"I wouldn't, a little bit frightened but throughout my life I'd learnt that when you're in the serious situations, you've got to try to stay calm. Because that's the way you get out of them"
About this Quote
Newcombe’s sentence has the slightly jagged, unscripted rhythm of someone recalling a real moment rather than polishing a life lesson for a poster. “I wouldn’t, a little bit frightened” keeps the fear in the frame but refuses to romanticize it. He’s not claiming bravado; he’s admitting the wobble, then pivoting to the only thing he can actually control.
The intent is practical: in “serious situations,” calm isn’t a personality trait, it’s a technique. As an elite tennis player from an era when sports psychology wasn’t packaged as a brand, Newcombe frames composure as learned behavior - something trained over years of tight matches, hostile crowds, and the particular loneliness of an individual sport where no teammate can absorb the pressure for you. The line “throughout my life I’d learnt” is doing quiet work: calm is presented as an accumulation of reps, not a heroic instinct.
Subtextually, he’s defining courage as management, not denial. Fear is acknowledged as information, not a failure. The almost blunt causality in the final clause - “Because that’s the way you get out of them” - strips away glamour and cuts to survival logic. Calm becomes an exit strategy.
Context matters: Newcombe’s generation prized stoicism, often to a fault, but here stoicism is reframed as problem-solving rather than macho silence. It’s a tidy philosophy for sport and for life under stress: panic narrows choices; composure keeps options open.
The intent is practical: in “serious situations,” calm isn’t a personality trait, it’s a technique. As an elite tennis player from an era when sports psychology wasn’t packaged as a brand, Newcombe frames composure as learned behavior - something trained over years of tight matches, hostile crowds, and the particular loneliness of an individual sport where no teammate can absorb the pressure for you. The line “throughout my life I’d learnt” is doing quiet work: calm is presented as an accumulation of reps, not a heroic instinct.
Subtextually, he’s defining courage as management, not denial. Fear is acknowledged as information, not a failure. The almost blunt causality in the final clause - “Because that’s the way you get out of them” - strips away glamour and cuts to survival logic. Calm becomes an exit strategy.
Context matters: Newcombe’s generation prized stoicism, often to a fault, but here stoicism is reframed as problem-solving rather than macho silence. It’s a tidy philosophy for sport and for life under stress: panic narrows choices; composure keeps options open.
Quote Details
| Topic | Resilience |
|---|
More Quotes by John
Add to List
