Life & Wisdom Quote by Tommy Smith

There is a quiet flex in admitting ignorance: it frames the speaker as both honest witness and late-blooming critic. "I knew nothing" isn’t a shrug; it’s a before-and-after marker, the moment before someone realizes the rules aren’t neutral and the referees aren’t invisible. The line does two things at once: it protects the narrator from looking complicit in a rigged system, and it indicts the system for being designed to keep players from seeing the hands on the levers.

The phrase "ran the game" is doing the heavy lifting. It’s bluntly colloquial, almost offhand, but it carries a whole sociology of gatekeepers: administrators, promoters, editors, sponsors, fixers - whoever benefits from the game continuing exactly as it is. Smith chooses "people" rather than "institutions", which sharpens the moral charge. This wasn’t abstract bureaucracy; it was decisions made by individuals who could be named, who had faces, who profited.

"Those days" adds a thin veil of nostalgia that’s instantly undercut by the implication of manipulation. It suggests a past when a young entrant could still believe talent was the currency, before learning the exchange rate was set elsewhere. The intent isn’t just to recount naivete; it’s to establish the conditions that make exploitation possible: complexity, secrecy, and the cultural expectation that newcomers should be grateful just to be on the field. In one sentence, Smith sketches the origin story of disillusionment - and the first step toward refusing to play along.