Loving Caliber - If I Could Be Somebody Else

On whether Thomas' contributions have been enhanced with the loss of LB Jerod Mayo for the next few weeks: "Well, I think that all players... We expect all players to step up and do their job. And unfortunately, not every player is available every single week on our team, or any other team. But, what each individual player can do is, do his job well and do it in a positive way with a commitment to the team. And Adalius has done that regardless of what other players were or weren't in there. That's how he's gone about it, and I think that's how all players should go about it. I don't think, really, they should change the way they do things based on what somebody else's situation is. They should do their best all the time, and try to be positive and try to contribute to the team any way they can, regardless of what else is going on."

Loving Caliber - If I Could Be Somebody Else

Since there is more than one style of play I could mention players from each style who impressed me. Ken Rosewall, being one, very straighforward, nothing fancy, no loops, top spin. He was very impressive, because the ball always came back [laughs] and I didn't like that. Rod Laver was very impressive, of the super aggressive, all or nothing, Gottfried [?] style; left handed, very talented, very quick. When he got behind he would hit the ball harder, which is exactly the opposite of most people. Jimmy Connors was impressive. Jimmy Connors is your blue-collar hero. He's your working man's champion. He had the ability to, from the baseline, go for it, put the ball within a foot or so of either the sidelines or the baseline more consistently than anybody I've ever seen. Pancho Gonzalez was impressive. He spent some time with me, so I was a little in awe of him, at first. He was my hero as a kid because he was Mexican-American, wasn't completely white, and very good; snarled a bit. There's some defiance of authority which we all, in the south at least, liked, when somebody like that would stick it to those guys in [laughs], in authority. Those are some of the people that I identified with. I had respect for their games and their approaches to tennis.

Yes, I think people who are of the caliber of, of a John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors, they are special. In the senese that, you cannot treat them the way you would treat somebody who was ranked number forty in the world. Although, our egalitarian ethos here would lead us to say, well you shouldn't do that, but human nature is such that if you tried to treat McEnroe or Connors like you treated, player number thirty-five, It just won't work. And so, I don't hold them accountable to all the rules as strictly in every instance as I would, say some other player whose demonstrated ability is much less. That would require, say somebody else like an Aaron Krickstein whom I have on the team. Aaron I want you to do x at a certain time, and the reason is, you don't have the record that a Connors and a McEnroe does, nor does he have the emotional maturity with age. Aaron Krickstein is sixteen, Connors was thirty-two. I let Connors and McEnroe set their own schedules, and I assume that they know what they're doing. They certainley have demonstrated that in the past, that they know what they're doing, so that's the way I operate that.

It helped me as obviously every class I got better and better as a teacher but selfishly, it also helped me as a writer because what I taught them is the same things that I try to tell myself. We all work according to the same rules we want to be interesting. You want to give somebody a reason to turn the page and be articulate and clear, original if possible. So these are the things I teach them and those are the things that I remind myself through teaching them. Plus I mean where else could you get to hang around with some of the most intelligent young people anywhere.

"Why, do you mean to say that he would not do what he says he would do? Dr. Epler swears that he told him when he dressed the wound that he was shot when he was down on the pavement, and he has not denied it. That was a significant fact, gentlemen; a very significant fact. The officer who was shot thinks it was by Fielden. I-t may have been by somebody else; nobody can tell. 041b061a72