Frank Deford
Yes, the Masters is too stylish to be an American icon. It's as out of character for Uncle Sam as a McDonald's is for France.
Remember when John Roberts was seeking confirmation of the Supreme Court, and he said judges should be just like umpires, just calling balls and strikes? Well, turnabout is fair play. What baseball needs behind the plate are umpires like those judges who are called strict constructionists, which means you follow subtle law to the letter.
If there ever was an 'America's team,' it would be itty-bitty, little Green Bay, stuck way up there somewhere, owned by the salt-of-the-Earth citizens themselves.
The Cowboys were never America's team any more than Anthony Weiner was America's congressman.
It's still the tradition for various football powerhouses to pay guarantees to schools with cream-puff teams to come on over to our place and submit to massacre.
It's interesting too, that the coach of that Georgia Tech team who led his valiant warriors to those 222 points was none other than John Heisman. Yes, he whom the Heisman trophy is named for, an award that honors that college player who best exemplifies excellence and integrity.
As it happens, Cumberland was on the verge of bankruptcy and had to give up football. But the villainous Heisman made it play a game that had been scheduled when Cumberland still had a team, or Heisman threatened to demand a $3,000 forfeiture fee that could well have put the school out of existence.
Since too few Americans go to the polls, I say what this country needs is a bobblehead election, where voters will get free bobblehead dolls of their choice when they show up and vote for president.
All sorts of famous sports people have been suspended for extended periods.
To see the glory in sport, where somebody comes from behind and does something, sinks a shot in the last second or throws a touchdown pass or hits a home run, there is a beauty in that, and at the end of the day, that's why we love sports more than anything else.Collection: Sports
I believe that professional wrestling is clean and everything else in the world is fixed.Collection: Believe
I think at its best, sport does bring us together.Collection: Sports
I grew up in Baltimore and that's why I root for the Orioles. I'm very suspicious of people who move and take on a new team. You should stick with the team of your youth all the way to your grave. That shows a sense of loyalty and devotion.Collection: Loyalty
I never wanted to be an editor. I never wanted to be a boss. I just wanted to write, and it didn't make any difference whether it was fiction or nonfiction or short stories or whatever. I just - that's what I was destined to do.Collection: Writing
I think one of the most immoral things is college football and basketball, where everybody is making money except the players.Collection: Basketball
I was a much better writer than I was an athlete. My college coach told me flat out, he said, "Deford, you write basketball better than you play it."Collection: Basketball
Hockey is the only place where a guy can go nowadays and watch two white guys fight.Collection: Fighting
The joy sometimes is in the simple beauty.Collection: Simple
In Hollywood, writers are considered only the first draft of human beings.Collection: Hollywood
If you're a white kid growing up and you see a Black player and he's got the name of your college or your town across his chest, that means something.Collection: Growing Up
So much of life, so much of work, is luck.Collection: Luck
I don't understand blogs. People used to write to make money, no? You didn't give it away. I have nothing against blogs. I don't have a problem with them. But it's like, 'What are you doing? Why aren't you working?Collection: Writing
The sport [football] is simply more and more identified with violence, both in its inherent nature and in its savage personnel... [The National Football League] now needs a guardian, not a CEO.Collection: Sports
I think there are white alumni out there who wouldn't mind having an African American president of their school, but would be reluctant to have an African American coach, because he represents the school so. I think it's just sheer backward racism.Collection: School
If the players aren't getting paid, there's something terribly, terribly wrong, and that's true only in the United States. Everywhere else, where money is involved with sport, the players get paid. But these poor kids in college, they're doing it for free, and that's just disgraceful.Collection: Sports
I don't think you can explain why all these other sports and college basketball have a fair representation of African American coaches, but college football doesn't. You can dig and scramble and scratch, but at the end of the day I think it's just pure, old-fashioned racism.Collection: Basketball
Usually when an athlete gets a reputation it sticks with him, even when he's an old man.Collection: Athlete
I don't think there are many kids who sit around and want to be actors. I don't think there are many kids who want to sit around and want to be senators. But so many of us want to be athletes, so we're envious of them and we put them up on that pedestal.Collection: Athlete
I criticize the NFL in many ways, but I think it's made great strides. I think college basketball, great strides. College football means so much to alumni, doesn't it? It sort of represents the school. It's when you go back; it's at the beginning of the school year.Collection: Basketball