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If one was making £160,000 per week — that’s more than a quarter of a million dollars every seven days — it would be safe to assume that one’s father would not choose to deal in cocaine for a living. Not necessarily, it seems — at least not in the John Terry family. The man who had to stand down as captain of the England football squad for having screwed a teammate’s girl is a hell of a fellow. His mother and mother-in-law were cautioned last year for shoplifting. Now his old man is charged with dealing in the wrong kind of coke. What in hell’s name is going on here? Modern England, that’s what.
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Compare this with one Dave Sime, a fellow I sat next to last week here in the Big Bagel. Pronounced Sim, his name was better known among us when we were kids than John Terry’s is among the filth of Chelsea today. Real Chariots of Fire stuff. Dave Sime held six world records in the dash and short distances while at Duke University, and added three more immediately after graduation. His father was a Depression baby who never made more than $100 a week as a house painter. After work he’d play baseball with Dave and make him run dashes. ‘Speed is all,’ he’d tell him. Dave Sime went to medical school and turned down myriad offers from baseball teams as well as basketball franchises. ‘Why play for money when you can do it for fun,’ he said, or something like that.
At one meet against North Carolina he was asked by his Duke coach if he would try the low hurdles as the team needed the points.
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