Sports

“ When, in addition to the advantages of a national sport or collection of national sports, such as boxing, sword exercises, wrestling, etc., you recognize the possibility that the games you have been indulging in with your friends in playful contests may at almost any moment be utilized for defeating your enemies and possibly saving your life, you are forced to the conclusion that there are some sports at least which can be turned to practical account. ”

“ Blessed with a strong, symmetrical frame, a quick eye, a sure hand, a perfect constitution, and abundant courage, he came easily by a mastery of the different sports he entered into, and had few equals, and fewer superiors, at cricket, football, lacrosse, baseball, swimming, rowing, and the other amusements of the day. ”

“ What is clear to the watcher is the emotional basis of these sports—a joy in controlled performance, and excitement in rapidity of motion, in all essentials like the pleasure to us of a well-hit ball at golf, or the thrill of a rapid descent on sledge skis. ”

“ A controversy has grown up in relation to those athletic plays which are here called sports, for we distinguish sports from another group of plays of which we are to treat hereafter as games. Sports are athletic activities, games are intellectual activities; sports develop from mimicry to rivalry, games develop from dependence on sorcery for success to dependence on skill for success. Now, if we understand the distinction between sports and games we are better prepared to understand the nature of sports themselves. ”

“ Imagine the athletes of every village training for those prizes—thousands of boy-topers turning gymnasts, ward delegates running for something besides office, and the members of a Young Men's Association seeking paradise on this side of the grave!
With the decadence of athletic sports, games of skill come generally into favor ”

“ He it is, too, who is the prime supporter and patron of the manly English sports, horse-racing, glove-fighting, coaching, moting, polo, shooting, fishing, yachting, and so forth. In these exercises he finds great delight. When he is not busy dining and wining and painting the town red, sport is the mainstay of his existence. ”

“ But more interesting is what language extracted from the experience of sports. Language captured characteristics of the sports experience and generalized them. Through language, they were submitted, in a new form, to experiences very different from sports: sports for warfare, athletics for instilling a sense of order, competitions as circus for the masses. But primarily, people derived from sports the notion of competitiveness, accepted as a national characteristic, as well as a characteristic of education, of art, of the market. ”

“ So many self-styled sportsmen are trying to spoil sport by artificial means—hunting, shooting and coursing semi-tame animals, and calling it sport. We, in my humble judgment, have the greatest need to uphold true, honest, genuine sport rather than its counterfeits, which only go to make our enemies blaspheme at us with some cause. ”

“ Each number contains a story of manly sports, replete with lively incidents, dramatic situations and a sparkle of humor. Every popular game will be featured in the succeeding stories, such as baseball, skating, wrestling, etc. Not only are these stories the very best, but they teach you how to become strong and healthy. You can learn to become a trained athlete by reading the valuable information on physical culture they contain. ”

“ As a complex experience, sports involves rational and irrational components. This is why approaching the relation between literacy and sports, one has to account for both dimensions. Sports is approached here from the perspective of the changes through which it became what it is today: a well defined form of relaxation, but probably more a competitive type of work acknowledged in the market like any other product of human practice. ”

“ I have not said much of our sports and games; but it must not be inferred that we have no play. Indeed, I question if there is any place in the solar system, at any race, where we can be beaten in the enjoyment of active sports and games. ”

“ Stop before indulging in the rougher athletic sports for which you are physically unqualified. Study your capacities well—take in the entire athletic range, from jackstraws to Indian clubs, from the bean-bag to foot-ball—and discriminate for all you are worth. ”

“ I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. I don't want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism; and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master. ”

“ To the sportsman in training, full of health and strength, and well appointed, it is of little consequence whether there be game or not. The inspiriting character of the sport, and the wild beauty of the scenery, so different from what he is elsewhere in the habit of contemplating, hold out a charm that dispels fatigue! ”

“ You can’t drink strong drink and be an athlete. Get your boys interested in honest and healthy sports, and save them from drink and dissipation.
“Contests and competitions are not the main thing. ‘The strong compete and grow stronger; the weak look on and grow weaker.’ The main thing is play. ”

“ The sport must be something akin to the pleasure of tiger or elephant hunting. What ingenuity the sportsman must have in tracing his prey—what daring and caution in coming upon him! What coolness in facing the angry animal (for, after all, a man on whom you draw a cheque a bout portant will be angry) . What a delicious thrill of triumph, if you can bring him down! If I have money at the banker's and draw for a portion of it over the counter, that is mere prose—any dolt can do that. ”

“ Sports of every sort had always appealed to me. ”

“ We wish to say a few words, my men, to those who are going to play with the sticks or wrestle to-day. There has been a good deal of talk about these sports, as you all know; and many persons think they shouldn’t be allowed at all now-a-days—that the time for them has gone by. ”

“ Sports and pastimes of all kinds have been familiar to the plain from time immemorial—games which, by a pretty figure of speech, have been described as Olympian, and which, we rejoice to say, are not altogether discontinued. ”

“ Sports are organized in the most business-like {59} manner, and are as cosmopolitan as the human crowd; northern and mountain lands in all quarters of the globe have contributed to them, and when the short sunny day is over, keen brilliant nights, carnival balls on the illuminated lakes, theatricals, dancing, and unlimited miscellaneous fooling prolong the strenuous enjoyment. ”

“ A description of either of these sports is unnecessary, as nothing new distinguishes them from similar amusements in other places; unless it be a consummate precision in the marksman, and a vigorous intrepidity in the ball-combatants, that cannot perhaps be equalled by the peasantry of any other country. ”

“ However, it seems that there was time for some of the population to engage in sports such as laying snares for birds, {176} angling for fish, popular hunts, wrestling, playing checkers, chess, and ball, and it appears that many of these people were gifted in these sports. ”

“ They'll rush it, like the sports they are! C-call us a sporting nation, don't they? And so we are, and so is sport the finest preparation for the finest game—fellow can play. We'll be a sporting nation to-day, don't you make any mistake about that. We'll be rolling up in our thousands in Old England to-day—off the cricket-fields and the tennis-courts and the football grounds—yes, and from the boat-sheds and the shooting-lodges and the—the cinemas! ”

“ Surely not the humanitarian, whose desire it is that there should be far greater and wider means of enjoyment than at present, and who, far from discouraging the sports of the people, would establish in every part of the land facilities for manly and wholesome sports, such as cricket, football, rowing, swimming, running, and all kinds of athletic and gymnastic exercises. To humanitarians, pleasure—real pleasure—is the one precious thing ”

“ Sports are almost wholly on the physical plane, tho involving a certain grade of mental action; fox-hunting, horse-racing, and baseball are sports. Certain sports may afford entertainment or recreation to certain persons, according to their individual tastes ”

“ When you see our youth, our young men and women, contest for the honors in our games and military exercises you'll realize the truth of this. The entire nation gathers together once a year to witness these sports and exercises and judge the skill of the contestants. ”

“ And it is well they like it, for they will get more benefit from an hour of good, vigorous play, than from many lessons in the monotonous exercises in use in the gymnasiums.
I shall not now speak of the lively games of boys and girls, by which their cheeks grow rosy and their legs and arms grow strong, for we all know enough about them, but I will describe some of the athletic sports of grown-up folks. ”

“ Great care having been taken in its compilation, we feel confident that the work will be in every sense of the word practical; so that those who desire may follow whatever their fancy prefers in athletic sports, in a creditable manner. ”

“ Racing is [Pg 153] the national recreation, just as gambling is the national vice. The two insensibly melt into each other. It is a great sporting continent. When the word “sport” is used—when a certain individual is called a sportsman, and another individual is referred to as a follower of “the game”—the reference is invariably to the game in which the horse and the bookmaker play the leading parts. ”

“ I strongly advise any one who contemplates betaking himself to the velt after big game to set about the enterprise in the true sporting spirit, making of it a really genuine contest between man and beast—a genuine duel—not an onslaught of the many upon the one. Many English writers support me in this, and they understand the claims of sport in this field as well as we Germans do at home. The English have instituted clearly defined rules which no sportsman may transgress. ”

“ By sports like these are all their cares beguil’d, The sports of children satisfy the child; ”

“ Good sportsmen, plenty of game, lots of beaters, everything organized properly, and an effective tally of results. I think we all enjoyed ourselves in the matter of sport; and as the political result was absolute unanimity of purpose and intention, there could be no possible cause of complaint. ”

“ But if it ain't his bloomin' fault for his sport-'ating 'umbug, I'm blowed.
Sport? Sport's in the blood of a gentleman! Cocktails ain't fly to the fun
Of landing a bit off a pal. Lor! a bet, on a 'orse or a gun,
Mykes friendship and life reglar flavoursome! 'Ow could your true sportsman care
For a drive through green lanes to the Derby without a small flutter when there? ”

“ The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development of the man's moral nature. ”

“ The place of physical training and of games in education, the place of athletics in our daily life and in our national life, are questions of present importance to us all, and in considering these questions we cannot fail to learn something from the athletic history of a nation which for a time at least succeeded in reconciling the rival claims of body and of mind, and immortalized this result in its art. ”

“ The professional sportsmen, which were such a curious feature of your day, we have nothing answering to, nor are the prizes for which our athletes contend money prizes, as with you. Our contests are always for glory only. ”

“ The invalid will here find a home in his sojourn, where he will meet with some of the advantages which distinguish the more cultivated circles of northern society.
The sportsman, with his line and gun, can satisfy his largest desires in the way of game and angling. ”

“ Oh, I don’t know but that she is in some of the things she does. She goes in for things that most of the young women do not. She rides, fences, drives tandems and four-in-hands, shoots, is gymnastic, and boxes—in fact, she goes in for all sorts of out-door sports. ”

“ Let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a smile, leaving our losings with a shrug. ”

“ We have seen the same growth of competition, the same hero-worship of the athlete, the same publicity and prominence given to sport out of all proportion to its deserts, the same tendency to specialization and professionalism. Sport has too often 6become an end in itself. The hero-worship of the athlete tempts men to devote to selfish amusement the best years of their lives, and to neglect the true interests of themselves and of their country. The evil is worse with us, because our games have not the practical value as a military training which Greek sports had. ”

“ There was nothing artificial or unnatural about their training: the careful dieting, the elaborate massage, the rules for exercise and sleep introduced by later trainers were unknown. The trainers of those days confined themselves to actual athletics, to the art of boxing or wrestling especially, and the athletes owed their strength to a healthy, vigorous, out-of-door life. ”

“ But shout and play with ball and bat,
Or dance with maidens fair;
Play tennis, cricket, kiss-in-the-ring,
Rounders or golf or catch,
Play baseball, rounders—anything, But please don’t fight and scratch.
Run quarter miles, or hurdle race,
Jump high or low or wide;
Try football tricks, both drop and place,
Join us in seek and hide.
But please don’t squabble, dear boys,
It isn’t nice to squall;
It looks so bad, makes such a noise,
It quite upsets us all. ”

“ Bride Street, E.C., is full of information indispensable to racing men and to athletes, containing, as it does, a mine of facts relating to the turf, to cricket, football, billiards, athletics, rowing, lawn tennis, boxing and swimming. Racing occupies the bulk of the Almanac, and the information bearing on horses, their performances, form and prospects, is well worth careful study. ”