Some of the best things ever said were never said. Or they might have been said but were attributed to someone who didn’t say them.
Both Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill get credit for saying, “Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
That phrase never appeared until 1953 when it was used in a book on public speaking. Neither Lincoln nor Churchill said it.
College football analyst Kirk Herbstreit’s new book includes a quote attributed to legendry Ohio State coach Woody Hayes.
The Ohio State-Michigan football rivalry is fierce. Herbstreit writes about the memorable 1968 matchup between the teams.
Woody’s Ohio State Buckeyes scored late in the fourth quarter to go ahead 50-7 in one of the series’ rare blowouts. Then Hayes went for a two-point conversion.
In the book, Herbstreit says Hayes was asked after the game why he went for two when his team had such a huge lead. “Because I couldn’t go for three,” Woody was quoted as saying.
That’s a great response that has been repeated numerous times, but researchers have never found it in news accounts from the game. They say he went for two because his centers were hurt and couldn’t snap the ball for an extra point attempt…
Northwestern athletic director George Doherty had an amusing remark during the Demons’ 1975 football game against Arkansas State at Jonesboro.
A long-time coach, Doherty had just been promoted to athletic director and was sitting by me in the pressbox.
Arkansas State, called the Indians at the time before changing its mascot to Red Wolves, scored four quick touchdowns to go up 28-0 in the second quarter.
Every time the team scored, a student in Native American attire bolted out of a teepee in the end zone on horseback, circled the field and went back into the teepee.
After the fourth trip around the field, Coach Doherty leaned over to me and said, “If we don’t start playing better defense, they’re going to have to get a fresh horse.”…
My seven-year-old granddaughter Charlee Ann likes for me to tease her. When she got off the school bus one day last week, she couldn’t wait to show me that she had lost a front tooth.
I said, “Charlee, when I saw you yesterday, I didn’t know how you could be so ugly but now that the tooth is missing you got even uglier.” She said, “Things can always get worse.”
That’s certainly not an original quote. There’s an old children’s book entitled “It Could Always Be Worse.” But I loved Charlee Ann’s response…
Bill Keefe had been sports editor of The Times Picayune in New Orleans for 50 years when I went to work there in the 1960s.
I worked on the state news desk and other areas of the paper and rarely saw him.
When I moved to sports, guys in the department told me that if our fiery editor Mr. Healy ever asked about Mr. Keefe I should say, “His hat and coat are over there, so he’s around here somewhere.”
A few days later, Mr. Healy came to the sports desk and asked if I had seen Mr. Keefe. I told him, “His hat and coat are over there, so he’s around here somewhere.”
Mr. Healy exploded. His face got red, and he yelled at the top of his voice, “That damn hat and coat have been hanging there for 30 years. Don’t tell me he’s around here somewhere because his hat and coat are here.”
The guys on the sports desk got a good laugh at my expense after Mr. Healy left, and I got a lesson in not always quoting what someone else tells me.
Mr. Healy came by a few times after that and asked if I had seen Mr. Keefe. I would just shake my head and laugh, and he would too.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES