BrothersJudd.com

Home | Reviews | Blog | Daily | Glossary | Orrin's Stuff | Email

Alumnus Football (Grantland Rice

Bill Jones had been the shining star upon his college team.
His tackling was ferocious and his bucking was a dream.
When husky William took the ball beneath his brawny arm
They had two extra men to ring the ambulance alarm.

Bill hit the line and ran the ends like some mad bull amuck.
The other team would shiver when they saw him start to buck.
And when some rival tackler tried to block his dashing pace,
On waking up, he'd ask, "Who drove that truck across my face?"

Bill had the speed-Bill had the weight-Bill never bucked in vain;
From goal to goal he whizzed along while fragments, strewed the plain,
And there had been a standing bet, which no one tried to call,
That he could make his distance through a ten-foot granite wall.

When he wound up his college course each student's heart was sore.
They wept to think bull-throated Bill would sock the line no more.
Not so with William - in his dreams he saw the Field of Fame,
Where he would buck to glory in the swirl of Life's big game.

Sweet are the dreams of college life, before our faith is nicked
The world is but a cherry tree that's waiting to be picked;
The world is but an open road-until we find, one day,
How far away the goal posts are that called us to the play.

So, with the sheepskin tucked beneath his arm in football style,
Bill put on steam and dashed into the thickest of the pile;
With eyes ablaze he sprinted where the laureled highway led-
When Bill woke up his scalp hung loose and knots adorned his head.

He tried to run the ends of life, but with rib-crushing toss
A rent collector tackled him and threw him for a loss.
And when he switched his course again and dashed into the line
The massive Guard named Failure did a toddle on his spine.

Bill tried to punt out of the rut, but ere he turned the trick
Right Tackle Competition scuttled through and blocked the kick.
And when he tackled at Success in one long, vicious prod
The Fullback Disappointment steered his features in sod.

Bill was no quitter, so he tried a buck in higher gear,
But Left Guard Envy broke it up and stood him on his ear.
Whereat he aimed a forward pass, but in two vicious bounds
Big Center Greed slipped through a hole and rammed him out of bounds.

But one day, when across the Field of Fame the goal seemed dim,
The wise old coach, Experience, came up and spoke to him.
"Oh Boy," he said, "the main point now before you win your bout
Is keep on bucking Failure till you've worn the piker out!"

"And, kid, cut out this fancy stuff - go in there, low and hard;
Just keep your eye upon the ball and plug on, yard by yard,
And more than all, when you are thrown or tumbled with a crack,
Don't sit there whining-hustle up and keep on coming back;

"Keep coming back with all you've got, without an alibi,
If Competition trips you up or lands upon your eye,
Until at last above the din you hear this sentence spilled:
'We might as well let this bird through before we all get killed.'

"You'll find the road is long and rough, with soft spots far apart,
Where only those can make the grade who have the Uphill Heart.
And when they stop you with a thud or halt you with a crack,
Let Courage call the signals as you keep on coming back.

"Keep coming back, and though the world may romp across your spine,
Let every game's end find you still upon the battling line;
For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost - but how you played the Game."
It might surprise a generation raised by lawn-mower parents–who try to cut down every obstacle in a kid’s way–that once upon a time it was thought beneficial not just to struggle but even to fail. Heck, we were even taught that there were things worth dying for and such a thing as a good death. And…wait for it…we were often taught these things in verse. Among the poems most school kids were exposed to were: Invictus (William Ernest Henley), If (Rudyard Kipling), Vitai Lampada (Sir Henry Newbolt), Charge of the Light Brigade (Alfred, Lord Tennyson), and Horatius at the Bridge (Thomas Babington Macaulay). But the most singularly American version of this genre was written by the great sportswriter, Grantland Rice. Of course, its hero arose from the football field not the battlefield. The beauty here lies in the, perhaps antiquated (?), notion that by learning to be good sportsmen young people can be prepared for good lives: “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes - not that you won or lost - but how you played the Game." Amen, brother


(Reviewed:)

Grade: (A)


Websites:

See also:

Poetry
Grantland Rice Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Grantland Rice
    -ENTRY: Rice, Grantland (Encyclopedia.com)
    -ENTRY: Grantland Rice (Phi Delta Theta)
    -ENTRY: Grantland Rice American sports writer (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
    -ENTRY: Henry Grantland Rice (Fred Russell, Tennessee Encyclopedia)
    -ENTRY: Grantland Rice (New World Encyclopedia)
    -HALL OF FAME: GRantland Rice (National Sports Media Assaociation)
    -ENTRY: Grantland Rice (NY Community Trust)
    -HALL OF FAME: Grantland Rice (NY State Golf Association)
    -HALL OF FAME: Grantland Rice (Vanderbilt Athletics)
    -ENTRY: Grantland Rice (Baseball Reference)
    -INDEX: Henry Grantland Rice (Poem Hunter)
    -AUDIO INDEX: Grantland Rice (Old Time Radio Downloads)
    -INDEX: Grantland Rice (Sports Illustrated Vault)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Grantland Rice (IMDB)
    -INDEX: Grantland Rice (All Poetry)
    -AUDIO INDEX: Grantland Rice (LibriVox)
    -OBIT: GRANTLAND RICE DIES AT AGE OF 73; Veteran Sports Writer an, Authority Suffers Stroke While Working in Office POPULAR FOR HIS VERSE Author of Sportlight Column and Books on Golf Selected All-America Football Teams (NY Times, July 14, 1954) -OBIT: Grantland Rice, Dean of Sport Writers, 73, Dies (AP, 7/14/1954)
    -POEM: Alumnus Football by Grantland Rice (The Running Center)
    -POEM: The Month of All (Grantland Rice)
    -ESSAY: "The Four Horsemen" (Grantland Rice, 18 October 1924, New York Herald Tribune)
    -POEM: Game Called (Grantland Rice)
    -ESSAY: The Slip at the Lip of the Cup (Grantland Ice, March 1020, Vanity Fair)
    -POEM: “When Wagner Comes to Bat” (A poem composed by Grantland Rice in The Nashville Tennessean in 1909)
    -POEM: Mudville’s Fate (Grantland Rice)
    -ESSAY: How he played the game: Assessing the complicated legacy of Grantland Rice (Joe Rexrode, Jun 18, 2020, The Athletic)
    -ESSAY: Close Reading: Did Grantland Rice Misquote Grantland Rice's Most Famous Quote? (Tom Scocca, Mon Jul 18 2011, Deadspin)
    -ESSAY: Grantland Rice, Josh Billings and Arthur Schopenhauer - the Win-or-Lose History of "How You Play the Game" (Early Sports and Pop Culture History Blog, 4/09/15)
    -ESSAY: Why Grantland Rice Sucked (Tommy Craggs, Jun 08 2011, deadspin)
    -AUDIO: “They Knew Grantland Rice” (Biography in Sound)
    -ESSAY: Grantland Rice’s legacy in the Deadball Era (John McMurray, SABR Deadball Era newsletter)
    -ESSAY: A Brief History of Bad Sports Writing: The quick story of American sports writing is a series of turns, leading to a form of dehumanizing, black-and-white moralism: the "hot take." (Tomas Rios, Aug 15, 2013, Pacific Standard)
    -ARTICLE: VU alum Grantland Rice focus of new documentary (Vanderbilt University, Sep 20, 2018)
    -VIDEO: By Grantland Rice (ESPN SEC Network)
    -ESSAY: Grantland Rice Gave Us a Ballpark Legacy (Skip Nipper, May 4, 2023, Baseball in Nashville)
    -PODCAST: "But the Storms Beyond are Waiting..." - A Grantland: An Athlete's Reflection on the Inspirational Poem - THE WAY OF IT - by Grantland Rice (Aug 19, 2022, Endless Teachable Moments)
    -ESSAY: Perusing "Sport" and Considering Grantland Rice (Johnny Chinnici, 10/10/13, Best American Poetry)
    -ESSAY: Why Grantland Rice was Grantland Rice (Bill McCurdy, 1/18/19)
    -ESSAY: Grantland Rice’s “All-Time All-Star Round up” (Baseball History Daily, 8/10/15)
    -VIDEO ARCHIVES: Grantland Rice (YouTube)
    -ARCHIVES: Rice, Grantland (Internet Archice)
    -REVIEW: of Sportswriter: The Life and Times of Grantland Rice by Charles Fountain (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Sportswriter: The Life and Times of Grantland Rice ( Carl Sessions Stepp, American Journalism Review)
    -REVIEW: of Sportswriter (Robert Manning, Columbia Journalism Review)
    -REVIEW: of Sportswriter (Kirkus)

Book-related and General Links: