Say What?

It’s Friday.  Another week of sheltering in place, whatever that means these days, has nearly passed.   It means another week of no sports has nearly passed too.  We miss sports.  We miss sports characters too.  With the help of a valued reader, we dug up some colorful quotes from some colorful sports characters.  A baker’s dozen follow.

1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model:
    “I wan’ all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I want all the kids to copulate me.”

2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season:
    “I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first..”

3. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins:
    “He treats us like men. He let us wear earrings.”

4. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann:
   “Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.” (a follow-up appearance was deemed necessary)

5. Senior, unamed, basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh :
    “I’m going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes..”

6. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach:
    “You guys line up alphabetically by height..” and “You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle.”

7. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison:
   “Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton ..”

8.  Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota:
     “He’s a guy who gets up at six o’clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is.”

9. Chuck Nevitt , North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice:
    “My sister’s expecting a baby, and I don’t know if I’m going to be an uncle or an aunt.

10. Frank Layden , Utah Jazz president, on a former player:
   “I asked him, ‘Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?’
   He said, ‘Coach, I don’t know and I don’t care.'”

11. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F’s and one D: (NOW THIS IS FUNNY)
    “Son, looks to me like you’re spending too much time on one subject.”

12. In the words of NC State great Charles Shackelford:
    “I can go to my left or right, I am amphibious.”

13. Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips,
   Phillips responded: “Because she’s too ugly to kiss goodbye.”

Goodbye till Monday.

 

 

 

 

If You Are Gonna Talk the Talk

Last week seemed to have been filled with a bit more rancor than most.  So much so that we wrote this.

After a week of too much misdirected, failed, or ill-advised passion we decided to end it on a somewhat lighter note that allows us to forget for a bit all of the above.  Sports.  Now that’s passion directed in the right direction 24/7.  Combatants on any field, arena, or track of competition bring out the love of the game in all of us.  Their actions and subsequent achievements are plenty enough to gain a sense of the love for their chosen filed of dreams.  But, sometimes their passion spills over into their words as well.  Below we offer to you in no particular order some inspirational quotes from some intense sport folks.

Well, today we offer you a few savage quotes.  Savage quotes are like verbal daggers in your back.  Except, in the often heated moment of sports and its resultant aftermath, these sharp words are aimed directly at the intended target’s heart.   In the coming weeks we’ll bring you more as they are plentiful and never disappoint.  For now, enjoy the beast mode bravado of these seven quotes below.

  1.  “But the real tragedy was that fifteen hadn’t been colored in yet.”  —Steve Spurrier then head coach at South Carolina on the Auburn dorm room fire       that, among other things, burned 20 books.
  2.  “I dunno, I’ve never smoked any Astro Turf.”  —Tug McGraw on being asked if he preferred natural grass or artificial turf.
  3.   “Because there are no fours.”  —Antoine Walker when asked why he took so many threes.
  4.  ” I will eat your children.”  —Mike Tyson spoke directly to Lennox Lewis in the prefight weigh in.  Lewis knocked him out when they fought.
  5.   “These are my new shoes.  They are good shoes.  They won’t make you rich like me, they won’t make you rebound like me, and they definitely won’t         make you handsome like me, they’ll only make you have shoes like me.  That’s it.” — Charles Barkley on his new signature shoes.
  6.  “I’m not worried about the Sacramento Queens.”  —Shaquille O’Neal responded in the heat of the 2002-2003 season when the Kings were the upstart   team and suddenly popular choice to end the Lakers dominance in the west.
  7.   “All he does is talk. He’s terrible, and you can print that. I was happy when he was in the game.”  —Bill Belicheck unloaded this dandy right after the   2004 Super Bowl when his secondary held Freddie Mitchell to one catch.  Mitchell was running his mouth in the weeks leading up to the game about not   even knowing who the NE secondary players were.

Running your mouth isn’t good.  But when you can back it up, well.

As Jimmy Johnson once said, “if you gonna talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk.”