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Quotes, Rocky Mountain News

Year of little good, lots of bad, ugly

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Before we get too far into the new year, we must ask ourselves what have we learned from the last one. Wisdom is worth writing down.
A true football fan is one who can make a fifth last four quarters.
A high heel is either a woman’s shoe or a Los Angeles Laker.
Expensive wine will still stain the carpet.
What this country needs is an old fashioned gas war, you know, where they slashed prices at the pump instead of each other at the source.
People will believe anything that is whispered.
If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, why isn’t there a Rand McNally cook book?
Jose Canseco is baseball’s Nostradamus.
Would portable murals be called Murbles?
As soon as you get on easy street, someone starts repaving it.
A major league city is one where it costs more to park the car than to rent it.
The Boston Red Sox were more lovable as losers.
Women who wear too much make up should.
I never take candy from a strange child.
With medical costs the way they are, how can anybody be ill at ease?
Why is the IRS the only one who knows when you are well off?
Any marriage that begins with a proposal on the stadium scoreboard will last only as long as the quarterback does.
Did you ever think that maybe a humming bird just does not know the words?
Credit cards and boomerangs were invented by the same guy.
Unemployment isn’t working.
If you think nobody cares if you are alive, miss a couple of car payments.
It’s always off season at nudist camps.
The three happiest words in the English language are not “I love you,” but “I’ll play these.”
My favorite get well card is a fourth ace.
Zucchini tastes like it sounds.
Coffee always smells better than it tastes.
The bravest man in history was the first one to eat an oyster.
The New England Patriots still are not as perfect as raspberry jam.
Repairmen must all keep their watches on Greenwich Mean Time.

If today’s pop music were food it would be a spinach casserole.
Being over the hill is better than being under it.
Any salary cap in sports ought to really be called salary sombrero.
A rare book is one that is returned.
The economy must be better. I can’t afford steak again.
Boxing may not be dead, but it is coughing up blood.
Modern man is defined by drinking decaffeinated coffee with non-fat milk and artificial sweetener from a recycled paper cup.
Global warming should be given a chance.
Reality TV ought to require testing, both drug and IQ.
Playing hockey outdoors in the snow only makes the puck more invisible.
If at first you don’t succeed, use the short form.
Cats are smarter than dogs but that is no reason to like them.
Horses are dumber than dogs but easier to give a bath.
After I collect my garbage, separate paper from glass, assign each to its proper container, bundle it and tie it and carry it to the curb, it looks so nice I want to keep it.
Airplane seats were never made for sitting.
Traveling requires removing your jacket, your shoes, your laptop and your dignity.
You really, really have to want to go to Shreveport.
Cell phones are more annoying than second hand smoke.
A basketball player without a tattoo is as hard to find as a Frenchman with a breath mint.
The Bronco season was like a teenagers hair cut; you knew it was going to be bad but you had no idea it would look like that.
Self-service means it’s your fault.
The best way to get someone to return your call is to get into the shower.
Car trouble is when the engine won’t start and the payments won’t stop.
Fast food is faster fat.
The year ahead has to be better.

Chicago Tribune, Professional, Quotes, Soccer

IF ONLY SOCCER WERE FAST FOOD

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Willy Roy believes there will come a day when the name Sting will jerk the emotions of Chicago with as much force as do the names Cubs, Bears, Hawks, Sox and Bulls, but he will not dispute the order of affection at present, even during those nights when his soccer team tempts more folks to the Stadium than do the Bulls.

“I am a realist. I am an optimist,” Roy said. “You can be both.”

Roy coaches soccer for pay, which in this country is an achievement of remarkable proportions. There are barely enough teams left to employ an only child, which is one way to cure nepotism.

“I wouldn’t be honest if I said I didn’t wish we were the first name on everybody’s lips,” Roy said. “But we aren’t. I do think we are a special story. With our competition, not just the Bulls and the Hawks but De Paul and Loyola, to do what we do, I would say we were a tremendous success.”

During Roy’s tenure as headmaster of the Sting, outdoor soccer has shrunk to near invisibility, and indoor soccer is a hybrid scorned by purists, otherwise known as immigrants.

Indoor soccer is pocket soccer, smaller, faster and warmer, and the only version of soccer Americans seem interested in supporting.

“People are always asking me why soccer is failing,” Roy said. “I wouldn’t say that a core of 10-to-15,000 people is failing.”

Official figures place Sting average attendance at 10,162, about twice as much as other soccer cities with similar competition, namely the Cosmos of New York and the Lazers of Los Angeles.

Why does soccer work here better than there?

“We sell a product that is exciting,” Roy said. “Even when we lose, it is a slugfest. I would rather lose 10-9, because at least you’ve learned how to score 9 goals. Nobody learns anything from losing 2-1.

“And I think we represent the population of Chicago better than any other sports team. We have Latins and Europeans and English, somebody everybody can identify with.”

And there is Roy himself, German at birth, American at heart.

“We should never forget we are blessed to live in this country,” Roy said. “Where else can you bitch at the President and get away with it? Do that to Chernenko and you spend six months in Siberia.”

Patriotism has nothing to do with Roy’s exceptional ability to find talent, it would seem, by turning over rocks, the cheaper the better.

“I don’t think life should be measured in monetary things,” Roy said.

Since the last indoor season, Roy has added 13 new faces to his roster of 22. Only Karl-Heinz Granitza and Pato Margetic are big-salaried players. The rest work for modest wages and, more remarkably, work well together.

At the halfway point of this season, the Sting is threatening to add an indoor title to its two outdoor, an unexpected development to everyone but Roy.

“I would never bet against Tom Flores or the Miami Dolphins,” Roy said. “There is a reason they are always on top.”

Translation: Never bet against the Sting or Roy himself. Or the future of soccer, no matter how desperate it would appear.

“I think soccer is exactly right for this time,” Roy said. “We’re on a health kick as a nation. Soccer is the best exercise for the cardiovascular system, you have fun doing it and it doesn’t cost much money.”

Roy is a persuasive man, with strong opinions about everything that has to do with sports in Chicago. “Why doesn’t Ditka throw the ball to Willie Gault more? When are we going to get a decent stadium in The City That Works?” he wondered. You hope he doesn’t resort to the tattered argument now two generations old: Wait until the kids grow up.

Of course, he does just that.

“Our base,” he said, “is the young people. We’re like McDonald’s. When they started, they didn’t try to get the steak-eater. They went for the kids. Look where they are now.”

Not the kids, McDonald’s.

When that argument was first used, today’s 30-year-olds were yesterday’s infant midfielders, and the evidence is that they couldn’t drag their folks to a game they weren’t playing in then nor are they showing up in enormous numbers now.

If every kid who ever stuck his legs through a pair of soccer shorts were now a paying spectator, there wouldn’t be enough room for them all, even if you counted every knee and divided by two.

“Our time will come,” Roy insisted. “I’m a positive guy. There are just too many kids, too many involved. All the signs are positive. Like the Olympics. They drew 1.4 million for soccer, more than all the other sports combined. That has to mean something.”

What it might mean is that soccer was the easiest ticket to get. It was played in the largest stadium and people shut out of things they really wanted to see would resort to watching soccer just to be part of the Olympics.

“We’re going to keep plugging away,” Roy said. “If you plug long enough, you fill some holes.”

Biography, Chicago Tribune, Football, Professional, Quotes

Montana the Best? No Argument Here

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WHAT A RELIEF it will be to pass through the approaching NFL-less months without having to worry about who the greatest quarterback in football is.

We now know that it is Joe Montana of San Francisco, an issue that was settled clearly in Super Bowl XIX and the only reason to remember the game at all, unless you count the human American flag that boogied during the National Anthem.

Montana is the best quarterback, and a more reluctant hero we have not had in football since last year, when Jim Plunkett mumbled his way into our hearts.

“Joe is the greatest quarterback in football today,” said his coach, Bill Walsh, and if you can’t trust a guy who always dresses in white, who can you trust?

“Joe Montana is the best that ever played,” said Dwight Clark, who used to be Montana’s roommate and still serves as Montana’s landlord between brides.

“Joe has established himself as maybe the finest quarterback to play,” said Paul Hackett, who is only Montana’s personal coach.

There we have three perfectly objective endorsements, and, of course, our own eyes.

SUPER BOWL XIX was just the latest chapter in the Joe Montana (Montagna in the original Italian) story. The beginning was back in Monongahela, Pa., in the back yard where an only child already burdened with the designation of junior after his name caught footballs thrown by a father determined to make him a great athlete.

The story moved to Notre Dame where, from seventh string, Montana became a college legend. Montana brought the Irish from behind no less than half a dozen times in his three seasons of play there, from a 20-point rescue against Air Force, to a 35-34 victory over Houston in the Cotton Bowl with no time left after Notre Dame had fallen behind 34-12.

And now to San Francisco, where in just six years Montana has won two Super Bowls and has been the outstanding player in each one.

“I don’t know how I’ve been able to do these things,” Montana said. “I just go out there and try to win.”

You don’t learn much about Montana from Montana. For a young man consistently described as fiercely competitive, he is absolutely timid in public.

In any gathering, he would be the one most likely to pass for a sarcophagus.

He speaks softly, though he always fixes the questioner with his clear blue eyes, and he always stops his answer short of anything revealing, though he did confess after this Super Bowl that the one thing that most upset him was being called a wimp by “a writer from Miami.”

OF COURSE, NO ONE in San Francisco would call him that, no matter how tempted by Montana’s hermit instincts. In fact, Montana was declared God for a Day by one group of sign painters who watched the 49er victory parade that Montana skipped.

In all candor, Montana does not look like a quarterback. What he looks like is somebody who carries your groceries to the car.

“The good Lord did not put him together like Dan Marino,” said 49er guard Randy Cross, “but he can run, pass and get out of the way of problems. Marino is the best thrower in the league. Joe Montana is the best quarterback.”

“He is not a flamboyant person,” said Walsh. “He’s like a great writer or musician. There’s something internal that you just know.

“People will play alongside him more smoothly than someone who attracts a lot of attention. He doesn’t have that bravado that certain people who are less smart have.”

What Montana has are results. Notre Dame used to cheer when Dan Devine would finally put Montana into a game, usually when it appeared lost. Devine likes to take credit for discovering Montana, but there is a story around that, during Montana’s junior year, after two Notre Dame quarterbacks had been hurt, Devine whirled angrily and yelled at his assistants, “Get me a quarterback!”

Montana was sent into the game. He brought the Irish back to beat Purdue, causing Devine to ask, “What’s that kid’s name?”

WALSH AND MONTANA are an ideal pair, kind of like a professor and his puppy. Here’s a new trick, Joe. Roll over and stand on one leg. Isn’t he cute? “He is extremely coachable,” said Walsh, “and he is very inventive.”

Walsh first saw Montana when Walsh was working out UCLA running back James Owens before the 1979 draft. Owens had brought Montana along to throw the ball to him, and Walsh was impressed enough to forget Owens and make Montana the 49ers’ second selection.

The choice was high enough to startle NFL scouts. “They questioned his consistency,” said Walsh, “but I felt that was the fault of Notre Dame. I wondered why, if he could have one great game, why not two, or three? They said his arm wasn’t strong enough, but it is as strong as Dan Fouts’. I put his arm in the 90th percentile.

“Joe has leadership, instinct, resourcefulness, maturity. We have the most detailed offense in the league. The quarterback is our limit. But with Joe, we don’t have a limit.”

End of argument.

Biography, Chicago Tribune, Football, Professional, Quotes

Marino’s Success Speaks for Itself

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Dateline: SAN FRANCISCO

Two things you don’t expect to learn about Dan Marino are: one, he is painfully young; and two, he is fat.

Not that he’s a real porker, not like a pulling guard or a nose tackle, but he has a belly that belongs on a baker, or a bartender, not on the greatest quarterback to ever become a legend over a weekend, which is about how long it has taken Marino to make the world forget Dan Fouts.

Quarterbacks, especially record-setting 23-year-old quarterbacks, ought not to look better with their shirttails out. Marino has a body made for suspenders.

Bless his paunch, a mortal flaw. You cannot imagine what a relief it is to have made this discovery. For if he had one of those speedbump stomachs, he would be just too perfect to stand.

He already has hair that curls around his face with careless insolence, eyes as blue as a Florida dawn, a smile that could melt the heart of a hermit, and he can throw a football with the inspiration of a minor Roman deity, which he is rumored to be in assorted Italian neighborhoods and the offensive huddle of the Dolphins.

IF YOU STARTED out to build a quarterback, Marino would already have all the best parts, though yours would probably be able to touch his toes without sitting.

And you might give him something interesting to say, just for variety. Marino treats conversation like a spaniel treats a rose bush.

“How did you come by your fast release?” Marino is asked.

“Who can say?” he shrugs.

“What do you say to people who already call you the greatest quarterback who ever lived?” he is asked.

“Who’s to say who is the greatest?” he says.

“Are you surprised to be in the Super Bowl so soon in your career?” he is asked.

“No,” he says.

“Do you think you are a dull person?” he is asked.

“Who’s to say who is dull? Maybe I think you are dull,” he says.

AND SO IT GOES. Marino came to this Super Bowl with a world ready to anoint him for his achievements, past and future, and he has managed to treat it as if it were trying to steal his wallet.

He has been patient with almost all inquiries, but he would clearly rather be someplace else. Three minutes into any interview and he starts shuffling his feet as if his toes were on fire.

An easy conclusion to draw is that Marino is essentially a jerk, a judgment that is as premature as is any on his place in the history of paid quarterbacking.

Marino is not very smart, not in an extra-football sense. If he has ever had a thought that did not include football or fun or family, he chased it out of his head before it left a scar.

In order to get out on the town with his teammates this week, to avoid the fans who gather to gawk and tug at him, Marino has had to leave his Oakland hotel in disguise. What the disguise is has not been revealed, but rumor has it he has been undetected as a scholar.

“I don’t think about things,” Marino said. “Have I ever sat down and thought at this moment in my life if I am destined to be a champion? No, I don’t do things like that.”

A DEEP THINKER, HE ISN’T. Marino’s explanation of how he does what he does with the football is no more complicated than this: “I just turn it loose and have fun.”

One suspects if he were to ever really understand his gift, in the way that a mechanic understands an engine, the fun would be gone. For him and for us.

For now, Marino’s innocence, or his arrogance, whichever it is, produces simply marvelous results.

Marino lives by instinct, on the field as well as off it, an approach to life that has served him fairly well so far. Fame has always come to Marino on his terms, or not at all.

Marino has a specialness that visits a few humans without any basis in reason. Just as Edison was destined to be more than a tinkerer, Baryshnikov more than a dancer, Charles Manson more than a nuisance, so was Marino destined to be more than just another quarterback.

EVEN DON SHULA is not quite sure what makes Marino so special. “I’d rather just pat him on the back and say, ‘Atta boy, Dan’,” Shula has said.

And Marino is a baby still, reacting with a child’s suspicion to adults who have wronged him.

A magazine story during Marino’s junior year at Pitt quoted him as saying he could throw the ball better than anybody in college and could throw with anybody in the pros. Marino did not say it exactly that way, even if he believed it, and he has been careful since to avoid saying anything the least bit colorful.

“I’m just being myself,” he said. “I am not being purposely dull.”

No argument here. No one could be that dull on purpose.

Chicago Tribune, Football, Professional, Quotes

COLLECTED WORKS OF FOOTBALL WITS

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GEORGE ALLEN, the football coach, had to fill out an insurance form for his players. The instructions asked that he list all employees and addresses, broken down by sex. Allen wrote, “None. Our main problem seems to be alcohol.”

It is not always easy to know what football means. As we head into another Super Bowl Week, the week of words, here is the collected wisdom of everyone who ever had anything interesting to say about football:

“After being introduced and running through the goal posts, football is all downhill.”–Linebacker Doug Swift.

“When you are younger, you think football is a game.”–Quarterback Richard Todd.

“THE TWO WORST things in football are: 1, They think that a 30-year- old professional athlete has to be locked up in a hotel room, with a curfew, the night before a game; and 2, They’re right.”–Safety Cliff Harris.

“Football is a game designed to keep coal miners off the streets.”– Author Jimmy Breslin.

“Don’t bother to read the playbook. Everybody dies in the end.”– Receiver Pete Gent.

“Running into the line, you go into a different world. All around you guys are scratching, clawing, beating on each other, feeling pain. It’s too bad more people haven’t been in there, where football is really played.”– Fullback Larry Csonka.

“MY IDEA of a good hit is when the victim wakes up on the sidelines with train whistles blowing in his head and wondering who he is and what ran over him.”–Safety Jack Tatum.

“Everyone has some fear. A man with no fear belongs in a mental institution. Or on special teams.”–Coach Walt Michaels.

“There’s nothing wrong with reading the game plan by the light of the jukebox.”–Quarterback Ken Stabler.

“Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners. Only survivors.”–Halfback Frank Gifford.

“Football is one of the last great strongholds of genuine, old- fashioned hypocrisy.”–Author Paul Gallico.

“THERE HASN’T been anything new in football in the last 50 years.”– Hall of Famer Red Grange.

“Some players now aren’t sure whether football is a vocation or avocation. You know what it is to me? It’s blood.”–Coach Sid Gillman.

“I tackle everybody and then throw them away until I come to the one with the ball.”–Defensive tackle Big Daddy Lipscomb.

“If any one of my sons would weigh a possible broken bone against the glory of being chosen to play for Harvard’s team, I would disinherit him.”– President Theodore Roosevelt.

“I knew it was time to quit football when I was chewing out an official and he walked off the penalty faster than I could keep up with him.”–Coach George Halas.

“FOOTBALL IS not a contact sport. It is a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport.”–Coach Duffy Daugherty.

“I played football before they had headgear, and that’s how I lost my mind.”–Baseball manager Casey Stengel.

“Football is a game for madmen. In football, we’re all mad. I have been called a tyrant, but I have also been called the coach of the simplest system in football, and I suppose there is some truth in both of those. The perfect name for the perfect coach would be Simple Simon Legree.”–Coach Vince Lombardi.

“When you are discussing a successful coach, you are not necessarily drawing the profile of an entirely healthy person.”–Psychologist Bruce Ogilvie.

“A good coach needs a patient wife, a loyal dog and a great quarterback, but not necessarily in that order.”–Coach Bud Grant.

“IF YOU WANT to drop off the face of the Earth, become an assistant football coach.”–Quarterback Bob Griese.

“Politics and pro football are the most grotesque extremes in the theatric of a dying regime. It is no accident that the most repressive political regime in the history of this country is ruled by a football freak.”–Linebacker Dave Meggyesy.

“Throwing a pass and seeing a man catch it and seeing him in the end zone and seeing the referee throw his arms up in the air, it’s an incredible feeling. It’s like your whole body is bursting with happiness. I guess there’s only one thing in the world that compares to it.”–Quarterback Joe Namath.

“I am not an animal.”–Defensive end Deacon Jones.

“Gentlemen, you are about to play football for Yale against Harvard. Never in your lives will you do anything so important.”–Coach T.A.D. Jones. “If the Super Bowl is the ultimate game, why are they playing it again next year?”–Running back Duane Thomas.

Chicago Tribune, Football, Quotes

Collected Works of Football Wits

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GEORGE ALLEN, the football coach, had to fill out an insurance form for his players. The instructions asked that he list all employees and addresses, broken down by sex. Allen wrote,”None. Our main problem seems to be alcohol.”

It is not always easy to know what football means. As we head into
another Super Bowl Week, the week of words, here is the collected wisdom of everyone who ever had anything interesting to say about football:

“After being introduced and running through the goal posts, football
is all downhill.”
—Linebacker Doug Swift.

“When you are younger, you think football is a game.”
—Quarterback Richard Todd.

“THE TWO WORST things in football are:
1, They think that a 30-year-old professional athlete has to be locked up in a hotel room, with a curfew, the night before a game; and 2, They’re right.”
—Safety Cliff Harris.

“Football is a game designed to keep coal miners off the streets.”
—Author Jimmy Breslin.

“Don’t bother to read the playbook. Everybody dies in the end.”
—Receiver Pete Gent.

“Running into the line, you go into a different world. All around you
guys are scratching, clawing, beating on each other, feeling pain. It’s too bad more people haven’t been in there, where football is really played.”
—Fullback Larry Csonka.

“MY IDEA of a good hit is when the victim wakes up on the sidelines
with train whistles blowing in his head and wondering who he is and what ran over him.”
—Safety Jack Tatum.

“Everyone has some fear. A man with no fear belongs in a mental institution. Or on special teams.”
—Coach Walt Michaels.

“There’s nothing wrong with reading the game plan by the light of the jukebox.”
—Quarterback Ken Stabler.

“Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners. Only survivors.”
—Halfback Frank Gifford.

“Football is one of the last great strongholds of genuine, old-
fashioned hypocrisy.”
—Author Paul Gallico.

“THERE HASN’T been anything new in football in the last 50 years.”
—Hall of Famer Red Grange.

“Some players now aren’t sure whether football is a vocation or avocation. You know what it is to me? It’s blood.”
—Coach Sid Gillman.

“I tackle everybody and then throw them away until I come to the one with the ball.”
—Defensive tackle Big Daddy Lipscomb.

“If any one of my sons would weigh a possible broken bone against the glory of being chosen to play for Harvard’s team, I would disinherit him.”
—President Theodore Roosevelt.

“I knew it was time to quit football when I was chewing out an
official and he walked off the penalty faster than I could keep up with him.”
—Coach George Halas.

“FOOTBALL IS not a contact sport. It is a collision sport. Dancing is
a contact sport.”
—Coach Duffy Daugherty.

“I played football before they had headgear, and that’s how I lost my
mind.”
—Baseball manager Casey Stengel.

“Football is a game for madmen. In football, we’re all mad. I have
been called a tyrant, but I have also been called the coach of the simplest system in football, and I suppose there is some truth in both of those. The perfect name for the perfect coach would be Simple Simon Legree.”
—Coach Vince Lombardi.

“When you are discussing a successful coach, you are not necessarily drawing the profile of an entirely healthy person.”
—Psychologist Bruce Ogilvie.

“A good coach needs a patient wife, a loyal dog and a great
quarterback, but not necessarily in that order.”
—Coach Bud Grant.

“IF YOU WANT to drop off the face of the Earth, become an assistant football coach.”
—Quarterback Bob Griese.

“Politics and pro football are the most grotesque extremes in the
theatric of a dying regime. It is no accident that the most repressive
political regime in the history of this country is ruled by a football
freak.”
—Linebacker Dave Meggyesy.

“Throwing a pass and seeing a man catch it and seeing him in the end
zone and seeing the referee throw his arms up in the air, it’s an incredible feeling. It’s like your whole body is bursting with happiness. I guess there’s only one thing in the world that compares to it.”
—Quarterback Joe Namath.

“I am not an animal.”
—Defensive end Deacon Jones.

“Gentlemen, you are about to play football for Yale against Harvard.
Never in your lives will you do anything so important.”
—Coach T.A.D. Jones.

“If the Super Bowl is the ultimate game, why are they playing it again next year?”
—Running back Duane Thomas.