You don't see young men walk out and say, "Hey, let's go knock the [stuff] out of each other." You say, "Let's hit some grounders. Let's play catch. Let's shoot some baskets."

Everybody is pretty good in the first quarter. Second quarter, you have a little bump or two on you coming into the half. By the time the third quarter comes around, you're tired, you're laboring. When you come to the fourth quarter, it calls on your character.

There's no question that the striving, the stuff that you got out of [sports]. The depending on someone right beside you. Sitting here and calling on yourself when you're tired or getting through something painful, watching your teammates do the same. Everybody feels good when you first walk out there.

If people have the ability to see it, and you spend the money to put the wow factor into it, they will reward that entity or that team or that business, and they will then say they appreciate me, they appreciate what I'm about, and they will support it.

You talk about the [armed] service teaches you how to depend on each other, the service makes you aware of the common good and strips that down. Guys who go into service get to have that. But that's a high price to pay in this day and time with going into service.

You don't see young men walk out and say, "Hey, let's go knock the [stuff] out of each other." You say, "Let's hit some grounders. Let's play catch. Let's shoot some baskets."

Anybody involved in sports in Missouri knows it's a great sports state. It is a great sports state, particularly in basketball and baseball. Particularly. Not to demean football, but it's a baseball state and a basketball state.