SPORTS QUOTES

It all made for a mixed first impression. When I watched training with the new draftees, I could see this was an AFL team with some seriously good players. But the infrastructure around the team was relatively scant, felt amateurish and was not what I expected from an AFL club. It was all by virtue of not having a home; we had a nomadic existence in those formative years. At that point most Victorian clubs too still had to be satisfied with unprofessional working environments at suburban grounds, but it is fair to say that Fremantle was at the extreme end of the scale.

Children and adults alike need to experience how rewarding it is to work at the edge of their abilities. Resilience is the product of agency: knowing that what you do can make a difference. Many of us remember what playing team sports, singing in the school choir, or playing in the marching band meant to us, especially if we had coaches or directors who believed in us, pushed us to excel, and taught us we could be better than we thought was possible. The children we reach need this experience. Athletics, playing music, dancing, and theatrical performances all promote agency and community.

I was never good at sports. For a while I played Little League baseball, but I had very little interaction with the actual ball. I heard a lot of yelling about the ball, and I occasionally sensed that something--which I assumed was the ball--had just whizzed past me. But I almost never had any direct personal contact with the ball, which turns out to be crucial to succeeding in many athletic endeavors.

Secretariat has just tied the world record for nine furlongs. He is running now as if in contempt of the clock. Those watching him begin to comprehend the magnitude of the effort. He is moving beyond the standard by which the running horse has been traditionally judged, not tiring, not leg weary, not backing up a stroke, dimensionless in scope, and all the time Turcotte asking nothing of him.

Anybody could’ve heard. What if there’d been a recruiter nearby? Or worse, a reporter? Fuck.” Straightening, Mitch downed the rest of the beer, then set the glass on the floor. Cody’s eyebrows pulled down and he rubbed Mitch’s arm. “Because you can’t be gay in sports.