SPORTS SPOTS

“Those who stay shall be champions.”

“Those who stay shall be champions” are the words displayed for several decades in front of the Calhoun fieldhouse. Each youngster coming out of that fieldhouse to attend practice or play in a game saw the words.

Time has proven how true those words ring in the area of several activities at schools in Calhoun and Gordon County. Staying the course of any undertaking is the first requirement of success in any undertaking. Years ago the great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar told of the examination of the roster of either a team or company (I can’t remember which and I can’t find my recording) of great accomplishments. The names of many great accomplishments and contributors to the success of the team were listed.

Missing from that list were many promising individuals at the beginning of the task. As awards were given and the great performers were recognized an observer begin to ask “What about John Brown?” Someone answered, “He quit.” Then someone asked about Gertrude Smith. Again, the answer was “She quit.” And so it was with several names of individuals who began the journey who possessed outstanding talent and great promise. Sadly, the words “He or she quit” were pronounced. Those individuals are no longer remembered.

Two poems out of the past come to my mind: Far back in the early 1960s a district meeting of a civic club was attended and the speaker quoted a poem illus-