A Quote by Jim Thorpe

Track and field, because it was something I could do by myself, one-on-one, me against everybody else. — © Jim Thorpe
Track and field, because it was something I could do by myself, one-on-one, me against everybody else.
Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.
The thing is, I'm a sports junkie.Everybody knows that. I could watch any of this stuff - track and field... anything - and really enjoy it.
You see somebody on a football field make a great, athletic 70-yard run, but the athleticism is immeasurable. It's undoubtedly athletic, but compared to somebody else who did something else, how do you compare it? That's the great part of track and field. It's a test, but with results that you can compare to others.
People forget that track and field is one of the hardest sports because we compete against all the world. There are many sports when you are up against only 15 or 20 countries.
The difference that you have with Donald Trump and everyone else in the field is, you've got one proven leader, an individual who has unbelievable success in the private sector. Everybody else in the field talks about it.
You have to have that dog-eat-dog kind of mentality. I think me playing football all my life and having that chip on my shoulder, not really getting the opportunities that I wanted, really carried over to track and field. It allowed me to use all that energy and put it in the direction of being the best track athlete that I could be.
I love track and field, but I also know the day will come when I will have to do something else.
I think I've always wanted to be different from everybody else. I get really annoyed when I do something and everybody else does it too, or if I'm doing something that everybody else is doing.
Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself.
To think of myself as a role model is extremely flattering, but I could never accept that, because Im just learning like everybody else.
Fighting, to me, has always been something different than what everybody's else opinion is. I've never believed what everybody else has.
Lately, I'd been feeling like I was standing outside watching everything and everybody. Wishing I could take the part of me that was over there and the part of me that was over here and push them together—make myself into one whole person like everybody else.
I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete — that's what scares me. That's why I quit the Theatre Department. Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.
Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a wife like everybody else and to take her out on Sundays. I have invented a mask that makes me look like anybody. People will not even turn round in the streets. You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. You are crying! You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! All I wanted was to be loved for myself. If you loved me I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased.
I don't even realize sometimes I am spending hours and hours on the field, because it is something I decide to do, not something someone else demands of me.
I don't know the reasons why something is intimidating to me or disgusting to me and I don't like feeling that way, either. I don't like it when something turns me off, on any level. So, its a matter of saying: Well, I can either sit here and reject, or I can do double-time embracing of something else just to reassure myself that I'm not against the world.
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