Quote of the Day | August 20, 2008: Sports Is Socioeconomic

Michael MacCambridge's 2004 America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation:

When asked about the modern game, Unitas told the truth as he saw it. "It's become show business -- high-five, low-five, dancing on the sidelines, slapping, you know, jumping in the stands. And television promotes it. And they're great players -- take nothing away from anybody as far as the players are concerned. But all that's not necessary. Don't know what to do about it. I mean that's the way it is." Though he disagreed with their means of expression, he was careful not to seem resentful. "I don't blame the kids for getting the money," he said. "It's there to get. I mean, first time that you falter or you have a bad year, you're out of there. The owner doesn't care -- there's no loyalty lost in the National Football League."

Unitas had played in a period before football players became millionaires, but even if he'd been independently wealthy, work seemed embedded in his personality. He rose above the poverty of his youth, but never forgot it. Upon losing to Unitas and the Colts in 1965, the Vikings' coach Norm Van Brocklin explained the result by saying, "We should've won, but Unitas is a guy who knows what it was to eat potato soup seven days a week as a kid. That's what beat us."

What was true in Unitas' day was equally true in the modern age. "If one truism ever existed in sports," said Giants' longtime GM George Young, "it's that hungry players are better players. Sports is socioeconomic." At the turn of the twenty-first century, football would become, more than ever before, a story about the tenacious children of unemployment, poverty, and divorce fighting their way to a better life. Unitas and many of those who remained in the game recognized the timeless quality of the hunger of the dispossessed, that the players who made it to the pro level were often the ones most desperate to succeed.

That presented new challenges for teams, not just in interviewing but managing players. "You have to have the foresight nowadays to know where the problems are coming from, and you have to avoid them," said Bill Parcells, whose teams were noted for having a stronger surveillance and security presence than almost any other team. "It is difficult because the owners have never tried to survive in this world. This is a different culture you're dealing with here. These kids coming out of gangs, the streets, this is a whole different culture."

Tags: Michael MacCambridge, America's Game