Grantland Rice

Henry Grantland Rice (November 1, 1880 – July 13, 1954) was an American sportswriter and poet known as the "Dean of American Sports Writers". He coined the famous phrase that it was not important whether you “won or lost, but how you played the game.”

His writing was known for its elegance and published in newspapers around the country, and broadcast on the radio. He and his writing are among the reasons that the 1920s in the United States are sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age of Sports".

In 1924, he nicknamed the Notre Dame backfield the "Four Horsemen". In 1925 he replaced Walter Camp in selecting college football All-America teams.

Early life and education

File:Grantland Rice (c. 1901).jpg

Rice at Vanderbilt University in 1901

Rice was born on November 1, 1880 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the son of Bolling Hendon Rice, a cotton dealer,<ref>"Obituary Notes", The New York Times. October 9, 1917. Accessed on June 29, 2009.</ref> and Mary Beulah (née Grantland) Rice.<ref name="NYTobit"/> His grandfather Major Henry W. Grantland was a Nashville cotton farmer and a Confederate veteran of the Civil War.<ref>"Major H.W. Grantland dies", The New York Times, February 18, 1926. Accessed on June 29, 2009.</ref> As a young teenager, Rice attended military schools—Tennessee Military Institute and Nashville Military Institute. After a year at Wallace University School, Rice attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

At Vanderbilt, Rice was a brother in the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He studied Greek and Latin and graduated with a BA degree in classics as part of the class of 1901.<ref name="athl">Template:Cite journal Template:Open access</ref> Rice was tall and slender, over 6 feet tall and well under 140 pounds. He was a member of the football team for three years, and a shortstop on the baseball team. On the football team, he lettered in the year of 1899 as an end and averaged two injuries a year. He suffered a broken shoulder blade, a broken collar bone, and four broken ribs.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> On the baseball team, he was captain in 1901.<ref name="athl" /><ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:ISBN?</ref>

Sportswriter

Rice's first job in 1901 was for the Nashville Daily News. From 1902 to 1907 he worked for the Atlanta Journal and the Cleveland News. Rice married Fannie Katherine Hollis on April 11, 1906; they had one child, the actress Florence Rice.

He became a sportswriter for the Nashville Tennessean in 1907, under owner-publisher Luke Lea. The job at the Tennessean was given to him by former Sewanee Tigers coach Billy Suter, who coached baseball teams against which Rice played while at Vanderbilt. Template:Multiple image Afterwards he obtained a series of prestigious jobs with major newspapers in the northeastern United States. In 1911 he was hired by the New York Evening Mail, and in 1914 he began his Sportlight column in the New York Tribune. He also provided monthly Grantland Rice Sportlights as part of Paramount newsreels from 1925 to 1954.<ref>Porter, David L. (1988) Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Outdoor Sports, Greenwood Press Template:ISBN pp 88–90</ref> He is best known for writing for Collier's.

He and his writing are among the reasons that the 1920s in the United States are sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age of Sports". He became even better known after his columns were nationally syndicated beginning in 1930, and became known as the "Dean of American Sports Writers".

Rice's writing tended to be of an "inspirational" or "heroic" style, raising games to the level of ancient combat and their heroes to the status of demigods. According to author Mark Inabinett in his 1994 work, Grantland Rice and His Heroes: The Sportswriter as Mythmaker in the 1920s, Rice very consciously set out to make heroes of sports figures who impressed him, most notably Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth, Bobby Jones, Bill Tilden, Red Grange, Babe Didrikson, and Knute Rockne. Unlike many writers of his era, Rice defended the right of football players such as Grange, and tennis players such as Tilden, to make a living as professionals, but he also decried the warping influence of big money in sports, once writing in his column:

Rice authored a book of poetry, Songs of the Stalwart, which was published in 1917 by D. Appleton and Company of New York. His most famous poem is "When the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name; He marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game."

Football

In 1907, Rice saw what he would call the greatest thrill he ever witnessed in his years of watching sports during the Sewanee–Vanderbilt football game: the catch by Vanderbilt center Stein Stone, on a double-pass play thrown near the end zone by Bob Blake. It set up the touchdown run by Honus Craig that beat Sewanee at the very end for the SIAA championship.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Vanderbilt coach Dan McGugin in Spalding's Football GuideTemplate:'s summation of the season in the SIAA wrote, "The standing. First, Vanderbilt; second, Sewanee, a mighty good second;" and that Sewanee halfback Aubrey Lanier "came near winning the Vanderbilt game by his brilliant dashes after receiving punts."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

File:1924-Four-Horsemen-Notre-Dame.jpg

The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame.

He is best known for being the successor to Walter Camp in the selection of College Football All-America Teams for beginning in 1925, and for being the writer who dubbed the great backfield of the 1924 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team the "Four Horsemen" of Notre Dame.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A Biblical reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, this famous account was published in the New York Herald Tribune on October 18, describing the Notre Dame vs. Army game played at the Polo Grounds in New York City:

The passage added great import to the event described and elevated it to a level far beyond that of a mere football game. This passage, although famous, is far from atypical. Another famous passage celebrated Red Grange:

A streak of fire, a breath of flame
Eluding all who reach and clutch;
A gray ghost thrown into the game
That rival hands may never touch;
A rubber bounding, blasting soul
Whose destination is the goal — Red Grange of Illinois!<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Efn

Rice's all-time All-America backfield in 1939 was Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, Ken Strong, and Ernie Nevers.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His all-time line was center Germany Schulz, guards Pudge Heffelfinger and Jack Cannon, tackles Fats Henry and Bill Fincher. Another all-time All-America selection in 1949 by Rice shows a backfield of Sammy Baugh, Thorpe, Grange, and Bronko Nagurski. His all time line was center Schulz, guards Heffelfinger and Herman Hickman, tackles Henry and Cal Hubbard, and ends Don Hutson and Bennie Oosterbaan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Baseball

File:We have with us today, Grantland Rice & J. N. Ding. New York Tribune, September 28, 1919.jpg

Cartoon about Woodrow Wilson playing golf, by Grantland Rice & Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling in the New York Tribune of September 28, 1919

Rice coached the 1908 Vanderbilt baseball team. He dubbed the Nashville baseball stadium Sulphur Dell,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and declared the 1908 Nashville vs. New Orleans game the "greatest game ever played in Dixie."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Rice authored Baseball Ballads in 1910. Rice notes that pro baseball took off in the South in his senior year at Vanderbilt.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Golf

Rice was an advocate for the emerging game of golf in the United States. He became interested in the sport in 1909 while covering the Southern Amateur at the Nashville Golf Club.Template:Efn Rice took lessons from the club's pro Charlie Hall. Rice began playing there regularly and said "I never dreamed that golf would provide so must grist for my typewriter". Golfer and athlete Bradley Walker was active in the Nashville Golf Club and became a close friend of Rice.<ref name="ridleybook2">Template:Cite book</ref>

Rice edited American Golfer magazine beginning in 1920, until 1936. He wrote extensively about golfer Bobby Jones and considered him the greatest-ever putter.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> When the Augusta National Golf Club was formed, Rice was one of the eighty charter members. Rice is a member of the New York State Golf Association Hall of Fame.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

First World War

Before leaving for service in World War I, he entrusted his entire fortune, about $75,000 (the equivalent of around $1.4 million today), to a friend. On his return from the war, Rice discovered that his friend had lost all the money in bad investments, and then had committed suicide. Rice accepted the blame for putting "that much temptation" in his friend's way.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Rice then made monthly contributions to the man's widow throughout his life.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Rice fought in the 30th Division, lieutenant in the 115th Field Artillery.<ref name=":0" /> He spent fourteen months in military service.

One source recalls if you wanted to anger Rice, mention prizefighters who avoided fighting in World War I.<ref name=":0" />

Death and legacy

File:Grantland Rice Headstone 1024.jpg

The grave of Grantland Rice in Woodlawn Cemetery

Rice died at the age 73 on July 13, 1954, following a stroke.<ref name="NYTobit">"Grantland Rice Dies at the Age of 73", The New York Times, July 14, 1954. Accessed on December 27, 2012.</ref> He is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.

Legacy

By one estimate, Rice wrote more than 22,000 columns and more than 67,000,000 words.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1951, in recognition of Rice's 50 years in journalism, an anonymous donor contributed $50,000 to establish the Grantland Rice Fellowship in Journalism with The New York Community Trust.<ref>"$50,000 Fund Created", The New York Times, May 3, 1951. Accessed on June 29, 2009.</ref> In 1954, the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) established the Grantland Rice Trophy, an annual award presented (from 1954 to 2013) to the college football team recognized by the FWAA as the national champions.<ref>"Grantland Rice Award Established in Football", The New York Times, August 14, 1954. Accessed on June 29, 2009.</ref><ref name="fwaasite">Template:Cite web</ref> The Grantland Rice Bowl, an annual college football bowl game held from 1964 to 1977, was named in his honor, as was the Grantland Rice Award given to the winner. Rice was posthumously awarded the 1966 J. G. Taylor Spink Award by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. The award, presented the following year at the annual induction ceremony at the Baseball Hall of Fame, is given for "meritorious contributions to baseball writing".<ref>"J. G. Taylor Spink Award Honorees" Template:Webarchive, Baseball Hall of Fame. Accessed on June 30, 2009.</ref>

At Vanderbilt, a four-year scholarship named for Rice and former colleague and fellow Vanderbilt alumnus Fred Russell is awarded each year to an incoming first-year student who intends to pursue a career in sportswriting. Recipients of the Fred Russell–Grantland Rice Sportswriting Scholarship include author and humorist Roy Blount Jr.; Skip Bayless of Fox Sports<ref>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Admissions/Archive02262007/07RussellRice.pdf Template:Webarchive "The Fred Russell–Grantland Rice Sportswriting Scholarship" (PDF), Vanderbilt University. Accessed on June 29, 2009,</ref> and New York Times best-selling author, Andrew Maraniss.<ref name="vandymediahof">Template:Cite web</ref> The press box in Vanderbilt Stadium at Vanderbilt University is dedicated to Rice and named after Rice's protégé, Fred Russell. For many years, a portion of one floor of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism was designated the "Grantland Rice Suite". Grantland Avenue in his hometown of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was named in his honor.

Rice was mentioned in an I Love Lucy episode entitled "The Camping Trip", and was portrayed by actor Lane Smith, also a native of Tennessee, in The Legend of Bagger Vance. On June 8, 2011, ESPN's Bill Simmons launched a sports and popular culture website titled Grantland, a name intended to honor Rice's legacy.<ref>ESPN MediaZone (2011). All-Star Roster of Writers and Editors to Join New ESPN Web Site Template:Webarchive. Retrieved May 3, 2011.</ref> It operated for a little more than four years until being shuttered by ESPN on October 30, 2015, several months after Simmons's departure.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Further reading

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book

External links

• Template:Internet Archive author
• Template:Librivox author
• J. G. Taylor Spink Award – 1966 winner
• Alumnus Football by Grantland Rice
• The Answer by Grantland Rice