Grantland Rice He Isn't

 I don't know when I became a fan of excellent sports writing. It must have been around 1956. I read the Des Moines Register and their Big Peach sports section avidly. In those days there were 10 or 12 outstanding writers who traversed the country covering sports events even if an Iowa team wasn't it it. These guys had a way to turn a phrase. I don't find this anymore except for a few. There's a sports writer out of Cedar Rapids Iowa who writes for their paper, The Gazetted. His name is Mike Hlas and he's a dandy.

Probably the best of the best, oh heck, there were many outstanding sports fellas years ago; Red Smith, Jim Murray, etc. Murray was so great he went blind and still practiced his craft. 

One of the best was Grantland Rice. He gained fame after covering a West Point-Notre Dame game:

“Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army football team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down on the bewildering panorama spread on the green plain below."

I happened to be reading, on my Smart Phone this morning a sports report on one of our local high school basketball teams. One of the kids scored 37 points in a game last night and is headed to Ohio University on a basketball scholarship after this season.

The guy who wrote the column made me laugh at his take on the kid. 

Ajay Sheldon (6'1 hybrid guard / Dublin Coffman / 2022): Sheldon is a cold blooded killer. Friday was the greatest example of that, as he put on an absolute show to power Dublin Coffman to a massive win, while handing rival Upper Arlington their first loss on the year.

I wonder how his parents feel knowing they have a 'cold-blooded killer sleeping in their house.

I'll cut the guy some slack.He's probably an 8th grader who spends most of his time on video games. You know, the killer kind.