Front of Shirt:
THE MAN IN THE ARENA
Back of Shirt:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
...
Teddy was undoubtedly a man of action. Always in the arena. Never on the sidelines. Always the gladiator, never the critic. He lived his life to the fullest throughout. He suffered plenty along the way, failing and succeeding many times in many arena. But he was always, always in the arena until the day he died.
He may have grown up in an aristocratic family but his childhood was anything but a breeze and thereafter he chose a life of toil rather than ease. Very few people would make the conscious choice to live the strenuous life rather than the life of ease, if given the options But Teddy knew that struggle and adversity are what develop character and so he seeked those things out with his whole energy.
Plagued with illness and lung/breathing problems as a child, his father made it clear to him that the only way he would overcome this is through beating his body into submission. And this he did. Thoroughly. For the rest of his life.
Starting as a young man, he engaged himself in continuous physical training and he continued to do so for the remainder of his life. Boxing, wrestling, hunting, cattle driving in the Dakotas, fighting in war, etc etc etc. He engaged himself fully, never holding back. His body knew no limit that his mind wouldn't permit...Which was none at all.
This shirt reminds us of that attitude that can belong to each one of us if we so chose.