Sermons, Addreses and Lectures (Themes, A-Ch) -- Athletics

ATHLETIC BANQUET

CD

Some rude enough to question my qualifications..
Gross snickers-- "Ask his wife.. her bowling average
higher." My reply, simply, "Chivalry not dead".

Heard ^rude whispers about balls bouncing off chest
li&e buckshot . .Some hold against me fact that 14-yr.
nephew knocked me out of tennis tournament. Again I
reply, simply my way of bridgning the generation gap,
We really great champions must give younger lads a
chance, boys like S. Moffett, 0. BalSom. Younger set

This mature, unselfish attitude toward sports came
at early age. I was 3* ©u k. Anyway, the yr my bro-
ther suddenly turned out to be bigger than I. Where-
upon with infant selfishness he began to take advantc
"S fights because he has to; I because I like to".

Such experiences would have crushed anyone but a
true champion, which I guess is why I was asked toni^
Coach asked me to add "All I am, owe to coaches".

(Or, not to say that? Can't hear since bashed my ear
with tennis racket serving.)

Fortunate indeed to have man like 0. as coach. A
living legend, ^ut there was one football game he'd
like to forget. Everything went wrong. His fumbled]
they recovered; they fumbled, they recovered. And f
referees against him. Penalty, penalty. Mad, he holla
out- -on 1st down ’--Kick. They’ll penalize you for
anything else. Referee came over: "Coaching, sidelirJ
Cost you 10 yds." B. : "Enow-nothing so-and-so. That
proves what kind of referee. Coaching sidelines diifye.
yut , Jieteree, "listen d, for kind of coaching you'rf-i
doing, its only 10 yards."

Incidentally, n women's side, I overheard Coach
Ericsson forget basketball and try to tell girls how
to bowl. "Careful not to knock down all pins with ■
first call, or they'll take second throw away from yc|

As I was saying, its coaching like that that makes
great champions like me.

1 reaUy

Athletics = 2 2 2

CP

I want to take issue with 2 athletic myths, widely
believed, but dangerously misleading. 1-the myth of
the bad guys, the other, myth of v-ood o-uys. Both fa Is

The first, the myth of the bad mays, we owe to Leo
Durocher: "Nice guys always lose". He put it into
words, but he spoke for a lot of people who think
goodness and guts don't go together, and that in
athletics, where winning is what counts, the tough,
rough old tobacco-chewing veteran who knows how to
shave the rules and flash the spikes will always edtee
out the lily-pure, the tender conscience. That's
what separates men, boys; pros, amateurs. You've got
to be willing to play dirty to win. That's the image
many have of real athletics, where they play for keep
not for fun. Is it true? Many a beginner has thot
so. When 16-yr. Bob Feller came to Cleveland Indians
ft so innocent he felt he had. to have some dirty ha^it
'to mark him as a pro, not a baby. He tried chawing-
tobacco, but couldn't stand it, so he chewed licorice
instead, hopping people would think it was tobacco.

I Then he grew up and found out that it was his fast j
i ball, not tobacco that made him a pro, and he gave up
Lthe licorice.

New anyone can think of examples of champions who
won by playing dirty. But when it comes down to the
finals, the real champions, most of those never quite
make the grade. Durocher was an is a great coach- -
but not the greatest. I won't try to pick the
greatest, but when they pick him, one who'll be way
ahead of Durocher* in the running will be Branch
Rickey, a nice guy who didn't lose. A man so honest
and fair that all by himself he made organized baseba
break down the race barrier and take in J. Robinson.
He was that kind of a nice guy, and he also managed
to win more often than Durocher, in spite of th<= h'ca

fttilet

Put
drivii
Bow s
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Wooc€
loutl
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ny ’*<
"To !
when
aba;
is '(
day (
True,
in '(
shoo-
lose1
a 101
It W!
char;
wroti

So

a ha
disa
don1
shou

S.p.

life

Ho
ones
had
it h

Or take basketball. For Coach of Year, '69 was a
race between Rupp (Ky.) and J. Wooden (UCLA). I
got an inside picture of the race last month in the
US. Christian Conference, in Poconos, hard to cet to,
so they sent a driver to take me around. When I firs
saw him I wondered how he could curl up in car--6'9" •

"~ut too short . .Against Jacksonf ille , all 3 of their
forwards were taller than I." He was Steve Patterson
and I should have recognized him, for his picture was
on Newsweek cover that' week for winning Natl. Champs.

end

that

mi

The

repe

fcip

the

arre

free

iou

not

&

A th le 1 1 c s - 3 3

Put wasn't he too nice to be a champion? After all
driving a missionary around for a Chri? tian conference!
How square can you get? I was Interested when he be-
gan comparing the two great coaches of '69, Rupp and
Wooden. Rupp is a blustering, hard-drinking, dirty-
mouthed nice-guys-never-win type. And

he won so consistently that he'll go down in baseball

Wooden? Just the opposite. "John!
so square he's divisible by 4" (Jim Murray )|
is something you do with a shovel, and

when he says
always wears

history. What about
ny Wooden,

"To him, 'dig'

its cool’ he

A3

a shirt and tie, and his worst

oe

«P

means the sun isn’t out, nei

swear-worc

is "Gracious sakes" . He even goes to church every Sum
day of his life. A born loser, if there ever was one
True, he won when he had Alcindor, who couldn't. But
in '69, with Alcindor gone, coach-pf-the-year was a
shoo-in for a rnan like Rupp, because "nice guys always|
lose". Besides, who should take Alcindor’ s place but
a 100 % nice guy, a real S.S. type, Steve Patterson.

It was the kiss of death. But they won. National
champs. No. 1. "And Johnny Wooden," the columnists
wrote, "is the best basketball coach in the world,"

So forget the bad guy myth. Nice guys don't lost.

around

i

and

Now if you expect me to turn
a hard pitch for the good guys, you're going
disappointed. Like "Nice guys always win". xl .w
don't, an§t more than they always lose. Or perhaps I
should stand up and tell you to get wi th it for old

come up with
to be
They

ca

S . P . S
life.

No,
ones .

because if you win in sports, you can win in

the good guy myths are
Life .lust doesn't fit

just as bad
the slogans

had its share in producing leaders of men,
it has produced its bums and deadbeats and

as the other
Sports has
women- -but
cheaters

end gamblers, too, I don't think Bobby Moore stole
that bracelet. Have you been following World Cup news|
The British, possibly best in the world, are out to
repeat, and may very well be best team in world. Theil
■ star and captain is Bobby Moore, Now, just beforel
the championship matches in Mexico, he gets himself
arrested in Colombia for stealing a

.bracelet .
see ,

lou

not

he may
necessa r i ly

-l don’t think he did it

$i3C0

But

emera Id
he might

have

be a champion at soccer, but that doe's
make him a champion in life.

Do you 1-mow bow Cleveland Indians got their name?
From a great player of the 1890s, an Indian. So
good whole country idolized. The greatest. Then sud-
denly he wasn't so great. Baseball he could take,
but not life. rirst drink, then woesen, then debt
and scandal and worse--and he died at ^0, a tramp
cadging for drinks back on the reservation.

No, I’m sorry but I can’t guarantee that if you
just win for SFS, you're a winner and a leader for
life. But I can do something better. I can tell
you that if you go at athletics in the

right way, with the right perspective, win or lose ,
you’re off to a good start for life.

Even if you lose? Yes. Suppose you try and fail.
There was a cadet at West Point who had his heart
set on varsity football, but the best he could do wa
2nd-strinp substitute. Then came day the long, gray
line was to meet its old rival of those days, Jim
Thorpe and his Carlisle Indians. And toward middle
of game, Army's star and hero was knocked out, and
coach sent in his 2nd-string substitute. His dreams
were coming true. His chance at last. Then the
bubble broke, the cookie crumbled. On first play he
broke his leg. They carried him off field, and he
never played football again. A failure. But today
no one remembers the name of the star, the hero of
that year's Army team. Forgotten him. But no one
wbo doesn ' t know the name of the failure-- the 2nd
string substi tute--Dwlght D. Eisenhower, 3^th pr*es.
of the U.S.

You see, win or lose in sports, the lessons you
learn from athletics, if you really learn them, can
help you all your life. And I’m only going to men tic
one, and then quit.

When Branch Rickey was asked what makes a good
athlete great, he used to answer: the conviction
that what you’re doing is worthwhile, and the con-
suming desire to be good at it. And he illustrated
it by comparing two ball-players, a boy named

Walker who had all the physical attributes to be a i
champion, and Ty Cobb who was a champion.

1

Athletics 5' S' 6

Ty Cobb, he says, once beat his St. Louis team
in the 11th inning in a most unusual manner, nothing
like it in the record books — a home run, as it were,
without even hitting the ball. Cobb got on first on
bails, and ''then scored the winning run x\rithout ariothe
ball being pitched. By sheer adventure and skill he
forced two wild throws by St. Louis players — suddenly
darting for second, keeping on unexpectedly for third
his characteristic ten-foot, slide, and he was heme
before St. Louis knew what was happening.

, In that same game, Walker, on Branch Rickey’s team
hit what should have been a home run, and was thrown
1 out at third. He hit a hard line drive, watched it
for a minute, instead of running, which cost him 20
feet, took too wide a turn and lost another 30 foet,
then thinking his ball was over the fence he slowed
.r down to a jog, only to have the ball bounce back into
", the hands of the fielder. He speeded up too late,
slid into the wrong side of third, and fcaxg right int<
, the ball in the hands of the third baseman. But if
he had played it right, he’d have been far enough a
rc head to score a home run standing up.

If

"What was the difference between Cobb and Walker",
asks Rickey. "They had the same age, weight, height
and running speed. Walker had an even stronger arm
at bat then Cobb. Yet one was a champion of champion
the other never came to anything. The difference,"
said Rickey, "is that Cobb wanted to do something so
much that nothing else mattered. Walker only punched
the clock" (Faith Made Them Champions, p. 3)*

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t 1

;

AfHLSiXOJ & LIFE

It is a privilege indeed to be invited to an athletic banquet
like this, My wife, who is entirely too literal about things like stop-
watches and bowling averages, professed to be surprised tnat 1 was invited*
MYou at an athletic banquet, M she said* and coiiupseu. in a fit of giggling*
But it would be false modesty to pretend tnat it was any surprise to me.

As one of the great natural Ithletes of our nay x feel very much at home at
an affair like Lais, i mingle naturally and unaffectedly with champions.

I don* t want to brag about my' past records: long dong- po arid back by sedan
chair in less than four hours ( 1 wore cut ten relays of chair-bearers on
that one}; and here's one that will stand forever: two hours and four

minutes from East Gate to South Gate through Jity Hall plaza at rush hour
by' taxi. 1 fainted from air-pollution as 1 crossed the finish line, but
I made it.

But these triumphs of the past din.f t satisfy me. i am still a
practicing athlete. Jogging. And I wish jileen would throw away chat
stopwatch, the keeps telling visitors that i io the mile now in 20 minutes —
not counting the rest stops. Sheer slander.

To bo ; a little mere truthful, i must admit that I really never
have bean able to get athletics cut of zoy blood, beginning back with tennis
and soccer in high school and college;, and now in my old age getting bitten
with the bowling bug. I've learned a fewl few lessons in the process, too.

I won't go quite as far as Bart Starr. In a tribute to his coach,
the late Vince Lombardi cf the Groan Day Packers, Starr says that he finds
in sports wthc values that .:ad ..A jricu gr at: it td toughness, commitment

to cell save e, determination to vin, pride, loyalty, self- sacrifice,
dedication and religion," ( .1. Get tury, Apr 1, *72, p. 389* quoted by R.J.
Bueter) He covers just about the whole sat erf ront \rith that list, and I
am not quite ready to credit athletics for everything good and pure and
beautiful in life. But Starr is right in this, at least. Sports doc s
teach some mighty important lessons about real life.

Host of theta are obvious lessons, lessons that anyone with an
ounce of intelligence should Ionov already. But hov often it takes the
sharp self- di sclo cure, the moment of truth that cones only from ope::.,
intense athletic competition to ; drive the lessons home, and make us admit
to truths we might otherwise have avoided.

1. Life hard work and practice, for instance. Thit* 3 the
first lesson of the athletic life. It is also the lessen we would most
like to avoid. Everybody knows that there is no substitute for training
and conditioning in athletics. Every beefy knows it, but almost everybody
xjcuIv... rather txy to make It on natural ability aland. Et Joesn't work.

Jim .yan has the best runner* s legs in the world. They made hi® world
champion in the mile at an incredible 3 minutes, 51»1 seconds. But it took
more than great natural legs to do that. Ryan runs from 100 to 115 miles
practice jv exy reek. 115 miles a week, —just to run one mile when it
really counts. Practic ei

Some people say that Ben Hogan was the most perfect golfer that

Athletics

2

ever playea the game. Others like Amie Palmer and Jack . icklaus have had
more powerful game, but no one could match little Ben Hogan for precision
of swing and perfect timing. It wasn't a natural ability, though. Hogan
didn't have a natural swing. He did, however, know how to "or , an 1 he
understood the imoortance of detail. "He'd even memorize the grain of the
grass on every course he played, if it would help his game,” said one of
his caddies, once. Since ne did ntt have a natural ’wring, he know he would
have to a ev elope one, and ne worked out s system which he called "muscle
mmoiy"-— memorizing a stroke muscle by muscle through hotars cf solitary
practice. His theorv was this: if you oractic^ one shot lor.;, enough, and

witn enough concentration, your muscles Till eventually simply memorize the
stroke so that it becomes almost automatic. And that was how Hogan, "the
golfing machine" as they called him, was bom. One reporter wrote cf him,
ttHe swings with the business-like authority of a machine stamping out
bottle tops.'* (J. Sherrill, in Faith Made Them Champions, p. 92~5)

put hard work ana practice are not enough — whether in athletics
or in ij.jLe. x have seen television rent ays of the Portland Mile of two or
three years ago. mere was Jim Ryan, world chmnion, 115 miles of practice
every week, the best running legs in the world of trr* sports— and he was
running aead last. So far* behind that he finally committed the unforgiveable
sin ana simply cropped out. He didn't finish his race. Why? He had the
natural ability, the training, the hara work, the practice. Why did he
quit/ He haa lost his motivation. "1 just osyched out,” he said.

So the second lesson about life that I have learned fro 1 sports
is the importance of goti^ation.

Branch Rickey, who broke the color barrier in baseball by
bringing Jackie rk>b\nsoo into the majors, and who coached some of the
greatest teams in baseball history, was once asked what makes the
difference between a champion and an also-ran. "The difference?", he
said. "The champion is the one who has 'a consuming 1 eel re to be great'".
And ne told a story about Ty Cobb to illustrate it.

fears ago, he said, when I was managing the St. Louis Browns
1 lost a game to Detroit in the last half of the 11th inning. And I lost
it in a very unusual way— nothing like it in the record books: a homerun,

as it were, without even hitting the ball. Gobb «*ot on first base on four
balls, and jnen scored one winning run without another boll being pitched.
By sheer adventure and skill he forced two wild throws by St. Louis players.
First, he suddenly took off from first for second with the . speed for which
he was famous, then instead of stopping at second, he unexpectedly just-
kept running on for third and made it in a roaring ton -foot. slid©, then
in the dust and confusion jumped uo and took off fo1** home before St, Louis
quite knew what was happening,

in that same game, Rickey said, a olayer named talker on Rickey' s
team did just the opposite. He hit what should have been an in side- the-
park homerun, and was thrown out at third. He hit a hard line drive.

Athletics - 3

watched it for a minute instead of running (that ~ost him 20 feet), took too
wide a Tfcwr turn at first (and lost another 30 feet), then, thinking his ball
was over the fence he slowed do’ o to a jog, only to have the ball hit the top
inch of th** fence and bounce back. He speeded up too late, si*d i±ito the
wrong side of third, right into the ball in the hadda of the third baseman.

But if he had played it right he’d have been far enough ahead to score a
run standing up. “Wirt was the difference between Ty Cobb and Walker,* asks
Rickey. “They bad the same age, weight, height and running speed. Walker
even had a stronger arm at bat than Cobb. Yet one was a champion of Mi
a la 1 >i<M a. The other never came to »,* said liickey,

"is that Cobb wanted to do son ebbing ro much that not'iin0 else mattered."
Walker only punched the clock". (Faith Made Than Champions, p. 3)

The difference was motivation. And in life, as in sports, find
something supremely worth doing, then do it with all your heart and mind
and soul. It is the only real :ny to live. Ar. ything else is only "punching
the clock" and going through tho motions. It’s not living.

One x-txn final lesson. wc,n can always dz hotter. do matter how
good you may be now, don’t think you can stop working and coast the rest of
the way. Coasting only takes you down hill.

This weekend they vd.ll be mniing the Indianapolis j00 "back home
in Indiana" where my father come from. I can remanber when the fastest
time in the Indy 500 was 74 miles an hour. Suppose they had stopped there.

?4 miles an hour! "hew! That*'’ fast enough! I s it. Today any old beat
up Volkswagen can do better than that. You con p3r;ays do better. In 1962,
only ten years ago, the winner at Indianapolis first "ierccd tho IjO mile
per hour barrier, twice as fast as 74 ^.p.h. Last year the time was 1?8 mph —
100 mph faster than -when I was a boy. Bit they can do still better. Last
week Bobby Unser in hi* Dan Ourney Kagbe, a four- cylinder turbo-c.harged
OFfenhausex’, whipped through his !0~mile, h*-lap qualifying trials at 196
miles an hour. '*>en the slowest of the 33 who qualified beat last year* s
record 178 m.o. h.

You can do better next year than this. And you’d batter. I don’t
care how well you’ve done at S. F, S.— athl otic s, grades, activities, you name
it— you can do still better. In fact, if you don’t, you ray not even be in
the race next year. Like the Indianapolis *oo, this year’s record is likely
to be next-year* s dropout line.

But to keep on doing better, you are going to need something more
than natural ability, more than hard work, something errs mar'- that high
motivation. Let me elo se by suggesting this on op cent'Tioe as the; ; i.bisj
a motto for life for sport: «m»cn and *port,mx>roon. Tt tells of the "one
thing more" that everybody needs.

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they
shall mount up with wings as «agl es; they shall run and not be vraary;

walk and not faint* • (Isa. 40*31). It is the Bible’s credo
Ter athieues.

ATHLETICS & LIFE

May, 1972

It is a privilege indeed to be invited to an athletic banquet
like this. My wife, who is entirely too literal about things like stop-
watches and bowling averages, professed to be surprised that I was invited.
"You at an athletic banquet," she said, and collapsed in a fit of giggling.
But it would be false modesty to pretend that it was any surprise to me.

As one of the great natural tthletes of our day I feel very much at home at
an affair like this. I mingle naturally and unaffectedly with champions.

I -dan* t --want -to brag aborat^flv past records: long dong- po and back by sedan

chair in less than four hours,! I wore out ten relays of chair-bearers on
that one)j J^nd here’ s one that will stand forever: two hours and four

minutes from East Gate to South Gate through City Hall plaza at rush hour
by taxi. I fainted from air- pollution as I crossed the finish line, but
I made it.

-M Bert'the^e triumphs of the past .don't satisfy me. I am still a
practicing atffl^e.^ J^ggiSSg. ' And I wis£ Eileea| jgjqialcl throw away that
stopwatch. She keeps telling visitors that i do the mile now in 20 minutes—
not counting the rest stops. Shee-g” slander. A (u* Lyif'

X I t U*,, L* CrfVjLlA* , lij a -w v^j T 4. '' I***- . ^3 Vt\A&h. 3 ' N-df/ ,

To be ;a little more truthful, 1 must admit that I really never
have been able to get athletics out of my blood, beginning back with tennis
arid soccer in high school and hcollegte, and now in my old age getting bitten
with the bowling bug. I've learned a £bx! few lessons in the process, too.

I won't go quite as far as Bart Starr. In a tribute to his coach,
the late Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers, Starr says that he finds
in sports "the values that rade. . America great: mental toughness, commitment

to excellence, determination to win, pride, loyalty, self-sacrifice,
dedication and religion." (Xn Century, Apr 5» ’72, p. 339. quoted by R.J.
Bueter) He covers just about the whole waterfront with that list, and I
am not quite^ready to credit athletics for everything good and pure and
beautiful in life. But Starr is right in this, at least. Sports does
teach some mighty important lessons about real life.

Most of them are obvious lessons, lessons that anyone with an
ounce of intelligence should know already. But how often it takes the
sharp self- disclosure, the moment of truth that comes only from open,
intense athletic competition to ; drive the lessons home, and make us admit
to truths we might otherwise have avoided,

1. Life hard work and practice, for instance. Th&t' s the
first lesson of the athletic life. It is also the lesson we would most
like to avoid. Everybody knows that there is no substitute for training
and conditioning in athletics. Everybody knows it, but almost everybody
would rather try to make it on natural ability alond. It doesn' t work.

Jim Ryan has the best runner* s legs in the world. They made him world
champion in the mile at an incredible 3 minutes, 51*1 seconds. But it took
more than great natural legs to do that. Ryan runs from 100 to 115 miles
practice every week, 115 miles a week, — just to run one mile when it
really counts. PracticeJ

Some people say that Ben Hogan was the most perfect golfer that

Athletics

2

ever played the game. Others like Amie Palmer and Jack Nicklaus have had
more powerful game, but no one could match little Ben Hogan for precision
of swing and perfect timing. It wasn’t a natural ability, though. Hogan
didn’t have a natural swing. He did, however, know how bo worx, and

bance of detail. "He’d even Memorize the grain of the
grass on every course he played, if it would help his game," said one of
his caddies, once. Since he did n<bt have a natural swing, he knew he would
have to dev elope one, and he worked out a system which he called "muscle
memory"-- memorizing a stroke muscle by muscle through hokics of solitary
praciice. His theory was this: if you practice one shot long enough, and

with enough concentration, your muscles wall eventually simply memorize the
stroke so that it becomes almost automatic. And that was how Hogan, "the
golfing machine" as they called him, was bom. One reporter wrote of him,

"He swings with the business-like authority of a machine stamping out
bottle tops." (J. Sherrill, in Faith Hade Them Champions, p. 92-5)

%. But hard work and practice are not enough — whether in athletics
or in life. 1 have, seen television replays of the Portland Mile of two or
three years ago. There was Jim Ryan, world champion, 115 miles of practice
every week, the best running legs in the world of ±sp sports — and he was
running dead last. So far behind that he finally committed the unforgiveable
sin and simply dropped out. He didn't finish his race. Why? He had the
natural ability, the training, the hard work, the practice. Why did he
quit? He had lost his motivation. "I just psyched out," he said.

So the second lesson about life that I have learned from sports
is the importance of motivation.

Branch Rickey, who broke the color barrier in baseball by
bringing Jackie Robinson into the majors, and who coached some of the
greatest teams in baseball history, was once asked what makes the
difference between a champion and an also-ran. "The difference?", he
said. "The champion is the one who has ’a consuming desire to be great'".

And he told a story about Ty Cobb to illustrate it.

Years ago, -he said, when I was managing the St. Louis Browns
i lost a game to Detroit in the last half of the 11th inning. And I lost
it in a very unusual way — nothing like it in the record books: a homerun,

as it were, without even hitting the ball. Cobb got on first base on four
balls, and then scored the vanning run without another ball being pitched.

By sheer adventure and skill he forced two wild throws by St. Louis players.
First, he suddenly took off from first for second with the’, speed f<»^ wbi-eh Ll : .b,
he was famous, then instead of stopping at second, he unexpectedly
kept running f on for third and made it in a roaring ten-foot slide; then
in the dust and confusion jumped up and took off for home before St. Louis
quite knew what was happening, ft ^ ... v

In that same game, Rickey said, a player named Walker on Rickey’ s
team did just the opposite. He hit what should have been an inside-the-
park homerun, and was thrown out at third. He hit a hard line drive,

Athletics

3

watched it for a minute instead of running (that cost him 20 feet), took too
wide a 3±nr turn at first (and lost another 3° feet), then, thinking his ball
was over the fence he slowed down to a jog, only to have the ball hit the top
inch of the fence and bounce back. He speeded up too late, slid into the
wrong side of third, right into the ball in the harids of the third baseman.

But if he had played it right he* d have been far enough ahead to score a
run standing up. "What was the difference between Ty Cobb and Walker," asks
Rickey. "They had the same age, weight, height and running speed. Walker
even had a stronger arm at bat than Cobb. Yet one was a champion of Isk
champions. The other never came to anything. The difference, " said Rickey,

"is that Cobb wanted to do something so much that nothing else mattered."

Walker only punched the clock". (Faith Made Thera Champions, p. 3)

tvnww ' < 44 «, vvt>. '■*'■■■ VJ, UJawowi Jfu, tuA-fc 4- a (e*. itu xv^f ~htS)i

The difference was motivation. And in life, as in sports, find
something supremely worth doing, then do it with all your heart and mind
and soul. It is the only real way to live. Anything else is only "punching
the clock" and going through the motions. It* s not living.

54 W<ta 'fc.i beir VxAtt ’••*r l>'e *• la -

One $£zk final lesson. You can alway s do better. No matter how
good you may be now, don’ t think you can stop working and coast the rest of
the way. Coasting only takes you down hill.

This weekend they will be running the Indianapolis 5^0 "back home
in Indiana" where my father came from. I can remember when the fastest
time in the Indy 500 was 74 miles an hour. Suppose they had stopped there.

74 miles an hour! Whew! That's fast enough! Is it. Today any old beat
up Volkswagon can do better than that. You can always do better. In 1962,
only ten years ago, the winner at Indianapolis first pierced the 150 mile
per hour barrier, twice as fast as 74 m.p.h. Last year the tine was 178 mph —
100 mph faster than when I was a boy. But they can do still better. Last
week Bobby Unser in his Dan Gurney Eagle, a four- cylinder turbo- charged
OFfenhauser, whipped through his 10-mile, 4-lap qualifying trials at 196
miles an hour. Even the slowest of the 33 who qualified beat last year' s
record 178 m.p.h.

You can do better next year than this. And you'd better. I don't
care how well you've done at 3.F.S. — athletics, grades, activities, you name
it — you can do still better. In fact, if you dcnf t, _ ou may not even be in
the race next year. Like the Indianapolis 500, this year's record is likely
to be next-year' s drop-out line.

But to keep on doing better, you are going to need something more
than natural ability, more tha^haiyd wprk, rso^.et^ing ever ore that high
motivation, . ^
a motto for life
thing more" th
-ter

Xtsmen and sportswomen. It tells of the "one

hi at everybody needs!-? «

uej.i.5 01 une one

)pr*,

4 7 • V » . .

-j fWo S- Liif -

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they
shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint", (Isa. 40:31). It is the Bible’s credo
for athletes.