Mad props to Philly.com for going deep into the archive and re-posting Bill Lyon’s 1995 column on Ricky Watters’ Philly debut, a.k.a. The For Who For What game.  This gets promoted from just being on my del.icio.us if only because I want the opportunity to quote it extensively:

It was as though someone had written on a blackboard all the things a professional athlete shouldn’t do and all the things he shouldn’t say, and then Ricky Watters defiantly stood up and did them and said them, every last regrettable, stupid, self-absorbed one of them.

It was the most graceless, clueless, classless debut by a professional athlete in Philadelphia in memory.

And:

In response to the question of why he didn’t try to reach a pass aimed his way over the middle and then pulled up to a dead stop when he saw a defensive back coming at him, Watters offered up the following quote, one that should be in every manual given to rookies, one that could be engraved on his own tombstone:

“Hey, I’m not going to trip up there and get knocked out. For who? For what? ”

Well, at least five reasons spring immediately to mind:

For your teammates.

For your coaches.

For your fans.

For your own self-respect.

And for your enormous paycheck.

Probably, there are some others.

And so on, very worth a read, so you should treat yourself ahead of gametime.  Though if I may add one more nugget from the article, which certainly sounds more prescient that Mr. Lyon could have ever known in 1995:

The West Coast offense, of which we had heard so much and had such high expectations, looked tepid and ineffectual. Iggles loyalists were frustrated.

YOU DON’T SAY. 

I hope this is the first of many re-postings from the classic fishwrappers on Philly.com.  For those of us who grew up reading the sports page with their Fruit Loops every day, it’d be a most outstanding treat.  Good on ya, blathermonkey editorial staff!