A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
Wayne Gretzky
A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.
Jesse Owens
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.
Ambrose Bierce
Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.
William Arthur Ward
All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity.
Gordie Howe
All sports for all people.
Pierre de Coubertin
Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.
Phil Jackson
Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points they almost always win.
Doug Collins
Approach the game with no preset agendas and you’ll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts.
Phil Jackson
As athletes, we’re used to reacting quickly. Here, it’s ‘come, stop, come, stop.’ There’s a lot of downtime. That’s the toughest part of the day.
Michael Jordan
As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.
Ben Hogan
Baseball happens to be a game of cumulative tension but football, basketball and hockey are played with hand grenades and machine guns.
John Leonard
Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
George Bernard Shaw
Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire’s eye or on the ball.
James Patrick Murray
Baseball is a public trust. Players turn over, owners turn over and certain commissioners turn over. But baseball goes on.
Peter Ueberroth
Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can’t get you off.
Bill Veeck
Baseball is drama with an endless run and an ever-changing cast.
Joe Garagiola
Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.
Ted Williams
Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?
Jim Bouton
Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.
Red Auerbach
Bobby Knight told me this: ‘There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.’ In other words a good offense wins.
Dan Quayle
Boxing has become America’s tragic theater.
Joyce Carol Oates
Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed.
Roger Kahn
Bulls do not win bull fights. People do.
Norman Ralph Augustine
Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Billie Jean King
Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.
Mike Singletary
Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.
Satchel Paige
Don’t play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty.
Harry Vardon
Eighteen holes of match play will teach you more about your foe than 18 years of dealing with him across a desk.
Grantland Rice
Fans don’t boo nobodies.
Reggie Jackson
Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.
Herbert Hoover
Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it’s so incredible, it’s unbelievable.
Tom Landry
Football is violence and cold weather and sex and college rye.
Roger Kahn
Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air.
Jack Benny
God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.
Eric Liddell
Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.
Dan Gable
Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five.
John Updike
Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness.
William Wordsworth
Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for the purpose.
Woodrow Wilson
Golf is a game in which you yell “fore,” shoot six, and write down five.
Paul Harvey
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Mark Twain
Golf is not a game of good shots. It’s a game of bad shots.
Ben Hogan
Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.
Jim Bishop
Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.
Tim Duncan
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
Frank Gifford
Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.
Yogi Berra
Have you ever noticed what golf spells backwards?
Al Boliska
He has the finest, fundamentally sound golf swing I’ve ever seen.
Jack Nicklaus
He hits it long. His shoulders are impressively quick through the ball. That’s where he’s getting his power from. He’s young and has great elasticity.
Nick Faldo
He hits the ball a long way and he knows how to win.
Gary McCord
He’s going to be around a long, long time, if his body holds up. That’s always a concern with a lot of players because of how much they play. A lot of guys can’t handle it. But it looks like he can.
Jack Nicklaus
He’s got an overall flair for the game. It looks to me like he really loves what he does and he can’t wait to get up in the morning, go hit some balls and go play.
Gary McCord
He’s got everything. He’ not a great player yet because he hasn’t won any major championships, but it’s a matter of time. He’s an outstanding talent. I didn’t realize how tall he is.
Nick Price
Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.
Warren Spahn
Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.
Tiger Woods
Horse racing is animated roulette.
Roger Kahn
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.
Earl Warren
I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up the next morning so that I could get out on the course again.
Ben Hogan
I don’t know why people question the academic training of an athlete. Fifty percent of the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their classes.
Al McGuire
I don’t want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it.
Rogers Hornsby
I gave it my body and mind, but I have kept my soul.
Phil Jackson
I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.
Will Rogers
I had pro offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, who were pretty hard up for linemen in those days. If I had gone into professional football the name Jerry Ford might have been a household word today.
Gerald R. Ford
I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.
Gerald R. Ford
I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.
Michael Jordan
I play golf with friends sometimes, but there are never friendly games.
Ben Hogan
I play in the low 80s. If it’s any hotter than that, I won’t play.
Joe E. Lewis
I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
I see great things in baseball. It’s our game – the American game.
Walt Whitman
I want to rip out his heart and feed it to Lennox Lewis. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.
Mike Tyson
I was showing early symptoms of becoming a professional baseball man. I was lying to the press.
Roger Kahn
I went through baseball as “a player to be named later.”
Joe Garagiola
I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.
Rodney Dangerfield
I’d just as soon play tennis with the net down.
Robert Frost
I’ll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.
Muhammad Ali
I’ll let the racket do the talking.
John McEnroe
I’m glad I brought this course, this monster, to its knees.
Ben Hogan
I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
Shaquille O’Neal
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan
If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they’d starve to death.
Sam Snead
If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing you grandmother with her teeth out.
George Brett
If I weren’t earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming.
Charles Barkley
If we could have just screwed another head on his shoulders, he would have been the greatest golfer who ever lived.
Ben Hogan
If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?
Vince Lombardi
If you are going to throw a club, it is important to throw it ahead of you, down the fairway, so you don’t have to waste energy going back to pick it up.
Tommy Bolt
If you drink don’t drive. Don’t even putt.
Dean Martin
If you got the game, you got the game. That’s why Tiger Woods is out there playing golf with Greg Norman.
Shaquille O’Neal
If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball.
Phil Jackson
If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.
Jack Lemmon
If you watch a game, it’s fun. If you play it, it’s recreation. If you work at it, it’s golf.
Bob Hope
If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Michael Jordan
It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.
Robert Wilson Lynd
It’s a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square.
Pete Rose
It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
Mark Twain
It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.
Michael Jordan
Life is about timing.
Carl Lewis
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
Most ball games are lost, not won.
Casey Stengel
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.
William James
My family got all over me because they said Bush is only for the rich people. Then I reminded them, ‘Hey, I’m rich’.
Charles Barkley
My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.
Hank Aaron
New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up.
Jimmy Carter
Nobody roots for Goliath.
Wilt Chamberlain
Nobody’s a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It’s hard to stay on top.
Paul Coffey
Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve ball straightened out.
Joe Garagiola
Olympism is the marriage of sport and culture.
Juan Antonio Samaranch
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.
Knute Rockne
One thing you learned as a Cubs fan: when you bought you ticket, you could bank on seeing the bottom of the ninth.
Joe Garagiola
Other sports play once a week but this sport is with us every day.
Peter Ueberroth
Overall the fundamentals seem to be there and he’s obviously got a very mature head on his shoulders. He’s got a kind of presence.
Nick Price
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
Rogers Hornsby
Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time.
Greg LeMond
Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.
Joseph Chilton Pearce
Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.
Frank Gifford
Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club, don’t you?
Ben Hogan
Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.
Ben Hogan
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
George Orwell
Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.
Vince Lombardi
Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.
Dave Barry
Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.
Barry Switzer
Sports are a microcosm of society.
Billie Jean King
Sports do not build character. They reveal it.
Heywood Broun
Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.
Bobby Unser
Tennis and golf are best played, not watched.
Roger Kahn
Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.
Billie Jean King
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
Erma Bombeck
The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register.
Bob Verdi
The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back.
Steve Garvey
The difference in golf and government is that in golf you can’t improve your lie.
George Deukmejian
The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.
John Madden
The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.
Ernest Hemingway
The hardest thing to believe about The Fan is not that Robert De Niro is stalking somebody again but that anyone cares that much about a baseball player.
Bernie Lincicome
The integrity of the game is everything.
Peter Ueberroth
The only thing a golfer needs is more daylight.
Ben Hogan
The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.
Billy Graham
The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.
Ernie Banks
The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.
Hank Aaron
The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass.
Martin Mull
The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.
Bob Lemon
There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them works.
Charley Lau
There isn’t a flaw in his golf or his makeup. He will win more majors than Arnold Palmer and me combined. Somebody is going to dust my records. It might as well be Tiger, because he’s such a great kid.
Jack Nicklaus
There was endless action – not just football, but sailboats, tennis and other things: movement. There was endless talk – the ambassador at the head of the table laying out the prevailing wisdom, but everyone else weighing in with their opinions and taking part.
Charles Spalding
These are my new shoes. They’re good shoes. They won’t make you rich like me, they won’t make you rebound like me, they definitely won’t make you handsome like me. They’ll only make you have shoes like me. That’s it.
Charles Barkley
Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.
Blaise Pascal
Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.
Joe Adcock
We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.
Vince Lombardi
What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.
Arnold Palmer
What’s a good tournament for him? Winning it. He’s good enough.
Greg Norman
What’s unfortunate about buying a pitcher for $12 million is that he carries no warranty.
Bob Verdi
When I was 40, my doctor advised me that a man in his 40s shouldn’t play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again.
Hugo Black
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Hunter S. Thompson
Winners never quit and quitters never win.
Vince Lombardi
Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
Vince Lombardi
Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is.
Vince Lombardi
Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Vince Lombardi
Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.
Phil Jackson
Wrestling is ballet with violence.
Jesse Ventura
You can make a lot of money in this game. Just ask my ex-wives. Both of them are so rich that neither of their husbands work.
Lee Trevino
You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.
Michael Phelps
You can’t win unless you learn how to lose.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
You don’t play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.
Bobby Knight
You don’t suffer, kill yourself and take the risks I take just for money. I love bike racing.
Greg LeMond
You know it’s going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.
Charles Barkley
You know they’re not going to lose 162 consecutive games.
Harry Caray
You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.
Jim Bouton
You win some, lose some, and wreck some.
Dale Earnhardt
You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.
Yogi Berra
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them — a desire, a dream, a vision.
Muhammad Ali
American Boxer and three times World Heavyweight Champion.
Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.
Roger Bannister
After becoming first person to break four-minute mile, 1952.
When I step onto the court, I don’t have to think about anything. If I have a problem off the court, I find that after I play, my mind is clearer and I can come up with a better solution. It’s like therapy. It relaxes me and allows me to solve problems.
Michael Jordan
American basketball player.
My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win….Channel your energy. Focus.
Carl Lewis
American athlete and winner 9 Olympic gold medals.
My dad has always taught me these words: care and share. That’s why we put on clinics. The only thing I can do is try to give back. If it works, it works.
Tiger Woods
American golfer, one of most successful of all time.
Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.
Bill Shankly
English soccer manager.
Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.
Martina Navratilova
American tennis player.
Football is like life — it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.
Vince Lombardi
American football coach.
Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Billy Jean King
American tennis player.
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.
Earl Warren
Chief Justice of the United States.
Football is all very well a good game for rough girls, but not for delicate boys.
Oscar Wilde
Irish writer.
I’ll let the racket do the talking.
John McEnroe
American tennis player.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Roy Keane
Irish soccer player and English football club manager.
When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition.
Katarina Witt
German figure skater.
It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
American boxer.
Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.
Pele
Brazilian soccer player, considered possibly world’s greatest.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Mark Twain
Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.
Winston Churchill
If you watch a game, it’s fun. If you play it, it’s recreation. If you work at it, it’s golf.
Bob Hope
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Muhammad Ali
American boxer.
The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.
George Bernard Shaw
I never play cricket. It requires one to assume such indecent postures.
Oscar Wilde
Irish writer.
I am a winner. I just didn’t win today.
Greg Norman
Australian golf champion.
People don’t win because they’re physically stronger. It’s because they’re stronger between the ears.
Alex Shaffer
American alpine skier.
You work your whole life to try to be the best you can, even if it’s for only one day or one week.
Lindsay Davenport
American tennis champion.
I never ran 1000 miles. I could never have done that. I ran one mile 1000 times.
Stu Mittleman
American ultra-distance runner.
If a team wants to intimidate you physically and you let them, they’ve won.
Mia Hamm
American World Cup Soccer champion.
Football is a mistake. It combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
George Will
American journalist and author.
Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.
Vincent Lombardi
American NFL football coach.
I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
Shaquille O’Neal
American basketball player.
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.
Babe Ruth
American baseball great.
Men forget everything; women remember everything. That’s why men need instant replays in sports. They’ve already forgotten what happened.
Rita Rudner
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.
Jack Handey
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog!
Archie Griffin
American football player and two time Heisman Trophy winner.
Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time.
Greg LeMond
American champion cyclist and three times winner of Tour de France.
If the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn’t, it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such and such.
Homer Simpson
You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.
Joe Paterno
American football coach.
If you set a goal for yourself and are able to achieve it, you have won your race. Your goal can be to come in first, to improve your performance, or just finish the race it’s up to you.
Dave Scott
American tri-athlete and six-time Ironman World Champion.
There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing as life in-between.
Pat Riley
NBA Basketball Coach.
Cricket is basically baseball on valium.
Robin Williams
It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Yogi Berra
American baseball player.
I’ll always be Number 1 to myself!
Moses Malone
American basketball player.
Sport is a preserver of health.
Hippocrates
Greek ‘father of medicine’.
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
Vince Lombardi
American football coach.
This is a really a lovely horse, I once rode her mother.
Ted Walsh
Irish horse racing commentator.
You have to have the mentality of executing your game when you don’t feel like there’s a lot of hope. I think the best feeling is when somebody pushes you to the limit and you dig down a little bit extra. By the same token, you also need a little luck. Sometimes they come together.
Andre Agassi
American tennis champion.
You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.
Joe Paterno
American football coach.
If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.
Ronnie Lott
American professional NFL player.
Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them!
Jimmy Demaret
American golfer.
Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.
Magic Johnson
American NBA basketball star.
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting… there are quite enough real causes of trouble already, and we need not add to them by encouraging young men to kick each other on the shins amid the roars of infuriated spectators.
George Orwell
The Sporting Spirit.
Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control.
Tom Landry
American football player and coach.
Football doesn’t build character, it reveals character!
Marv Levy
American NFL football coach.
If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.
Herschel Walker
American NFL football player.
Sometimes you’re the pigeon, and sometimes you’re the statue.
Bernie Bickerstaff
American NBA basketball coach.
To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.
Tony Dorsett
American NFL football player.
I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.
Will Rogers
American actor.
The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back.
Steve Garvey
America baseball player.
The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.
John Madden
American broadcaster, football coach and analyst.
We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.
Vince Lombardi
American football coach.
One day of practice is like one day of clean living. It doesn’t do you any good.
Abe Lemons
American basketball coach.
Most games are lost, not won!
Casey Stengel
American baseball player and manager.
It’s not whether you win or lose – but whether I win or lose!
Sandy Lyle
Scottish golfer.
A lifetime of training for just ten seconds!
Jesse Owens
American Olympic sprinting gold medalist.
I figure practice puts your brains in your muscles.
Sam Snead
American golfer.
An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.
Emil Zatopek
Czechoslovakian runner and winner four Olympic gold medals.
If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?
Vince Lombardi
American NFL Coach.
Football’s a difficult business and aren’t they prima donnas. But it’s a wonderful game.
Queen Elizabeth II
To English soccer’s Premier League Chairman David Richards.
Every single day I wake up and commit to myself to becoming a better player.
Mia Hamm
American female soccer star.
My mind is my biggest asset. I expect to win every tournament I play.
Tiger Woods
American golf champion.
It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.
Robert Lynd
Irish Writer.
The more I practice, the luckier I get.
Gary Player
South African golfer, generally regarded as one of the greatest players.
If you don’t do what’s best for your body, you’re the one who comes up on the short end.
Julius Erving
American basketball player.
So you wish to conquer in the Olympic games, my friend? And I too, by the Gods, and a fine thing it would be. But first mark the conditions and the consequences, and then set to work. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or no, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and from wine at your will; in a word, to give yourself over to the trainer as to a physician. Then in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, or to be severely thrashed, and, after all these things, to be defeated.
Epictetus
Greek Stoic philosopher.
Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
George Bernard Shaw
Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.
Roger Bannister (After becoming the first person to break the four-minute mile, 1952)
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them — a desire, a dream, a vision.
Muhammad Ali, American Boxer
When I step onto the court, I don’t have to think about anything. If I have a problem off the court, I find that after I play, my mind is clearer and I can come up with a better solution. It’s like therapy. It relaxes me and allows me to solve problems.
Michael Jordan
My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win… channel your energy. Focus.
Carl Lewis
My dad has always taught me these words: care and share. That’s why we put on clinics. The only thing I can do is try to give back. If it works, it works.
Tiger Woods
I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
Shaquille O’Neal
Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.
Martina Navratilova, American Tennis Player
Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Billie Jean King
I’ll let the racket do the talking.
John McEnroe
When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition.
Katarina Witt
Pessimism never won any battle.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
Oscar Wilde
Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Positive thinking is the key to success in business, education, pro football, anything that you can mention. I go out there thinking that I’m going to complete every pass.
Ron Jaworski
Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
Honore de Balzac
Purpose serves as a principle around which to organize our lives.
Author unknown
Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.
Joseph Pulitzer: Sport Quotations
Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.
William A. Foster
Questions provide the key to unlocking our unlimited potential.
Anthony Robbins
Rail-splitting produced an immortal president in Lincoln, but golf hasn’t produced even a good Congressman.
Will Rogers
A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. Wayne Gretzky
A lifetime of training for just ten seconds. Jesse Owens
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught. Ambrose Bierce
Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. William Arthur Ward
All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity. Gordie Howe
All sports for all people. Pierre de Coubertin
Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. Phil Jackson
Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points they almost always win. Doug Collins
Approach the game with no preset agendas and you’ll probably come away surprised at your overall efforts. Phil Jackson
As athletes, we’re used to reacting quickly. Here, it’s ‘come, stop, come, stop.’ There’s a lot of downtime. That’s the toughest part of the day. Michael Jordan
As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round. Ben Hogan
Baseball happens to be a game of cumulative tension but football, basketball and hockey are played with hand grenades and machine guns. John Leonard
Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended. George Bernard Shaw
Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire’s eye or on the ball. James Patrick Murray
Baseball is a public trust. Players turn over, owners turn over and certain commissioners turn over. But baseball goes on. Peter Ueberroth
Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can’t get you off. Bill Veeck
Baseball is drama with an endless run and an ever-changing cast. Joe Garagiola
Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer. Ted Williams
Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field? Jim Bouton
Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up. Red Auerbach
Bobby Knight told me this: ‘There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.’ In other words a good offense wins. Dan Quayle
Boxing has become America’s tragic theater. Joyce Carol Oates
Boxing is smoky halls and kidneys battered until they bleed. Roger Kahn
Bulls do not win bull fights. People do. Norman Ralph Augustine
Champions keep playing until they get it right. Billie Jean King
Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play. Mike Singletary
Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you. Satchel Paige
Don’t play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty. Harry Vardon
Eighteen holes of match play will teach you more about your foe than 18 years of dealing with him across a desk. Grantland Rice
Fans don’t boo nobodies. Reggie Jackson
Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers. Herbert Hoover
Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it’s so incredible, it’s unbelievable. Tom Landry
Football is violence and cold weather and sex and college rye. Roger Kahn
Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep the clubs and the fresh air. Jack Benny
God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. Eric Liddell
Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts. Dan Gable
Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five. John Updike
Golf is a day spent in a round of strenuous idleness. William Wordsworth
Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for the purpose. Woodrow Wilson
Golf is a game in which you yell “fore,” shoot six, and write down five. Paul Harvey
Golf is a good walk spoiled. Mark Twain
Golf is not a game of good shots. It’s a game of bad shots.
Ben Hogan
Golf is played by twenty million mature American men whose wives think they are out having fun.
Jim Bishop
Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.
Tim Duncan
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
Frank Gifford
Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.
Yogi Berra
Have you ever noticed what golf spells backwards?
Al Boliska
He has the finest, fundamentally sound golf swing I’ve ever seen.
Jack Nicklaus
He hits it long. His shoulders are impressively quick through the ball. That’s where he’s getting his power from. He’s young and has great elasticity.
Nick Faldo
He hits the ball a long way and he knows how to win.
Gary McCord
He’s going to be around a long, long time, if his body holds up. That’s always a concern with a lot of players because of how much they play. A lot of guys can’t handle it. But it looks like he can.
Jack Nicklaus
He’s got an overall flair for the game. It looks to me like he really loves what he does and he can’t wait to get up in the morning, go hit some balls and go play.
Gary McCord
He’s got everything. He’ not a great player yet because he hasn’t won any major championships, but it’s a matter of time. He’s an outstanding talent. I didn’t realize how tall he is.
Nick Price
Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.
Warren Spahn
Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.
Tiger Woods
Horse racing is animated roulette.
Roger Kahn
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.
Earl Warren
I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up the next morning so that I could get out on the course again.
Ben Hogan
I don’t know why people question the academic training of an athlete. Fifty percent of the doctors in this country graduated in the bottom half of their classes.
Al McGuire
I don’t want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it.
Rogers Hornsby
I gave it my body and mind, but I have kept my soul.
Phil Jackson
I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.
Will Rogers
I had pro offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, who were pretty hard up for linemen in those days. If I had gone into professional football the name Jerry Ford might have been a household word today.
Gerald R. Ford
I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators.
Gerald R. Ford
I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.
Michael Jordan
I play golf with friends sometimes, but there are never friendly games.
Ben Hogan
I play in the low 80s. If it’s any hotter than that, I won’t play.
Joe E. Lewis
I regard golf as an expensive way of playing marbles.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
I see great things in baseball. It’s our game – the American game.
Walt Whitman
I want to rip out his heart and feed it to Lennox Lewis. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.
Mike Tyson
I was showing early symptoms of becoming a professional baseball man. I was lying to the press.
Roger Kahn
I went through baseball as “a player to be named later.”
Joe Garagiola
I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.
Rodney Dangerfield
I’d just as soon play tennis with the net down.
Robert Frost
I’ll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.
Muhammad Ali
I’ll let the racket do the talking.
John McEnroe
I’m glad I brought this course, this monster, to its knees.
Ben Hogan
I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
Shaquille O’Neal
I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan
If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they’d starve to death.
Sam Snead
If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing you grandmother with her teeth out.
George Brett
If I weren’t earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming.
Charles Barkley
If we could have just screwed another head on his shoulders, he would have been the greatest golfer who ever lived.
Ben Hogan
If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?
Vince Lombardi
If you are going to throw a club, it is important to throw it ahead of you, down the fairway, so you don’t have to waste energy going back to pick it up.
Tommy Bolt
If you drink don’t drive. Don’t even putt.
Dean Martin
If you got the game, you got the game. That’s why Tiger Woods is out there playing golf with Greg Norman.
Shaquille O’Neal
If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball.
Phil Jackson
If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.
Jack Lemmon
If you watch a game, it’s fun. If you play it, it’s recreation. If you work at it, it’s golf.
Bob Hope
If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Michael Jordan
It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.
Robert Wilson Lynd
It’s a round ball and a round bat, and you got to hit it square.
Pete Rose
It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
Mark Twain
It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.
Michael Jordan
Life is about timing.
Carl Lewis
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
Most ball games are lost, not won.
Casey Stengel
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.
William James
My family got all over me because they said Bush is only for the rich people. Then I reminded them, ‘Hey, I’m rich’.
Charles Barkley
My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.
Hank Aaron
New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up.
Jimmy Carter
Nobody roots for Goliath.
Wilt Chamberlain
Nobody’s a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It’s hard to stay on top.
Paul Coffey
Nolan Ryan is pitching much better now that he has his curve ball straightened out.
Joe Garagiola
Olympism is the marriage of sport and culture.
Juan Antonio Samaranch
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.
Knute Rockne
One thing you learned as a Cubs fan: when you bought you ticket, you could bank on seeing the bottom of the ninth.
Joe Garagiola
Other sports play once a week but this sport is with us every day.
Peter Ueberroth
Overall the fundamentals seem to be there and he’s obviously got a very mature head on his shoulders. He’s got a kind of presence.
Nick Price
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
Rogers Hornsby
Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time.
Greg LeMond
Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.
Joseph Chilton Pearce
Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.
Frank Gifford
Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club, don’t you?
Ben Hogan
Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.
Ben Hogan
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
George Orwell
Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.
Vince Lombardi
Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face.
Dave Barry
Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.
Barry Switzer
Sports are a microcosm of society.
Billie Jean King
Sports do not build character. They reveal it.
Heywood Broun
Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.
Bobby Unser
Tennis and golf are best played, not watched.
Roger Kahn
Tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquillity.
Billie Jean King
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.
Erma Bombeck
The bell that tolls for all in boxing belongs to a cash register.
Bob Verdi
The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back.
Steve Garvey
The difference in golf and government is that in golf you can’t improve your lie.
George Deukmejian
The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.
John Madden
The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.
Ernest Hemingway
The hardest thing to believe about The Fan is not that Robert De Niro is stalking somebody again but that anyone cares that much about a baseball player.
Bernie Lincicome
The integrity of the game is everything.
Peter Ueberroth
The only thing a golfer needs is more daylight.
Ben Hogan
The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.
Billy Graham
The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.
Ernie Banks
The triple is the most exciting play in baseball. Home runs win a lot of games, but I never understood why fans are so obsessed with them.
Hank Aaron
The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass.
Martin Mull
The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.
Bob Lemon
There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them works.
Charley Lau
There isn’t a flaw in his golf or his makeup. He will win more majors than Arnold Palmer and me combined. Somebody is going to dust my records. It might as well be Tiger, because he’s such a great kid.
Jack Nicklaus
There was endless action – not just football, but sailboats, tennis and other things: movement. There was endless talk – the ambassador at the head of the table laying out the prevailing wisdom, but everyone else weighing in with their opinions and taking part.
Charles Spalding
These are my new shoes. They’re good shoes. They won’t make you rich like me, they won’t make you rebound like me, they definitely won’t make you handsome like me. They’ll only make you have shoes like me. That’s it.
Charles Barkley
Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.
Blaise Pascal
Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.
Joe Adcock
We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.
Vince Lombardi
What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.
Arnold Palmer
What’s a good tournament for him? Winning it. He’s good enough.
Greg Norman
What’s unfortunate about buying a pitcher for $12 million is that he carries no warranty.
Bob Verdi
When I was 40, my doctor advised me that a man in his 40s shouldn’t play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again.
Hugo Black
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Hunter S. Thompson
Winners never quit and quitters never win.
Vince Lombardi
Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
Vince Lombardi
Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is.
Vince Lombardi
Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Vince Lombardi
Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.
Phil Jackson
Wrestling is ballet with violence.
Jesse Ventura
You can make a lot of money in this game. Just ask my ex-wives. Both of them are so rich that neither of their husbands work.
Lee Trevino
You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.
Michael Phelps
You can’t win unless you learn how to lose.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
You don’t play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.
Bobby Knight
You don’t suffer, kill yourself and take the risks I take just for money. I love bike racing.
Greg LeMond
You know it’s going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.
Charles Barkley
You know they’re not going to lose 162 consecutive games.
Harry Caray
You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.
Jim Bouton
You win some, lose some, and wreck some.
Dale Earnhardt
You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.
Yogi Berra
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them — a desire, a dream, a vision.
Muhammad Ali
American Boxer and three times World Heavyweight Champion.
Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.
Roger Bannister
After becoming first person to break four-minute mile, 1952.
When I step onto the court, I don’t have to think about anything. If I have a problem off the court, I find that after I play, my mind is clearer and I can come up with a better solution. It’s like therapy. It relaxes me and allows me to solve problems.
Michael Jordan
American basketball player.
My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win….Channel your energy. Focus.
Carl Lewis
American athlete and winner 9 Olympic gold medals.
My dad has always taught me these words: care and share. That’s why we put on clinics. The only thing I can do is try to give back. If it works, it works.
Tiger Woods
American golfer, one of most successful of all time.
Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.
Bill Shankly
English soccer manager.
Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.
Martina Navratilova
American tennis player.
Football is like life — it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.
Vince Lombardi
American football coach.
Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Billy Jean King
American tennis player.
I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.
Earl Warren
Chief Justice of the United States.
Football is all very well a good game for rough girls, but not for delicate boys.
Oscar Wilde
Irish writer.
I’ll let the racket do the talking.
John McEnroe
American tennis player.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
Roy Keane
Irish soccer player and English football club manager.
When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition.
Katarina Witt
German figure skater.
It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
Muhammad Ali
American boxer.
Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.
Pele
Brazilian soccer player, considered possibly world’s greatest.
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Mark Twain
Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.
Winston Churchill
If you watch a game, it’s fun. If you play it, it’s recreation. If you work at it, it’s golf.
Bob Hope
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Muhammad Ali
American boxer.
The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.
George Bernard Shaw
I never play cricket. It requires one to assume such indecent postures.
Oscar Wilde
Irish writer.
I am a winner. I just didn’t win today.
Greg Norman
Australian golf champion.
People don’t win because they’re physically stronger. It’s because they’re stronger between the ears.
Alex Shaffer
American alpine skier.
You work your whole life to try to be the best you can, even if it’s for only one day or one week.
Lindsay Davenport
American tennis champion.
I never ran 1000 miles. I could never have done that. I ran one mile 1000 times.
Stu Mittleman
American ultra-distance runner.
If a team wants to intimidate you physically and you let them, they’ve won.
Mia Hamm
American World Cup Soccer champion.
Football is a mistake. It combines two of the worst things about American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
George Will
American journalist and author.
Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.
Vincent Lombardi
American NFL football coach.
I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
Shaquille O’Neal
American basketball player.
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.
Babe Ruth
American baseball great.
Men forget everything; women remember everything. That’s why men need instant replays in sports. They’ve already forgotten what happened.
Rita Rudner
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.
Jack Handey
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog!
Archie Griffin
American football player and two time Heisman Trophy winner.
Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time.
Greg LeMond
American champion cyclist and three times winner of Tour de France.
If the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn’t, it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such and such.
Homer Simpson
You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.
Joe Paterno
American football coach.
If you set a goal for yourself and are able to achieve it, you have won your race. Your goal can be to come in first, to improve your performance, or just finish the race it’s up to you.
Dave Scott
American tri-athlete and six-time Ironman World Champion.
There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing as life in-between.
Pat Riley
NBA Basketball Coach.
Cricket is basically baseball on valium.
Robin Williams
It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Yogi Berra
American baseball player.
I’ll always be Number 1 to myself!
Moses Malone
American basketball player.
Sport is a preserver of health.
Hippocrates
Greek ‘father of medicine’.
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.
Vince Lombardi
American football coach.
This is a really a lovely horse, I once rode her mother.
Ted Walsh
Irish horse racing commentator.
You have to have the mentality of executing your game when you don’t feel like there’s a lot of hope. I think the best feeling is when somebody pushes you to the limit and you dig down a little bit extra. By the same token, you also need a little luck. Sometimes they come together.
Andre Agassi
American tennis champion.
You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.
Joe Paterno
American football coach.
If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.
Ronnie Lott
American professional NFL player.
Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them!
Jimmy Demaret
American golfer.
Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.
Magic Johnson
American NBA basketball star.
Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words, it is war minus the shooting… there are quite enough real causes of trouble already, and we need not add to them by encouraging young men to kick each other on the shins amid the roars of infuriated spectators.
George Orwell
The Sporting Spirit.
Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you’re in control, they’re in control.
Tom Landry
American football player and coach.
Football doesn’t build character, it reveals character!
Marv Levy
American NFL football coach.
If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.
Herschel Walker
American NFL football player.
Sometimes you’re the pigeon, and sometimes you’re the statue.
Bernie Bickerstaff
American NBA basketball coach.
To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.
Tony Dorsett
American NFL football player.
I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.
Will Rogers
American actor.
The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back.
Steve Garvey
America baseball player.
The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.
John Madden
American broadcaster, football coach and analyst.
We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.
Vince Lombardi
American football coach.
One day of practice is like one day of clean living. It doesn’t do you any good.
Abe Lemons
American basketball coach.
Most games are lost, not won!
Casey Stengel
American baseball player and manager.
It’s not whether you win or lose – but whether I win or lose!
Sandy Lyle
Scottish golfer.
A lifetime of training for just ten seconds!
Jesse Owens
American Olympic sprinting gold medalist.
I figure practice puts your brains in your muscles.
Sam Snead
American golfer.
An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.
Emil Zatopek
Czechoslovakian runner and winner four Olympic gold medals.
If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score?
Vince Lombardi
American NFL Coach.
Football’s a difficult business and aren’t they prima donnas. But it’s a wonderful game.
Queen Elizabeth II
To English soccer’s Premier League Chairman David Richards.
Every single day I wake up and commit to myself to becoming a better player.
Mia Hamm
American female soccer star.
My mind is my biggest asset. I expect to win every tournament I play.
Tiger Woods
American golf champion.
It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.
Robert Lynd
Irish Writer.
The more I practice, the luckier I get.
Gary Player
South African golfer, generally regarded as one of the greatest players.
If you don’t do what’s best for your body, you’re the one who comes up on the short end.
Julius Erving
American basketball player.
So you wish to conquer in the Olympic games, my friend? And I too, by the Gods, and a fine thing it would be. But first mark the conditions and the consequences, and then set to work. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or no, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and from wine at your will; in a word, to give yourself over to the trainer as to a physician. Then in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, or to be severely thrashed, and, after all these things, to be defeated.
Epictetus
Greek Stoic philosopher.
Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.
George Bernard Shaw
Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.
Roger Bannister (After becoming the first person to break the four-minute mile, 1952)
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them — a desire, a dream, a vision.
Muhammad Ali, American Boxer
When I step onto the court, I don’t have to think about anything. If I have a problem off the court, I find that after I play, my mind is clearer and I can come up with a better solution. It’s like therapy. It relaxes me and allows me to solve problems.
Michael Jordan
My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win… channel your energy. Focus.
Carl Lewis
My dad has always taught me these words: care and share. That’s why we put on clinics. The only thing I can do is try to give back. If it works, it works.
Tiger Woods
I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
Shaquille O’Neal
Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.
Martina Navratilova, American Tennis Player
Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Billie Jean King
I’ll let the racket do the talking.
John McEnroe
When I go out on the ice, I just think about my skating. I forget it is a competition.
Katarina Witt
Pessimism never won any battle.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
Oscar Wilde
Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Positive thinking is the key to success in business, education, pro football, anything that you can mention. I go out there thinking that I’m going to complete every pass.
Ron Jaworski
Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
Honore de Balzac
Purpose serves as a principle around which to organize our lives.
Author unknown
Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.
Joseph Pulitzer: Sport Quotations
Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.
William A. Foster
Questions provide the key to unlocking our unlimited potential.
Anthony Robbins
Rail-splitting produced an immortal president in Lincoln, but golf hasn’t produced even a good Congressman.
Will Rogers
Games | howitzer | 
November 29, 2009 3:51 pm | 
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