Football quotes

“Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
— Joe Theismann, former leader of my hometown team, the Washington Redskins

“Football features two of the worst aspects of American life, violence and committee meetings.”
— George Will

“When it’s third and ten, you can take the milk drinkers and I’ll take the whiskey drinkers every time.”
— Max McGee, the first player ever to score a touchdown in Super Bowl history

“In other parts of the world, when you hear of the ‘classics,’ you think of Homer and Virgil; but in California the ‘classics’ are the annual Stanford-California football game.  I asked a student about to graduate what he thought of his classmates, and his answer was, ‘They are a mob of little haters. They hate the Germans, they hate the Russians, they hate the Socialists, they hate the Japs. They are ready to hate the French or the English any time they are told to; and always they hate Stanford.’”
— Upton Sinclair, in The Goose-step: A Study of American Education, 1923.

“When I showed up for training camp this season, I put a copy of The Last Lecture in my locker. I want to read it again, because it reminds me that you shouldn’t have to wait for something significant in your life to consider what’s important. You don’t have to stare down death to know what values you want to instill in your kids.”
— Steve Smith Sr., Baltimore Ravens and Carolina Panthers receiver and one tough son-of-a-gun on the field, announcing his retirement

“Wins and losses come a dime a dozen. But effort? Nobody can judge effort ’cause effort is between you and you.”
— Ray Lewis, Baltimore Ravens icon, in a speech to the Stanford basketball team

 
“Day #18 backpacking the Silk Road”
Singing Sands Mountain (鸣沙山), Gansu Province, near the city of Dunhuang (敦煌)

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“Calm, for now”
Mount St. Helens, WA