Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 12, Number 9, DeMotte, Jasper County, 8 January 1942 — Sportlight [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Sportlight

by GRANTLAND RICE

A SHORT while back we collected the opinions from over 40 well-known football coaches and trainers along the line of physical

fitness -- of getting back in shape. Without exception they featured the legs and the stomach, especially the latter. As Tom Keene, the veteran trainer at Syracuse told me, “When the belly’s okay you don’t have to worry about the rest of it, for here’s the center of

most good health and most bad health.” We’ve printed their diets and their suggestions -- plain foods, simple foods—and not too much of it. But many of these coaches and trainers, who know their trade, brought in another angle—this was the mental side, which has direct bearing on the all-out war today. “The best football player,” a leading coach wrote me, “needs something more than size and speed and physical fitness. He must be able to sacrifice himself for the good of the team. He must be able to take punishment—and like it—for the cause he is fighting for. He must be willing to give up all outside pleasures that conflict in any way with the main idea, which is to win. Only those who have this frame of mind or really worthwhile. The others are only good when things are rolling their way. “Football is no game for those easily discouraged. Mental fiber is even more important than physical fiber—and mental fiber means giving all you have in the direction of victory, no matter what the odds. We might call it ‘intestinal fortitude,’ a phrase the late Dan McGugin of Michigan and Vanderbilt invented.” The Big Word Words, as a rule, are unimportant, when the air is full of flying steel. But in this same connection we still recall a conversation with, a hardbitten colonel of the First division in France early in 1918, when the German army, apparently, was about to break through. I happened to bring up the matter of courage. The First division colonel gave me a cold look. “Courage,” he said, “is secondary. Most people and most nations have courage. The big word is ‘fortitude.’ This is a far more important word than courage. “Fortitude, of course, includes courage. But it goes far beyond. Fortitude means both physical and mental stamina. It means the ability to carry on a job that might be dull and uninteresting. It means giving all you’ve got to give, outside of the spotlight. In a football way, it means the blocking back, who clears the road for the ball carrier. It means sacrificing yourself for the cause. “In this war, those up around the front may get killed, but they get all of the excitement. Those back of .the lines get the drudgery, minus the thrills. You’ll find that almost all of those back of the lines would much rather be up where the excitement is. It takes more fortitude to do your work in a place where there is little chance for any thrills, little chance for any publicity or any reward.” A Leading Example Some years ago I was talking with Bobby Jones about the brilliant golf record he piled up from 1922 through 1930. Bobby made no claim to any superior skill with wood or iron. “Tournament golf,” he said then, “is a game in which you just can’t

afford to be easily discouraged when you step into trouble, as everyone does. So I had to make up my mind to take a hard nerve beating -- not a physical beating, of course. No one will ever know the time i felt like chucking it all, and maybe wait for another

chance. “I may be wrong, but I believe you can take more of a beating on the mental and nerve side than you can on the physical side. When I used to pick up those sevens in a championship round, and I got more than my share of those, the temptation to ease up and forget it all was pretty strong. You get the feeling there’s no use fighting it out at that particular time." This is all true. I recall Gene Sarazen, one of our finest golf competitors, once saying you can’t win a big championship with ‘sevens.’ “I battle to try to keep from getting any sixes," Gene said. But Bobby Jones’ championship cards were studded with sevens. He had a seven at Hoylake in his Grand Slam march — when it took him five strokes to get down after he was only 40 yards from the green in two. He had a killing seven at Scioto, but he won. He had two sevens on the last 10 holes at Winged Foot, but he went on to win the playoff. —Buy Defense Bonds—

Photograph of Bobby Jones

Bobby Jones

Photograph of Grantland Rice

Grantland Rice