[Nov.1] It’s the birthday of the sportswriter Grantland Rice, born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee (1880). The most popular sportswriter of his day, he wrote an estimated 67 million words in his 53-year career. In 1925, when other newspapermen were happy with a weekly salary of $50, Grantland Rice was making $1,000 a week, about the same as Babe Ruth.
He was known for the extravagant style he used to describe sporting events; he once compared four Notre Dame football players to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And in addition to his newspaper articles, he also wrote many poems about sports. The well-known saying “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game” originated with his poem “Alumnus Football,” which ends with the lines: “For when the One Great Scorer comes / To write against your name, / He marks — not that you won or lost — / But how you played the game.”
Grantland Rice’s own favorite sport was golf. He wrote: “Golf is 20 percent mechanics and technique. The other 80 percent is philosophy, humor, tragedy, romance, melodrama, companionship, camaraderie, cussedness, and conversation.” WA
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At the corner of Church and College:
Those small historical markers have always been a treat. I’ve always stopped and read them when I could. It’s just really interesting to be able to learn about the historical significance of the very spot you stand in. Hey, it’s just may be the history nerd in me, though.
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