It’s fascinating, isn’t it, that whereas so many of our statues have been of military leaders, now it may well be sports stars who are the ones more likely to be so honored. Frank Deford Read Quote
Does each of us need to suffer agony to understand how brutal our gridiron entertainment is? Surely, seeing is believing enough. So, what is football doing to us as a people? How do we explain an America that alone in the world so loves this savage sport? Frank Deford Read Quote
We exalted that Michael Phelps-consecrated water. Rose petals were strewn in Peyton Manning’s path when he retired. But hey, that’s natural. As we should, we admire those in any craft, no less so in sports, who appear out of nowhere to achieve remarkable feats. Frank Deford Read Quote
When I was covering games, and this is back in the ’60s, you’d go into the manager’s office. I can still visualize Earl Weaver from the Baltimore Orioles. I can just see Earl now in his underwear… with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, holding court. And that was the way it was done then. Frank Deford Read Quote
I think, in accepting the amount of money that athletes make, I think that fans accept that now. It’s the nature of the beast; that’s the way it is, so they understand it. All, I think, fans have changed – because the price of tickets has gone up so much – that they feel a certain sense of entitlement when they go to a game. Frank Deford Read Quote
You’re writing about young, vibrant people; there are wins and losses. In other words, it’s great drama. Frank Deford Read Quote
NPR allowed me to treat sports seriously, as another branch on the tree of culture. Frank Deford Read Quote
You have to do what the market requires of you… You either keep swimming, or you sink. Frank Deford Read Quote
So much about big-time college sports is criticized. But the worst scandal is almost never mentioned: the academic fraud wherein the student-athletes, so-called, are admitted without even remotely adequate credentials and then aren’t educated so much as they are just kept eligible. Frank Deford Read Quote
How did females become ‘guys?’ How did everyone become ‘guys?’ Remember, too, that a male guy was something of a scoundrel. And a wise guy was a fresh kid, a whippersnapper. In its most other famous evocation, men in Brooklyn said ‘youse guys.’ Damon Runyon referred to hustlers, gamblers, and other nefarious types as guys. Frank Deford Read Quote
