Happy Birthday, Grantland

Today in 1880, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Grantland Rice was born.

He coined the term "the Four Horsemen" for Notre Dame's 1924 backfield:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.

One of the great sportswriters of all times, he dabbled in verse, too. A defender of the right of athletes to earn a living, he also decried the influence of money in sports:

"Money to the left of them and money to the right
Money everywhere they turn from morning to the night
Only two things count at all from mountain to the sea
Part of it's percentage, and the rest is guarantee"

And if you think you don't know him, you almost certainly know this:

"For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks - not that you won or lost -
But how you played the Game."