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Canadian football poetry: with Kackert turning to Kipling, five other poems for CFL figures
One of the more unusual CFL stories this week was Dan Ralph's Canadian Press piece on the return of Toronto Argonauts' running back Chad Kackert. Kackert, the reigning Grey Cup MVP, has missed nine of 16 games this season thanks to injury, including the last two with a shoulder problem. He'll be back for Toronto's clash with Winnipeg Thursday night, though, and he might help rejuvenate the Argos' rushing attack. None of that is the uncommon part, however; injuries happen, as do recovery stories. The unusual part comes from what Kackert did during his recovery; he told Ralph that he's been taking inspiration from English Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling's famed poem, "If—":
Kackert drew solace from English writer Rudyard Kipling's poem "If," an inspirational sonnet about character and integrity and remaining true to one's self. In fact, two lines from Kipling's composition — "If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same," — are featured above the players' entrance to Centre Court at Wimbledon.
"It kind of talks about stuff you hear about every day but the way he words it is unique," Kackert said. "(The poem offers) perspective and that if I let anything get to my character, then I've lost.
"I kind of had to take that in and understand that's the one thing I do have that can't be taken away."
While many football players are incredibly smart, poetry isn't often featured in game stories or locker-room dialogue. From this corner, that's a shame, as there are plenty of poems that could be perfectly applicable to certain CFL players. Here are quotations from five, with the first three slightly rewritten to better suit Canadian football and the last two unaltered:
1. "The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for injured Montreal quarterback and 20-year CFL veteran Anthony Calvillo: "It is an ancient quarterback, who's stopped playing downs of three." Hey, if there's a better poem about an old wanderer seemingly cursed at the moment, it's tough to think of it. Let's hope Calvillo isn't into albatross-hunting...
2. "The Charge Of The Light Brigade," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, for B.C. running back Andrew Harris: "Half a yard, half a yard, half a yard onward! Into the line of death plunged he who blundered." Harris has been in the news lately both for his oversleeping and for his lack of touches, plus the B.C. ground game has been struggling, so this seemed apropos.
3. "Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley, for Edmonton general manager Ed Hervey: "On the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ed Hervey, GM of GMs/Look on my Eskimo Way, ye Mighty, and despair!'/Nothing beside remains/Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck." Well, if there's someone whose bold ambition and staggering pronouncements have turned into a wreck, it's Hervey. At least his Eskimos aren't quite yet at the low point of the Breaking Bad episode that shares this name...
4. A (translated) excerpt from "The Satires," (Satirarum liber secundus, 8, 73-74: thanks, Pete!) by Horace, for Toronto quarterback Zach Collaros: "Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant." Without Ricky Ray getting hurt, it's highly unlikely we'd have seen what Collaros can do, and doubtful he could have played himself into a position where he's likely to compete for a starting job in Winnipeg or Ottawa next year.
5. "Hymn Before Action," by Rudyard Kipling, for Winnipeg head coach Tim Burke: "High lust and froward bearing/Proud heart, rebellious brow/Deaf ear and soul uncaring/We seek Thy mercy now!" We had to get another Kipling reference in here, and that bit seems particularly applicable to Burke. He started this year with reasonably-high expectations for his first full season in charge, but after several disasters and plenty of criticism en route to a 3-13 record thus far, that pride has dropped a bit. We'll see if he gets mercy or not in the days ahead.
