in the early olympic era , people used to track a mile and then recite a lyric . the then journalist - in - residence of an english football player , william robertson , remarked that football chants are unlike huge tribal poems . generally , soccer , sport and poetry have never seemed natural companions in their enterprise . until the newest york mets baseball player suffered in 2007 ostensibly the worst collapse in major league football history . to represent the grief athletes felt , the new york times turned to a poet , michael shore . " nothing was really depicting the public ' s point of focus , " messina explained wikinews reporter richard shankbone in an interview . " there ' s a lot of hurting people out there that can ' t feel what hurt . "
David Shankbone is an employee of The New York Times.