I remember one time I wrote something very, very critical about Wilt Chamberlain. The next time I saw him – and Wilt was not a man, as huge as he was – he was not a man of confrontation. And we were in the Lakers locker room. And he sent Jerry West over, and he said, ‘Frank, Wilt would like you to leave.’ Frank Deford Read Quote
I’ve been delivering these little homilies since 1980 – that’s 37 years – and altogether, NPR statisticians tell me, my bloviation total is 1,656 commentaries – and I trust you’ve hung onto every word. Frank Deford Read Quote
Johnny U was an American original, a piece of work like none other, excepting maybe Paul Bunyan and Horatio Alger. Frank Deford Read Quote
Nowadays, of course, flesh peddlers and scouting services identify the best athletes when they are still in junior high. Prospects are not allowed to sneak up on us. Frank Deford Read Quote
Before the Colts arrived in 1947, the best athlete in town was a woman duckpin bowler named Toots Barger. Football? The biggest games in Baltimore had been when Johns Hopkins took on Susquehanna or Franklin & Marshall at homecoming. Frank Deford Read Quote
I think I would die if I couldn’t get to the typewriter every day. I really need that. Frank Deford Read Quote
ESPN is all meat and potatoes. It’s pretty much scouting reports. There isn’t a great deal of humor, and when there is, it’s pretty sophomoric. Frank Deford Read Quote
There are some books that get huge numbers of positive reviews, but reading them satiates people. They say, ‘I’ve read enough now’. Frank Deford Read Quote
I’ll forever be grateful to NPR that they gave me such extraordinary freedom… It was 37 years of a fond relationship. Frank Deford Read Quote
Sport is an art: it has incredible appeal everywhere on this earth, and it fills so many human hearts with passion that it’s impossible to dismiss. Frank Deford Read Quote
