Keeping Score

“Who Said That?” Department:

For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks—not that you won or lost—
But how you played the game.

The verse, so easily forgotten in the heat of athletic rivalries, was penned by Grantland Rice (1880-1854), one of America’s most respected sportswriters. Rice’s syndicated column, “The Sportlight,” made him widely famous during his later career. The Murfreesboro, TN, native and Vanderbilt University grad previously wrote for newspapers in Atlanta, Cleveland and New York.

It also was Rice who nicknamed the backfield of the 1924 college football championship team the “Four Horsemen of Notre Dame.” (Sports trivia: Who was Notre Dame's legendary coach that year?)