A biography for Steve Rushinhasn’t been written yet.
“All kingdoms look small through an airplane window - little dominions built on quicksand. But looking up from the ground, where most of us stand, they're rather impressive.”
“Humans had run barefoot for millennia, and some still preferred doing so in the modern Stone Age of the mid-20th century, when the handful of people running for exercise often wore whatever they happened to have on at the moment of inspiration.”
“I can't stand another night in a hotel. Just being away. You miss the kids.”
“I had almost nothing published until I had something published in 'Sports Illustrated.' I started there as a fact-checker two weeks after I got out of college and was there for almost 20 years.”
“What's the best baseball name of all time? Is it Champ Summers? Clyde Kluttz? Razor Shines? Scipio Spinks? Sibby Sisti? Creepy Crespi? Before you answer, consider that Coco Crisp is not even the game's top Coco, an honor retired by Coco Laboy.”
“Nouns are seldom improved by the modifier 'public.' Few of us, given a private alternative, prefer public restrooms or public transportation or public displays of affection.”
“A lot of people say they eat, drink, and sleep sports, but does anyone really do it, ingesting nothing but Dodger Dogs and Soda Shaqs and Greg Norman Zinfandels 24/7?”
“Hype is supposed to overpromise and underdeliver, not overpromise and overdeliver. Usually, it doesn't deliver at all - it takes your money and keeps your pizza.”
“Occasionally, Americans in large numbers are moved by a vanquished athlete's grief. Larry Bird with a towel over his head in 1979 comes immediately to mind. But more often, sports fans do the opposite - they delight in the desolation of a defeated archrival.”
“I turned 7 in 1973 and remember Bobby Riggs arriving at the Astrodome on a chariot pulled by showgirls before his 'battle of the sexes' tennis match against Billie Jean King.”
“I've been to all seven continents on assignment for 'SI.'”
“My wife is an Olympic gold medalist, WNBA All-Star, 'Jeopardy!' champion, and Rhodes Scholarship finalist who was sung to by President Clinton, sung about by Ludacris, and serenaded on 'Sesame Street' by a chorus of Muppets.”
“As a bald man who happens to play golf, or a golfer who happens to be bald, I'll never know the pleasures of a golf visor.”
“The Metrodome was built for football. Fans seated down the third-base line at a baseball game faced centerfield, so that they had to turn and look over their right shoulders to see home plate.”
“If you own face paint and a bulb horn and you're not a circus clown, you might be uncool.”
“Football, played at its highest level, is catastrophic. Even relatively minor afflictions are grotesque and bookworthy.”
“You never forget your first felony. Mine was mail tampering. As a hoops-crazed 13-year-old, I rifled through a new neighbor's mailbox to confirm that the occupant of the split-level on 98 1/2 Street in Bloomington, Minn., really was former Gophers basketball star Flip Saunders.”
“I'm a product of the 1970s.”
“Though we endow them with human features - heads, faces, heels, toes - golf clubs are profoundly inhuman tools.”
“Tough guys have to be tough. But tough guys don't have to be guys.”