Sunday, November 16, 2008

'When Chic Harley Got Away'

"The years of football playing reach back a long, long way,
And the heroes are a hundred who have worn the red and gray;
You can name the brilliant players from the year the game began,
You can rave how this one punted and praise how that one ran;
You can say that someone's plunging was the best you ever saw,
You can claim the boys now playing stage a game without a flaw --
But admit there was no splendor in all the bright array
Like the glory of the going when Chic Harley got away."
(from the poem by James Thurber)

"If you never saw him run with a football, we can't describe it to you. It wasn't like Red Grange or Tom Harmon or anybody else. It was kind of a cross between music and cannon fire, and it brought your heart up under your ears." (Bob Hooey, longtime sports editor of the Ohio State Journal, describing Chic Harley, Ohio State football player from 1916-1919 and the school's first All-American, an honor he won three times)