David Bruce

The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2 David Bruce

This book contains 250 anecdotes, including these:1) As an elite figure skater who competed internationally as an amateur, even winning a gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, Sarah Hughes had to show strength and determination; however, some things are impossible to do the first time. For example, she thought about getting her hair cut before the 1999 World Championships. She even walked into the hair salon and listened to the snip-snip-snip of scissors-then got cold feet and walked out without getting her hair cut. But for the 2000 World Championships, she decided to go through with it. All the time that the stylist was preparing to go snip-snip-snip, Sarah was thinking, "If I don't like it, it will grow back. If I don't like it, it will grow back. If I don't like it, it will grow back." Fortunately, she liked the shorter, sassier, more grown-up haircut-and so did the judges and the fans. 2) Women's sports and women athletes have not always been respected. For example, in the 1960s (well before Title 9) at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, Catherine L. Brown used to teach field hockey on a field that was also used by ROTC cadets. Sometimes, the ROTC cadets would act as if the women athletes were invisible and march onto the field-even during games. On one occasion when this happened, the ROTC cadets were standing at attention-meaning that they could not move-so Ms. Brown ordered the game to continue, and she rewarded each woman athlete who managed to hit the legs of an ROTC cadet with the ball. 3) Babe Ruth often came early to Fenway Park in Boston, where he would spend an hour bagging peanuts to be sold by children during the game. When he left, he would throw $10 or $20 on the table and tell peanut vendor Thomas Foley, "Take care of the kids."