[Ads-l] leave it all on the field

[Ben Zimmer]

Thanks, Bill. It's interesting how most of these early cites (including the
one from 1961 that Barry found) focus on the exhausted aftermath of the
game, when players are utterly spent from their efforts on the field, while
later cites are more exhortatory or congratulatory.


On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 12:50 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> With respect to Bill Mullins' 1918 example of "giving one's all" on the
> battlefield, "giving one's all" and "leaving it all" seem different to me,
> even if they are similar or perhaps ultimately related.
>
>
> Here are some other early examples of leaving everything on the football
> field (or basketball court):
>
>
> Basketball - 1944
> The Tomahawks must have left everything they had out at Stockwell on
> Friday eve, for they certainly didn’t bring much into Jeff gym on Saturday
> night when they played West Side – That game was rather humiliating to our
> supposed-to-be rural prestige.
> Journal and Courier (Lafayette, Indiana), January 18, 1944, page 11.
>
> Football - 1948
> Tate Shines in Bitter Defeat. Golden Warriors Get 13 First Downs to Six
> for Reds. (Matoon’s Green Wave versus Decatur Reds). About 15 minutes after
> the game Tate was still dazed in the Mattoon locker room and looked
> something like Tony Zale after his last fight.  He left everything he had
> on the field – including plenty of fighting heart.
> Journal Gazette (Mattoon, Illinois), September 25, 1948.
>
> Football - 1957.  A more nuanced explication of the "winning is
> everything" coaching-mantra.
> Coach Evashevski: Winning – Winning is important because it’s the only
> criterion we have for measuring anything. . . .  You’ve got to play to
> win.  There’s a very tricky shading of meaning here.  When the game is
> over, it’s not important whether you won.  But during the game, it’s
> vitally important that you win.  Not to look good, but to win!  And then if
> you’ve left your guts on the football field and you can say to yourself, ‘I
> left everything I had out there, and if I had it to do tomorrow I couldn’t
> do it any better’ then there’s no disgrace in losing.
> Des Moines Register (Iowa), September 19, 1957, page 11.
>
> Same quote two years later, with “guts” replaced by “your all”.
> Coach Evashevski of Iowa University sums it up this way: “You have got to
> play to win.  There’s a very tricky shade of meaning here.  When the game
> is over, it’s not important whether you won.  But during the game it’s
> vitally important that you win.  Not to look good, but to win!  And then if
> you’ve left your all on the football field and you can say to yourself, ‘I
> left everything I had out there, and if I had to do tomorrow I couldn’t do
> it any better,’ then there’s no disgrace in losing.” The Humboldt
> Independent (Humboldt, Iowa), January 31, 1959, page 2.
>
>
>

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