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Sports
Resource
- Should Preachers Preach Against Sports? Tony Campolo, 20 Hot Potatoes Christians Are Afraid To Touch, (Word Publ., Dallas; 1988), Chapter 10, pp. 121ff
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Winning Isn’t the Most Important Thing
The late Vince Lombardi, former great coach of the Green Bay Packers and the Washington Redskins, is famous for his statement, “Winning isn’t the most important thing; it’s the only thing!” Shortly before he died, he looked back at the quote and declared, “I wish I’d never said it. I meant the effort. I sure didn’t mean for people to crush human values and morality.”
Balance, Vol. 14, No. 9, B.J.U.
Basketball Coach
The psychology instructor had just finished a lecture on mental health and was giving an oral test. Speaking specifically about manic depression, she asked, “How would you diagnose a patient who walks back and forth screaming at the top of his lungs one minute, then sits in a chair weeping uncontrollably the next?”
A young man in the rear raised his hand and answered, “A basketball coach?”
Bits & Pieces, April 29, 1993, p. 22
Quotes
- “It’s not as though I’m making history or anything. I just catch fly balls.” - Willie Mays
- Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” - Heywood Hale Broun, sportswriter, quoted in MSC Newsletter
- If sports were supposed to be good for you, how come athletes are over the hill at 31? - Bill Vaughan in Kansas City Star
- A fishing enthusiast thinks that fish should bite on a fancy lure just because he did. - Quin Ryan in “Line o’type,” Chicago Tribune
- Golf is flog spelled backward.
- Do you know why mountain climbers rope themselves together? To prevent the sensible ones from going home. - Durango, Colo., Herald, quoted by Earl Wilson
Source unknown
Parachute Riding
You haven’t seen these on “Wide World of Sports.” While professional sports are finding ways to contain the fanaticism they incite, zany amateur diversions are just new coming into their own. Consider these options: Parachute riding. Invented by Colorado State students a few years back, it consists of harnessing a parachute to a rider on the ground, who is standing or sitting on a flat piece of heavy cardboard. As helpers lift the edges of the chute in the air, billowing winds fill it, and away the rider goes on his nylon chariot at speeds as high as 30 miles per hour. Caution: better plant some helpers downwind so that, if the chute starts to lift off the ground, they can plunge into it and collapse the nylon canopy. One rider, lofted into a tree, fractured a leg and elbow.
Source unknown
Survival Kicking
Survival kicking. Not recommended for weaklings, this “sport” in Wales consists in lining up two players who have donned heavy shoes with reinforced toes. Placing their hands on each other’s shoulders, at a give signal they start kicking at each other’s shins. The player who backs off first loses.
Source unknown
Lawnmower Derbies
Lawnmower derbies. Devon, Penn., is where you’ll find the home of this exclusive event. Kids forced to mow lawns struck out against the tedium by organizing speed contests. They set up various classes to equalize the competition among the various sizes and types of mowers. Each year, at the starting signal, operators dash to their mowers, start them and pilot the spluttering machines full speed down a paved street lined with cheering spectators.
Source unknown
Goose Racing
Goose racing. It only happened once that we know of, when on Lake Michigan some oddball Chicagoans harnessed teams of six geese to washtubs. A driver in each tub yelled and coaxed his geese with every known gesture to spur his team toward victory. The wacky event, alas, ended in a tie.
Source unknown
Goldfish Racing
Goldfish racing. No kidding. In some parts of this country you’ll find a race course consisting of 12 long transparent tubes filled with water. The goldfish are separated from plastic model “sharks” by a thin wall, but at the starting signal the dividing barrier is let down. Players sitting at a counter operate levers which control the movements of particular sharks. As the sharks chase the spooked goldfish across the finish line, a photoelectric cell records the undisputed winner, causing its number to flash on the scoreboard.
Source unknown
What’s the Toughest Sport?
The late Paul Hunsicker of the University of Michigan attempted to discover the answer to the question “What’s the toughest sport?” by taking 41 physical activities and gauging their demands in each of the following areas: coordination, endurance, flexibility, agility, balance, intelligence and creativity. His answer? Ballet.
Chris Wood in Denmark, Wis., Press, quoted by Helen Cordon in Milwaukee Journal
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