I Decided I Wasn't Going

Friendships Born On The Field Of Athletic Strife Are The Real Gold Of Competition. Awards Become Corroded, Friends Gather No Dust.

In The Space Of Less Than Seven Days, I Attended A Track Meet In Boston, Flew From There To Bowling Green For The National Jaycees, Then To Rochester For The Blind, Buffalo For Another Track Meet, New York To Shoot A Film Called The Black Athlete, Miami For Ford Motor Company, Back Up To New York For 45 Minutes To Deliver A Speech, Then Into L. A. For Another The Same Night.

One Chance Is All You Need.

To A Sprinter, The Hundred-yard Dash Is Over In Three Seconds, Not Nine Or Ten. The First 'second' Is When You Come Out Of The Blocks. The Next Is When You Look Up And Take Your First Few Strides To Attain Gain Position. By That Time The Race Is Actually About Half Over. The Final 'second' - The Longest Slice Of Time In The World For An Athlete - Is That Last Half Of The Race, When You Really Bear Down And See What You're Made Of. It Seems To Take An Eternity, Yet Is All Over Before You Can Think What's Happening.

One Day Or Another Every Athlete Feels Like Taking It Easy. He Stops Trying To Exceed His Limits, And Thinks He Can Keep Winning Because Of His Lucky Star, Or The Bad Luck Of His Opponents. You Must Overcome This Negative Instinct, Which Affects All Of Us, And Which Is The Only Difference Between The Person Who Wins A Race, And Those Who Lose. This Is The Battle You Have To Fight Every Day Of Your Life.