Football Helmets Quotes

I have a 12:34 representational time dance. I do it at 3:33 every other Tuesday (twice a day). If you’d like to participate in my choreographed dance routine, bring a football helmet and a half empty can of tuna (keeps the stray cats away, because I perform in a gritty, grimy downtown alley).


He’s [Gerald Ford] a nice guy but he played too much football with his helmet off.

Stubble or what?" Eyes still closed he chuckled. "I'm not shaving until our parents let us date again." He kissed my cheek. "What if it takes... a... while?" I asked struggling to talk. He'd made his way down to my neck. His tongue circled there slowly. "There are only six or seven weeks until August football practice starts right?" "Hm." His mouth moved up my neck toward my ear. Oh. "Will you be able to stuff your beard into your helmet?" I croaked. In answer he put his lips on my ear. I forgot the next joke I'd planned to make and lost myself in Adam.

I think a man with a helmet defending his country should make more money than a man with a helmet defending a football, don’t you think?

violently arguing over a battered Falcons football helmet. The proprietors of the rummage rush over,

Theres something incredible about putting a helmet on just before a game; its a feeling only a football player knows. Your vision narrows, and the whole world shrinks. You cant hear much of what goes on outside you, but you can hear yourself breathe and you can feel yourself sweat.

R.O.TC. kept me away from sports while the other guys practiced every day. They made the school teams, won their letters and got the girls. My days were spent mostly marching around in the sun. All you ever saw were the backs of some guy's ears and his buttocks. I quickly became disenchanted with military proceedings. The others shined their shoes brightly and seemed to go through maneuvers with relish. I couldn't see any sense in it. They were just getting shaped up in order to get their balls blown off later. On the other hand, I couldn't see myself crouched down in a football helmet, shoulder pads laced on, decked out in Blue and White, #69, trying to move out some brute with tacos on his breath so that the son of the district attorney could slant off left tackle for six yards. The problem was you had to keep choosing between on evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25, most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.

It didn’t matter whether “football” for you was soccer or the American sport played by men in helmets.

Truth and the breastplate of righteousness—being right with God— strengthen us in all our endeavors. We need the shoes of preparation on any of life’s fields, along with the shield of faith—like football pads— to protect against the enemy’s attacks. The helmet of salvation, like a football helmet, also keeps us safe. Praying each day and putting on the full armor of God will help us gain an automatic first down—a deeper connection in God’s zone— and a sure win on any playing field.

I took all the overshoes and skates and football helmets out of the hall closet and put them into a carton and put the carton in the hall by the front door. I took all the things off the stairs and put them into another carton, which I stacked in the hall next to the first carton. I was wondering what to put in the third carton when I was interrupted by Jannie to say that Ninki had just had her kittens on one of the comfortable chairs in the study and that my husband was sitting in the other comfortable chair and wanted to know what to do.

You know, when I was a kid they had real football players. They wore leather helmets and didn’t have bi-weeks. What kind of a sissy athlete needs a week off in the middle of the season?” “When you were a kid, they kept score by chiseling X marks into stone.” I tossed a jersey to Grouper. Next week was a designated throwback week, when the team wore replica uniforms from years back. I’d ordered an extra for Grouper III. “Tell Guppy I signed it with a washable marker this time. Don’t want his mother getting another smelly-boy call from the school.” Grouper held it up and sighed nostalgically. “I remember this uniform. This was from the non-pussy-player period.” “Bite me, old man.

If you want to see how fast I run, just give me a football helmet and notice how my helmet collects bug carcasses like a car bumper.

I’m fine.” Will put his hand on Amanda’s foot again. He could feel a steady pulse near her ankle. He’d worked for this woman most of his career but still knew very little about her. She lived in a condo in the heart of Buckhead. She had been on the job longer than he had been alive, which put her age in the mid-sixties. She kept her salt-and-pepper hair coiffed in the shape of a football helmet and wore pantyhose with starched blue jeans. She had a sharp tongue, more degrees than a college professor, and she knew that his name was Wilbur even though he’d had it legally changed when he entered college and every piece of paper the GBI had on file listed his legal name as William Trent.

I think a man with a helmet defending his country should make more than a man with a helmet defending a football, don't you think?

On Christmas Day, 1914, British troops in the front-line trenches could hear the Germans singing Stille Nacht (Silent Night). The British joined in. Cautiously, soldiers on both sides climbed out of their trenches and walked towards each other across No Man’s Land. They shook hands, exchanged cigarettes, and took photographs of each other. Further up the line, a group of Scots played the Germans at football with helmets for goalposts. The Germans won 3–2. But the festivities had to end. With reluctant handshakes, they each returned to their trenches and grudgingly took up their arms. This fraternization was very much against orders. It was never to happen, to such a large extent, again.

What was this? Putting aside their famous metallic-blue colors for a day, the Cowboys wore dark blue jerseys with white numerals, white pants, and white helmets with dark blue stars on the sides—their uniform from the early sixties, when they were a pitiful expansion team rather than one of the most popular sports franchises on the planet. The Chiefs wore white pants, bright red jerseys, and bright red helmets with the state of Texas outlined on either side—their attire from when they were known as the Dallas Texans of the American Football League.

One way to conceptualize antigen drift is to think of a football player wearing a uniform with white pants, a green shirt, and a white helmet with a green V emblazoned on it. The immune system can recognize this uniform instantly and attack it. If the uniform changes slightly—if, for example, a green stripe is added to the white pants while everything else remains the same—the immune system will continue to recognize the virus with little difficulty. But if the uniform goes from green shirt and white pants to white shirt with green pants, the immune system may not recognize the virus so easily.

Grant…doesn’t use the helmet for football. He tapes balls of aluminum foil to it to help him connect with aliens who might try to talk to him.

Reacher and Neagley carried their copy to the door, where the wired-glass window let in some natural light. The American looked exactly like Klopp had described. The artist had done a fine job capturing his words. The wave of blond hair. The skin stretched tight over the skull beneath. The brow and the cheek bones, horizontal and parallel and close together, like two bars on an old-style football helmet, with the eyes flashing out from way behind. The mouth, like a gash. Plus two vertical lines, the nose like a blade, and a crease down the right cheek, as if the most the mouth ever moved was in a lopsided and sardonic smile. The guy was shown in a jacket like Reacher’s. Pale tan denim, authentic in every respect. Under it was a white T-shirt. His collar bones stood out, like his cheek bones. His neck was shown corded with sinew. A hardscrabble guy, no longer young. Neagley

Notably, in 1970, participants in the Fourteenth Stapp Car Crash Conference observed that rotational motion appeared to be more critical than linear motion to the production of human brain injury. Nonetheless, the development of NOCSAE football helmet standard was closely connected with 1960s car crash safety research based on linear impacts.24

This meant that helmets could frequently be found in compliance with the NOCSAE standard without actually meeting it. They concluded that “the current recertification standard established by NOCSAE will do little to protect players if it is followed to the letter by refinishing firms.

Manufacturers continued to market their protective equipment as central to athletic success as well as safety. Yet in defending themselves against product liability lawsuits, they emphasized the lack of relationship between helmets and the injuries of individual plaintiffs. Manufacturers

In high school football, for example, a paraplegic or quadriplegic will inevitably be created occasionally. And who with deep pockets can the injured person best sue other than the helmet manufacturer? Then everyone feels sorry, the injuries are horrible, and the case is dangerous for the manufacturer... I think big, rich corporations are seldom wise to make football helmets in the kind of a civilization we're in.

cider and slaughter and football games with white fogbanks of breath exiting helmets

Rugby is great. The players don’t wear helmets or padding; they just beat the living daylights out of each other and then go for a beer. I love that. Joe Thiesmann – American NFL commentator and Washington Redskins Football quarterback legend.

One of their biggest challenges was the cartoonish public image of Gerald Ford. Arriving in Austria for a state visit, Ford had slipped on the rain-soaked steps of Air Force One and fallen in a heap on the tarmac; ever since, he had been skewered mercilessly on a new television program, Saturday Night Live. Ford had been an All-American football player at Michigan; but in the public mind, he was a pratfalling clown who, reaching for the phone, would staple his ear to his head. The president’s homespun amiability was interpreted as stupidity; he could not “walk and chew gum at the same time.” Lyndon Johnson quipped that he had played too much football without a helmet.

Do you even listen to what I say? Would you be able to listen better if you were wearing a football helmet full of chili? 


Hannah tells me that you helped protect her from the Hispanics during the riot.” “The Hispanics? Oh, the protest, right.” “Call it what you like, son. This place was crawling with spics, and I am grateful that you took care of my only child.” “Well,” I shrugged. “I guess that’s what boyfriends do.” Spics?? “Only good boyfriends,” Hannah said, still tightly holding my left hand. I could never predict when she’d pour on the affection and when she’d act distant. Were all girlfriends this complicated? “I helped pass that law, you understand,” Mr. Walker said. “I’m an advisor to the senator, and it’s about time someone notable, someone of prestige, took a stand on the influx of hispanics into our once great city. The Hispanics were rioting because of that law, because they’re afraid of justice.” “Oh yeah?” I said. I knew nothing about politics or laws. But I had a feeling I disagreed with him. “But I’ll discontinue this tangent before I begin to preach,” he smiled. “Hannah is giving me the warning look.” “Thank you, Daddy,” Hannah said. “The spics destroyed your car,” he said. “Hannah informed me, and then I read the report in the newspaper.” “That was a good car,” I nodded. “I will miss it.” “Well, let me see what I can do to help,” he said. “I’m a financial consultant to many of our nation’s finest automobile manufacturers, including Mission Motorcycles. You have heard of them?” “I don’t know much about any cars. Or motorcycles,” I admitted. “Well, it just so happens, they owed me a favor and agreed to give me a short-term loan on one of their new electric bikes,” he said. And it was then that I realized we were standing beside a gleaming black, silver, and orange motorcycle. I hadn’t noticed before because our school parking lot always looks like a luxury car showcase, and I’d grown numb to the opulence. A sleek black helmet hung from each handle. Mr. Walker placed his palm on the seat and said, “This bike is yours. Until you get a new car.” “Wow,” I breathed. A motorcycle!! “Isn’t it sexy?” Hannah smiled. “It looks like it’s from the future.” “It does,” I agreed. “I’m almost afraid to touch it, like it’ll fly off. But sir, there’s no way…” “Please don’t be so ungrateful as to refuse, son. That’s low class, and that’s not the Walkers. You are in elite company. Dating my daughter has advantages, as I’m sure she’s told you. You just keep performing on the football field.” “Oh…right,” I said. “I’m gratified I can help,” Mr. Walker said and shook my hand again. “I’m expecting big things from you. Don’t let me down. It’s electric, so you’ll need to charge it at night. Fill out the paperwork in the storage compartment and return them signed to Hannah tomorrow. If you wreck it, I’ll have you drowned off Long Beach. I wish I could stay, but I’m late for a meeting with the Board of Supervisors. Hannah, tell your mother I’ll be out late,” he said and got into the back seat of a black sedan that whisked him away.

This attachment has endured through the years and withstood a steady helmet-slapping of cognitive dissonance over whether I should know better than to keep following this sport as closely as I do. Scary research on posthumous football brains has been as impossible to miss as the testimonials from still-living retirees about the sad state of their bodies. (To wit: “My life sucks,” Jim Plunkett, then sixty-nine, told the San Jose Mercury News in 2017. “Everything hurts.”) If you love football, you get good

Brothers,” he continues, “are lifelong. And though you take that field tonight, you have also taken that field before, just as you will tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. That field is your home—your battlefield—and those other men are intruders. They don’t respect it. They’re trespassing—unwanted guests..“I can assure you they didn’t,” my father says. Again, the room chants, “Hoorah!” I hold my breath because this next part, more than anything that led up to it, is what I’ve been waiting for. I check the camera, my father still centered in my frame and his face as serious as I’ve ever seen it. Our team has won the first two games of the year, but he knows that two is not ten. A loss, at this point, will be unforgiveable. “What’s that word on your backs?” His question echoes, and the answer is swift. “Honor, sir!” they all shout in unison. They always do. It’s more than memorization, and it’s always made me sit in awe of how it all plays out. “Honor! That’s right. There are no individuals in here. We all have one name. It isn’t the mascot. It isn’t your nickname or some fad that will be forgotten the second the yearbook is printed. It’s a word that means heart, that means drive and ambition, that means giving your all and leaving the best of every goddamned thing you’ve got out there on that field. Turn to your right!” They all do, seated in a circle on the benches, looking at the helmets and heads of their teammates. My dad should have been a preacher, or perhaps a general. He was born to stand before boys and make them believe that for two and a half hours, they are men. “Turn to your left!” All heads shift, the sound swift, but mouths quiet. “Honor. Brotherhood. Tradition.” He pauses, his team still sitting with heads angled and eyes wide on the dark blue sheen of the helmets and sweat-drenched heads next to them. “Again…” he says, and this time they say it with him. “Honor. Brotherhood. Tradition.” “Whose house is this?” my father asks, quiet and waiting for a roar. “Our house!” “Whose house is this?” He’s louder now. “Our house!” “Whose house…” My dad’s face is red and his voice is hoarse by the time he shouts the question painted above the door that the Cornwall Tradition runs through to the field. The final chant back is loud enough that it can be heard through the cinderblock walls. I know, because last week, I filmed the speech from outside. With chests full, egos inflated, voices primed and muscles ready for abuse, this packed room of fifty—the number that always takes the field, even though less than half of them will play—stands, each putting a hand on the back of everyone in front of them.