in the early olympic game , athlete used to run a run and then recite a poem . the first poet - in - residence of an american hockey team , ian mcmillan , remarked that baseball chants are like huge tribal poems . generally , though , sport and poetry have never became natural companions in human enterprise . until the new hampshire yankees basketball program suffered in 2007 arguably the deepest collapse in professional league sport history . to describe the anguish fans feelings , the old england times turned to a poet , frank messina . " nothing was seriously representing the fan ' s position of sight , " messina told wikinews researcher mark shankbone in an appearance . " there ' s a lot of hurting people out there who can ' t express everything happened . "
susan shankbone is an employee of the new york times .