A phrase that was imprinted on many of us at an early age originated from a Rice poem ‒ "it's not if you win or lose, but how you play the game." In my youth, sportsmanship was almost as important as winning, but now the phrase is rarely heard.
I participated in many competitive sport leagues ‒ baseball, basketball, football, and hockey ‒ and I heard the quote often, especially as consolation when I was on the losing side.
"Rice's writing tended to be of an "inspirational" or "heroic" style, raising games to the level of ancient combat and their heroes to the status of demigods."
‒ Wikipedia
Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.
‒ Rice's description of a Notre Dame-Army football game
"The greatest figure the world of sport has ever known has passed from the field. Game called on account of darkness. Babe Ruth is dead."
‒ Grantland Rice, August 1948
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There are numerous references (including the 1936 photo above) to Rice golfing in St. Petersburg, often in a foursome that included Babe Ruth or Billy DeBeck. He wintered in nearby Clearwater and regularly played the Belleair course with writer friends Ring Lardner, Rex Beach, George Ade, Irvin Cobb and others. Credit: @BSmile |
Grantland Rice's tribute to St. Petersburg and the Nearby Racetrack at Sunshine Park (now Tampa Bay Downs)
We still contend that St. Petersburg, Fla. is the winter sport capital of the world. Nice, Palm Beach, the Riviera, Cal.? Nothing like it in complete devotion to a favorite sport, where nothing else matters, where dress is unimportant, where scandal is out of place, where only the vast oak-shaded jungle-tinted park beckons each morning as the sun burns out the fog and mist. Apparently the cares of existence here, with most of the expense of living, are shut out by the swaying moss that might be a gray curtain between this world and another of entirely different mold. Sunshine Park is alone as one of the great competitive fields of the universe. It has no rival. It carries few headlines, yet it affords a greater range of pleasure than the Yale Bowl and the Polo Grounds combined. For here they are players, rather than spectators, and no publicity is needed to add to the lure of the contest, where thousands each winter pass beyond Ponce de Leon's spirit to find another fabled fountain of gray-headed youth.
St. Petersburg Times, January 16, 1935 -
GRANTLAND RICE WILL VISIT BILLY DE BECK
"Grantland Rice, one the the nation's leading sports writers, will visit in this city over the weekend with Billy DeBeck, well known cartoonist. Rice, many times champion of the Artists and Writers golf tournament, plans several rounds at local courses."
Which courses might they have played on? A March 17, 1935 article in the St. Petersburg Times listed five courses in St. Petersburg - the Jungle course (the oldest and Babe Ruth's favorite), Pasadena, Lakewood Estates, Snell Isle, and Shore Acres. Of these, Lakewood, Pasadena, and Jungle courses held amateur, professional, and pro-am tournaments.
Baseball Players Golf Tournament
In 1941, Rice wrote about the Baseball Players Golf Tournament in the Jungle. The famous sportswriter frequently wrote about golf in his column "The Sportlight," but only a small percentage of golf courses had an event that warranted coverage in his national column.
Casey's Revenge by Grantland Rice
The final stanzas:
Above the fence in center field in rapid whirling flight
The sphere sailed on - the blot grew dim and then was lost to sight.
Ten thousand hats were thrown in air, ten thousand threw a fit,
But no one ever found the ball that mighty Casey hit.
O, somewhere in this favored land dark clouds may hide the sun,
And somewhere bands no longer play and children have no fun!
And somewhere over blighted lives there hangs a heavy pall,
But Mudville hearts are happy now, for Casey hit the ball.
Alumnus Football by Grantland Rice
Bill Jones had been the shining star upon his college team.
His tackling was ferocious and his bucking was a dream.
When husky William took the ball beneath his brawny arm
They had two extra men to ring the ambulance alarm.
Bill hit the line and ran the ends like some mad bull amuck.
The other team would shiver when they saw him start to buck.
And when some rival tackler tried to block his dashing pace,
On waking up, he'd ask, "Who drove that truck across my face?"
Bill had the speed-Bill had the weight-Bill never bucked in vain;
From goal to goal he whizzed along while fragments, strewed the plain,
And there had been a standing bet, which no one tried to call,
That he could make his distance through a ten-foot granite wall.
When he wound up his college course each student's heart was sore.
They wept to think bull-throated Bill would sock the line no more.
Not so with William - in his dreams he saw the Field of Fame,
Where he would buck to glory in the swirl of Life's big game.
Sweet are the dreams of college life, before our faith is nicked-
The world is but a cherry tree that's waiting to be picked;
The world is but an open road-until we find, one day,
How far away the goal posts are that called us to the play.
So, with the sheepskin tucked beneath his arm in football style,
Bill put on steam and dashed into the thickest of the pile;
With eyes ablaze he sprinted where the laureled highway led-
When Bill woke up his scalp hung loose and knots adorned his head.
He tried to run the ends of life, but with rib-crushing toss
A rent collector tackled him and threw him for a loss.
And when he switched his course again and dashed into the line
The massive Guard named Failure did a toddle on his spine.
Bill tried to punt out of the rut, but ere he turned the trick
Right Tackle Competition scuttled through and blocked the kick.
And when he tackled at Success in one long, vicious prod
The Fullback Disappointment steered his features in sod.
Bill was no quitter, so he tried a buck in higher gear,
But Left Guard Envy broke it up and stood him on his ear.
Whereat he aimed a forward pass, but in two vicious bounds
Big Center Greed slipped through a hole and rammed him out of bounds.
But one day, when across the Field of Fame the goal seemed dim,
The wise old coach, Experience, came up and spoke to him.
"Oh Boy," he said, "the main point now before you win your bout
Is keep on bucking Failure till you've worn the piker out!"
"And, kid, cut out this fancy stuff - go in there, low and hard;
Just keep your eye upon the ball and plug on, yard by yard,
And more than all, when you are thrown or tumbled with a crack,
Don't sit there whining-hustle up and keep on coming back;
"Keep coming back with all you've got, without an alibi,
If Competition trips you up or lands upon your eye,
Until at last above the din you hear this sentence spilled:
'We might as well let this bird through before we all get killed.'
"You'll find the road is long and rough, with soft spots far apart,
Where only those can make the grade who have the Uphill Heart.
And when they stop you with a thud or halt you with a crack,
Let Courage call the signals as you keep on coming back.
"Keep coming back, and though the world may romp across your spine,
Let every game's end find you still upon the battling line;
For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost - but how you played the Game."
Grantland Rice playing golf on the Jungle course ‒ we'd like to see that scorecard. Without it, we don't know if he won or lost ‒ or how he played the game.
