Henry Grantland Rice (November 1, 1880 – July 13, 1954) was an American sportswriter, columnist, and poet from Tennessee known as the "Dean of American Sports Writers". He published three books of poetry, and coined the famous phrase that it was not important whether you “won or lost, but how you played the game.”
His writing was known for its elegance and published in newspapers around the country, and broadcast on the radio. He and his writing are among the reasons that the roaring 1920s in the United States are sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age of Sports".
In 1924, he nicknamed the Notre Dame backfield the "Four Horsemen". In 1925 he replaced Walter Camp in selecting college football All-America teams. Rice set out to make heroes of sports figures who impressed him, most notably in baseball Babe Ruth, in boxing Jack Dempsey, in football Red Grange and Knute Rockne, in golf Bobby Jones and Babe Didrikson, and in tennis Bill Tilden.
Early life and education
thumb|Rice at [[Vanderbilt University in 1901|226x226px]]
Rice was born on November 1, 1880, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the son of Bolling Hendon Rice, a cotton dealer, and Mary Beulah (née Grantland) Rice. As a young teenager, Rice attended military schools—Tennessee Military Institute and Nashville Military Institute. After a year at Wallace University School, Rice attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
At Vanderbilt, Rice was a brother in the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He studied Greek and Latin and graduated with a BA degree in classics as part of the class of 1901. Rice was tall and slender, over 6 feet tall and well under 140 pounds. He was a member of the football team for three years, and a shortstop on the baseball team. On the football team, he lettered in the year of 1899 as an end and averaged two injuries a year. He suffered a broken shoulder blade, a broken collar bone, and four broken ribs. On the baseball team, he was captain in 1901. Rice notes that pro baseball took off in the South in his senior year at Vanderbilt.
Sportswriter
Rice's first job in 1901 was for the Nashville Daily News. From 1902 to 1907 he worked for the Atlanta Journal and the Cleveland News. Rice married Fannie Katherine Hollis on April 11, 1906; they had one child, the actress Florence Rice.
He became a sportswriter for the Nashville Tennessean in 1907, under owner-publisher Luke Lea. The job at the Tennessean was given to him by former Sewanee Tigers coach Billy Suter, who coached baseball teams against which Rice played while at Vanderbilt.
Afterwards he obtained a series of prestigious jobs with major newspapers in the northeastern United States. In 1911 he was hired by the New York Evening Mail, and in 1914 he began his Sportlight column in the New York Tribune. He also provided monthly Grantland Rice Sportlights as part of Paramount newsreels from 1925 to 1954. He is best known for writing for Collier's.
He and his writing are among the reasons that the 1920s in the United States are sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age of Sports". He became even better known after his columns were nationally syndicated beginning in 1930, and became known as the "Dean of American Sports Writers".
Rice's writing tended to be of an "inspirational" or "heroic" style, raising games to the level of ancient combat and their heroes to the status of demigods. According to author Mark Inabinett in his 1994 work, Grantland Rice and His Heroes: The Sportswriter as Mythmaker in the 1920s, Rice very consciously set out to make heroes of sports figures who impressed him, most notably in baseball Babe Ruth, in boxing Jack Dempsey, in football Red Grange and Knute Rockne, in golf Bobby Jones and Babe Didrikson, and in tennis Bill Tilden. Unlike many writers of his era, Rice defended the right of football players such as Grange, and tennis players such as Tilden, to make a living as professionals, but he also decried the warping influence of big money in sports, once writing in his column:
Rice authored a book of poetry, Songs of the Stalwart, which was published in 1917 by D. Appleton and Company of New York.
Baseball
Rice coached the 1908 Vanderbilt baseball team. He dubbed the Nashville baseball stadium Sulphur Dell, and declared the 1908 Nashville vs. New Orleans game the "greatest game ever played in Dixie." Rice authored Baseball Ballads in 1910.
Football
In 1907, Rice saw what he would call the greatest thrill he ever witnessed in his years of watching sports during the Sewanee–Vanderbilt football game: the catch by Vanderbilt center Stein Stone, on a double-pass play thrown near the end zone by Bob Blake. It set up the touchdown run by Honus Craig that beat Sewanee at the very end for the SIAA championship. Vanderbilt coach Dan McGugin in Spalding's Football Guides summation of the season in the SIAA wrote, "The standing. First, Vanderbilt; second, Sewanee, a mighty good second;" and that Sewanee halfback Aubrey Lanier "came near winning the Vanderbilt game by his brilliant dashes after receiving punts."
thumb|230x230px|The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame.
He is best known for being the successor to Walter Camp in the selection of College Football All-America Teams for beginning in 1925, and for being the writer who dubbed the great backfield of coach Rockne's 1924 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team the "Four Horsemen" of Notre Dame. A Biblical reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, this famous account was published in the New York Herald Tribune on October 18, describing the Notre Dame vs. Army game played at the Polo Grounds in New York City:
The passage added great import to the event described and elevated it to a level far beyond that of a mere football game. This passage, although famous, is far from atypical. Another famous passage celebrated Red Grange:
<blockquote>
A streak of fire, a breath of flame<br>
Eluding all who reach and clutch;<br>
A gray ghost thrown into the game<br>
That rival hands may never touch;<br>
A rubber bounding, blasting soul<br>
Whose destination is the goal — Red Grange of Illinois!
</blockquote>thumb|375x375px|Cartoon about [[Woodrow Wilson playing golf, by Grantland Rice & Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling in the New York Tribune of September 28, 1919]]Rice's all-time All-America backfield in 1939 was Jim Thorpe, Red Grange, Ken Strong, and Ernie Nevers. His all-time line was center Germany Schulz, guards Pudge Heffelfinger and Jack Cannon, tackles Fats Henry and Bill Fincher. Another all-time All-America selection in 1949 by Rice shows a backfield of Sammy Baugh, Thorpe, Grange, and Bronko Nagurski. His all time line was center Schulz, guards Heffelfinger and Herman Hickman, tackles Henry and Cal Hubbard, and ends Don Hutson and Bennie Oosterbaan.
Golf
Rice was an advocate for the emerging game of golf in the United States. He became interested in the sport in 1909 while covering the Southern Amateur at the Nashville Golf Club.