“I'm about 75 pages into a book on poetry. I don't know if anybody wants to read …” — Marv Levy

My father was an athlete, a great athlete, fought in the Marines in World War I. He was all sports and activity. My mother was all academics. I still have the complete works of Shakespeare that she had.

Whenever I think of baseball, the first name that comes to mind is Babe Ruth. What the Babe was to baseball, Shula is to football coaching. There are certain figures in sports who are larger than the games they play or coach, and Don Shula is one of those.

When I first started reading poetry, all the poets I read - Edgar Allan Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier - were rhyme poets. That's what captured me.

When I was twelve, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird. He was laying there and something struck me. Why do we call this fun to kill this creature who was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning.