Dick Schaap

Found 15 thoughts of Dick Schaap

You need heroes like that for a sport to surge the way basketball did with Michael Jordan. Now he's gone and that sport is having problems.

I just can't believe all the things I did that decade.

There is never going to be another Ali.

My top three were Jim Brown, Wilt Chamberlain and Bo Jackson.

It's kind of ironic that the two sports with the greatest characters, boxing and horse racing, have both been on the decline. In both cases it's for the lack of a suitable hero.

I did not choose necessarily on the basis of significance. If you have a vote for the most significant athlete, then you have Ali, then you have Babe Ruth, then you have Michael Jordan.

In fifty years of covering the sport, of course Muhammad Ali is by far the dominant figure.

I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader.

Some people who love boxing might love Mike Tyson, but people outside of the sport are generally repulsed by him and therefore, repulsed by the sport.

All of journalism is a shrinking art. So much of it is hype. The O.J. Simpson story is a landmark in the decline of journalism.

Sugar Ray Robinson was at the top of the boxing world during the 1950's when it seemed that he would either win or lose the championship about every three or four months.

If I got paid, it was no more than five dollars a column, and I still think I was overpaid.

I worked with Rocky Graziano and Rocky was certainly a character.

I wanted to be a sportswriter because I loved sports and I could not hit the curve ball, the jump shot, or the opposing ball carrier.