize when they need to act on what they say. I think commitment is really a process of growing together in the promise you make to each other. We don't feel that we have a successful season if we don't accomplish that by the end of the season. We coach not only to the skills on the field, but to the need to understand what commitment is, and what it requires." -- Sandy Chronic, head field hockey coach, Flemington Hunterdon Central (N.J.). Words to live by.

 

Same here.

 

I haven't been at this as long as most of you, but I've got one.

Some background: Went to a local 17-mile bicycle race, and one guy stood out like a sore thumb --- he was a recently paralyzed 20-something who was using a hand cycle. Turns out he had a rare disease that he acknowledged would basically lead to a slow and painful death within the next 5-10 years.

I can't remember the question I asked, but I can remember the reply --- after he had just finished describing the painful manner in which he'd die. He looked at me, smiled and warned, "This might sound weird," and then told me, concerning his disease, "This is the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Why? " It puts things into perspective and made me step back and appreciate what I have."

Maybe you've heard that 100 times before. But the way he delivered that quote --- in such a sobering fashion after that initial smile --- it stuck with me.

 

Don't know if it's the quote of a career, but the one that immediately comes to mind was from a college football coach after his team had just been destroyed: "We played with a lot of emotion. But there was a lot of emotion at the Alamo, too, and there weren't any survivors there, either."

 

This was in a group setting. It was 1989, FSU is playing Auburn in the Cotton Bowl. Deion Sanders is asked his opinion about Auburn wide receiver Lawyer Tilghman. Sanders replies: "You guys go back and tell Lawyer Tilghman that Perry Mason is coming to town ... and he never loses a case."

 

High-strung small-college baseball coach I was covering years ago:

"All I can do is fill out the lineup card and point 'em toward the field. I can't go out there play the goddamn game for them."

 

In 1979, when I was a baby reporter for the underground press, I went to DC for an event called "Washington For Jesus." It was the first major national rally for what would become the Religious Right. All the stars came out -- Robertson, Falwell, Swaggart, Bakker. (I got to hear Andrae Crouch, so that was cool.) It also drew every fringe group imaginable. One of them was this bunch called The Children Of God, who are completely celibate and who eschew all animal products, even leather. Their leader was a Jesus-y looking character who was shoeless, and who sat with his peeps along the National Mall, yelling "Whore of Babylon!" at every couple who strolled by holding hands. This, I thought, was worth going on with, so I sat down a little distance away. Suddenly, this nice Baptist lady, also in town for the rally, decided she'd make nice. She also was decked out almost entirely in leather -- leather shoes, leather overcoat, huge leather purse, and a leather cowboy hat. Well, the Children went up one side this woman and down the other until, finally, she said, "I don't care what you say to me. I know Jesus loves me and that he loves you, too." The leader looked up, shook his head sadly, and said,
"Sister, you can't serve Jesus if you're wrapped in dead cows."
And I knew then, 30 years ago, that I would never get a better quote.
And I haven't.

 

ted williams was 78 and ailing. death's door type of situation. he's kneading the neck of his beloved dog and looks up at me, apropos of nothing and says,

"i absolutely pray to that cocksucking jesus christ that i die before my dog."

i took a step back, waiting for the lightning bolt. the beauty of that sentence: so profane, so ballsy, so...slippery. which of the four moving parts to grab hold of? the fact that teddy ballgame prays? that jesus was gay? that tb wanted to die? that he loved dogs more than life itself?

the only thing i was sure of was that it was the greatest quote i'd ever heard. nothing in my 25 years has even come close.

 

Said to my colleague, by the high school football coach preparing for a tilt with the regional school for deaf students, a school about which he knew next to nothing and of which he had not been able to procure tape: "I've got to be honest. We're going into this game blind."

 

Mitch Williams was pitching for the Angels, and not well. It was seat cushion night, and the normally placid Angels fans tossed their giveaway seat cushions onto the field, in his direction.

"I'm just glad it wasn't bow and arrow night," Williams said.

 

It was off the record, so I couldn't use it, but I'm counting it.

High school softball coach: "I don't know what to do, Harley. The whole left side of my infield is pregnant."