The Pecan Park Eagle

NEAL McCURDY:
“No sweat!”

Just about everybody is familiar with the famous approximate words of Babe Ruth back in the day when his salary with the Yankees finally exceeded that of either President Calvin Coolidge of Herbert Hoover. I forget which was in office at the time, but that has no real bearing upon the kick in Ruth’s response to a reporter’s question about the justification for such a discrepancy.

“I had a better year than the president,” Ruth supposedly answered, framing a baseline for athlete arrogance that continues through this day.

I heard another story about the legendary Larry Joe Miggins during the period of his funeral this past weekend too that cracked me up. Not surprisingly, it was shared with a group of us by his father, also Larry Miggins and the now one of the few archetypical-level legendary surviving members of the old Houston Buffs.

According to his dad, Larry Joe Miggins started out as a kick-off and punt returner for his 1974 freshman level St. Thomas HS Eagles football team. A number of us already knew that Miggins used to call his legs by the powerful names of “Lightning” and “Thunder,” but most os had not heard younger Larry’s practical philosophy on what it takes to become a successful special teams return man.

“First, you have to make sure you catch the ball without a fumble and, hopefully, have some momentum on your side going forward,” Larry Joe Miggins supposedly said. “Then, if you get hemmed in and are pretty sure you won’t be able to break free all the way, run toward the tackler whom you think is going to hurt you the least on the take down.”

Way to go, Larry Joe. Long before we rolled out all those process food preservatives, common sense was on hand to help us survive some of our greatest high-risk physical challenges on all the athletic fields of honor. No ball carrier sought out DIck Butkus as a tackler, if he had a choice.

My now adult son and doing-fine kiddo Neal handed me the depth of his athletic philosophy very early on the field of athletic opportunity. We started Neal out as a first grade fall-season soccer player even before the next spring came and introduced him to baseball, the game he really rallied to love and try to play.

Soccer was a different deal. In his first game, we noticed that Neal was just standing out there. His lack of action caused me to immediately fail my own parental resolution to stay behind the screen and not to meddle in what he was doing, or not doing on the field. During a timeout or period change, I had to come to the sidelines and offer him some “encouragement.”

“Neal,” I called out to my son, “you need to move around out there and try to help your team move the ball.”

Neal has always known where I park my goat. He can get it faster than I can see him coming – and he even knew how to do it back in the first grade in response to his “encourager” dad.

“Daddy,” Neal yelled back in a straight-faced clear voice, “I would move around more, but when I do, it causes me to sweat.” His smile told me too that he knew exactly what he was doing. He was picking up on my own questions about soccer as a game in which the players just run all over the place and often simply end up in a scoreless tie.

No big knock on soccer for those who like it. I just don’t get it. And it’s not baseball. Fortunately for Neal, and for me, baseball was a different deal. He played for several years and he remains a diehard baseball fan to this day. In fact, we are going tonight to watch the Astros play their last National League home game ever against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Love baseball? Then kick back and just wait for somebody else to say something quotable.

No sweat. It will happen.

Tags: athlete quotes

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