How we cite our quotes: (Book)
Quote #7
Brooks wanted to abandon the traditional, linear, dump-and-chase style of hockey that had held sway in North America forever. He wanted to attack the vaunted Russians with their own game, skating with them and weaving with them, stride for high-flying stride. He wanted to play physical, un-yielding hockey, to be sure, but he also wanted fast, skilled players who would flourish on the Olympic ice sheet (which is fifteen feet wider than NHL rinks) and be able to move and keep possession of the puck and be in such phenomenal condition that they would be the fresher team at the end. A hybrid style, Brooks called it. (The Boys of Winter)
Man, Coach Brooks didn't want much, did he? Obviously, he took a lesson from the adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. No one had beaten the Russians at their own game, and the way to do that was to learn their game, and then improve upon it.
Quote #8
Where the British boys resembled Ulbrickson's was in strategy. They liked to do exactly what the Washington boys did so well. They excelled at sitting back but staying close, rowing hard but slow, pressuring their opponents into raising their stroke rates too high too soon, and then, when the other crews were good and fagged out, suddenly sprinting past them, catching them unawares, unnerving them, mowing them down. (The Boys in The Boat)
When strength and skill are evenly matched, the only thing left to determine superiority is strategy—and the American boys were in trouble if their strategy matched that of their main opponent… although we all know how that turned out.
Quote #9
From that crowded little red house in Clarksville, out of an extended family of twenty-two kids, from a childhood of illness and leg braces, out of a small historically black college that had no scholarships, from a country where she could be hailed as a heroine and yet denied lunch at a counter, Skeeter had become golden, sweeping the sprints in Rome. (Rome 1960)
Sometimes, the strength required to achieve incredible things has nothing to do with muscles, but strength of spirit and a determination to succeed. Wilma Rudolph (Skeeter, that is) overcame prejudice, poverty, and physical maladies that probably would've stopped anyone else.