"the Game Is Worth The Playing"

[LongJim]

Bought an old book at Recycled Books last weekend. Thought I would post the following from it:

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"It is our well-considered if prejudiced opinion, after nearly 40 years in football as player and coach, that the game is worth the playing.

On some sides, it is true, the game has been permitted to escape from its correct position in the college or high school program. On occasions its importance to the school has been exaggerated. At times the general public takes the game too seriously.

These excesses, for which many of us are to blame, are even now in the process of correction--correction which is inevitable. They are neither permanent nor basic in football. In any event, they are not faults of football as a game.

Football, in its rightful place, is the most wholesome and the most valuable sport in schools and colleges today. As no other sport or pastime, it teaches a boy in his formative years to control and command his own powers; to focus them upon a single end, and to mobilize them quickly and completely. Football teaches him to think fast and realistically, to disregard pain and risk in pursuit of a desired end, to subordinate his interests to those of the group. It teaches him to call up and expend in an emergency his last reserves of strength and courage and to pour out all his energy in furious effort. At the same time he learns to observe the rule of the game, regard the rights of others and stay within limits dictated by decency and sportsmanship.

Football not only teaches a boy the will to win and the way to win, but something else--it teaches him how to meet defeat. When he is defeated, what is his attitude? Does he curl up and quit? Does he whine? Does he attack the sportsmanship and ability of his opponent? Or does he keep his chest out and his head up and face the world with clear eyes and self-respect? In football he will learn to consider defeat merely as a temporary setback, and in his heart he will echo the words of a brave old Scotsman wounded in battle:

"Fight on, my men," Sir Andrew said,

"A little I'm hurt, but yet not slain;

I'll just lie down and bleed awhile,

And then I'll rise and fight again."

This is training, it seems to us, that turns a young man toward good and useful citizenship. We reiterate that football is a game worth playing, that it is worth playing well, and that it cannot be played well unless it is played hard."

D.X. Bible--Championship Football, 1947

Edited September 2, 2010 by LongJim