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Show V I(7MV7ZMI tJ 1 v MCEJl J ilpKNH TUNNKY'S Interview on VJ fi-r In competition In onu of the rnotit Intcreiitlnt! articles I luivo rend." writes II. V. L. "Ho told what f'T docs to miy competitor In ! any gnmo. Hut lIMi(t explain tliln I always have un- ; denitood Unit moit eolilleis going Into bntllo were packed with fear fear which they overcame. over-came. I thought tho j tet of tnio courage ' was overcoming I fear. It Is my opin- Gene Tunncy Ion that most bravo men lire afi aid, facinR death or defeat, de-feat, but they rise above this fear." This happens to be, by nil oilds, tin: must Interesting ancle In sport. Certainly, the brave can be arrald and the dumb, minus any Imagination, Imagina-tion, can remain unafraid. A complete absence of fear Is one of the rarest of all qualities. We have known only three men to blessed Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Capt. ImIiIIc Ulekenbackcr and Col. Wild Itill Donovan. There must have been many others. oth-ers. We are speaking only of the three that we have seen tested, where death was a completely unimportant un-important matter where life was even more unimportant compared to the job they had to do. They also had Imagination. But in the matter of fear and courage, there Is no possible way to compare sport with war. In this respect, re-spect, they belong in two different worlds. A brave soldier might curl up in some competition In sport. A strong sporting competitor might not be so hot in war action. Two Different Games Sometime back I was talking with a famous boxer. He was an army Instructor. "I can't figure It all out," he told me. "When I tap a few of these soldiers In the nose they want to quit. But next day they'll go over the top or lead a charge. I don't mind being hit In the nose or knocked down. At least I don't fear it. But I don't believe I'd lead any charge against machine guns, without ducking Into the first foxhole I saw. I guess it's two different dif-ferent games two different angles." an-gles." Here he called the turn two different dif-ferent games and two different angles an-gles that are far apart. Back around 1911 I saw Christy Mathewson cut the corner of the plate against Home Run Baker for I the third strike and the game. Only the umpire called it a ball which vii- InH to R.ikpr's home run. "I cut two Inches over the plate," Matty Mat-ty told me later. He had the courage cour-age to do this in a world series. few days later In a goll match Mathewson and I played with Mike Donlin and Fred Merkle. Matty missed a putt by three Inches. His hands were shaking. Here Is the answer. Baseball was Matty's game. He had the skill and confidence to meet any situation in baseball. Gob" wasn't his game. On a general average, I would say that the basic quality of fear and courage In sport must include three factors skill, experience and condition condi-tion which lead to confidence. The confident competitor, who Is In shape, who is experienced, who has his share of skill, usually comes through. Few Are Quitters There are not many quitten in sport. Quitters don't like hard competition com-petition and the grind needed to get them up around the top. This applies ap-plies especially to football and boxing, the body contact games. Among the most fearless the greatest competitors I have seen in sport are: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Hans Wagner, Old Pete Alexander, Walter Johnson, Bobby Jones, Walter Wal-ter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Harry Greb, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Tommy -Hitchcock, Dev Milburn and too many footbaD players to even start a count. Tuiiney's Idea or angle was this: "Get ready with the best you have to give. Condition is terribly Important, Im-portant, although there are notable nota-ble exceptions. You can throw these out against the thousands who need condition. There are always exceptions that prove no rule. "But once the game is on, whatever what-ever it Is, fear of defeat and worry about the result must be eliminated. For fear of what might happen will upset your brain, freeze your nerves and, In turn, wreck any chance for coordination between mind and muscle." Desperation often gets credit for 1 courage. So does raw luck. 1 All you can figure on is the general gen-eral average. In 80 per cent of this division you will find those who worked to develop their skill, who kept in condition, who had the confidence con-fidence needed to face the problem or tackle the handicap. This doesn't include everyone. It merely takes in the majority, including those mentioned above. No race or nation has any copyright copy-right on courage. But those equipped with what it takes to win usually get the calL |