Doctor Galen Clavio sums it up about as well as anyone could.
Dario Franchitti had one of the most honest moments in the history of sports yesterday when he talked about Wheldon’s death. You can hear him in this video here around the 4:30 mark.
These kind of sport tragedies always make me think of A.E. Housman’s poem “To An Athlete Dying Young.” This poem may perhaps be best remembered as being read by Jim McKay in the aftermath of the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists during the 1972 Munich Olympics.
The clip use to be on YouTube, but I can’t find it anymore. It’s a moving tribute.
Here’s Housman’s poem in full:
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.
Like Wheldon, Housman was English. His words are a fitting tribute to his deceased countryman.
The Knuckle Curve 