Seen on a Tee-shirt at Venice Beach, California
"Any coward can fight when he is winning."
George Eliot
"My only friend was my dog, and I told my wife a man should have at least two friends. So she bought me another dog."
Pepper Rodgers, ex-Kansas, Georgia Tech and UCLA head coach
"Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them back."
President Richard M. Nixon, at the time of leaving office
"The higher the monkey climbs, the more he shows his ass."
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., late President of IBM
"Commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken makes a contribution. The pig makes a commitment."
Fred Shero, Stanley Cup-winning coach of the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1970's
"A pack of jackasses led by a lion is superior to a pack of lions led by a jackass."
George Washington
"Eight seconds in the arena are better than a lifetime in the stands."
Bumper sticker seen (on a pickup truck) in rodeo country
"You can't be truly great unless you are first truly good."
(ANONYMOUS)
"Win without boasting...lose without excuse."
Albert P. Terhune
"Principles don't mean anything until they cost you something."
Dr. Laura Schlesinger
"Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the mastery of fear."
Mark Twain
Useful Coaching Quotes
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
"Breaks balance out. The sun don't shine on the same ol' dog's rear end every day."
Legendary Texas Football Coach, Darrell Royal
Fat people don't offend me. What offends me is losing with fat people.
Legendary Texas Football Coach, Darrell Royal
"I have a lifetime contract. That means I can't be fired during the third quarter if we're ahead and moving the ball."
Lou Holtz while at Arkansas
"Good players win games for you, not big players."
Lynn "Pappy" Waldorf, outstanding coach at the University of California in the 1950s
"Winning is the by-product of doing things right."
Tubby Raymond
"There is nothing that cleanses out your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."
Woody Hayes
"No one has ever drowned in sweat"
Lou Holtz
"The first and foremost requisite of a good football player is that he must have a burning desire to play the game. There is absolutely no substitute for this."
Frank Leahy, all-time great coach at Notre Dame
"Played wholeheartedly, football is a soul-satisfying outlet for the rugged, courageous type of boy who likes physical contact. Played halfheartedly, football is a waste of time and energy. Football is no halfway game. To play it, you have to get wet all over."
Dana X. Bible, former coach at LSU, Texas A & M, Nebraska and Texas
I feel more strongly about this than anything else in coaching: anybody who lacks discipline, who doesn't want to be part of the team, who doesn't want to meet the requirements - has to go. It's that simple."
Bud Wilkinson
"You don't win by making sensational plays; you win by not making mistakes."
Bum Phillips, legendary high school, college and professional coach
"The great Paul Brown once said: The best play in football is the one that goes straight ahead, and the second best play is the one that goes almost straigt ahead."
"You have to convince your players that the only reason a play failed was that they didn't execute properly."
Bill McCartney, former Colorado coach, now President of Promise Keepers
"Linemen are literally the unsung heroes of the game. Their situation is analogous to the infantry in warfare. They do the hard, bitter fighting for victory. As the generals reap the headlines in war, the backs reap the headlines in football. Yet in their hearts, the generals and backs know that victory and the accolades came to them through the work of the footsoldiers and linemen."
Gomer Jones (Bud Wilkinson's line coach at Oklahoma)
"Football ist kein Kontaktsport, Tanzen ist Kontaktsport.... Football ist Krieg!!"
Lou Holtz
"Football is and always will be a game of blocking and hitting"
Vince Lombardi
"When you travel with the team and you eat with the team, you eat what the team eats."
Vince Lombardi, when his wife wanted ice cream with her apple pie
"No one is ever hurt. Hurt is in the mind."
Vince Lombardi
"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's wether you get up."
Vince Lombardi
"Once you learn to quit...it becomes a habit."
Vince Lombardi
"You never win a game unless you beat the guy in front of you. The score on the board doesn't mean a thing. That's for the fans. You've got to win the war with the man in front of you. You've got to get your man."
Vince Lombardi
"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender."
Vince Lombardi
"Winning is not everything--but making effort to win is."
Vince Lombardi
"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious."
Vince Lombardi
"I don't build character. I eliminate the people who don't have it."
Vince Lombardi
"Football is not a contact sport - dancing is a contact sport - football is a collission sport"
Vince Lombardi
Quotes on Lombardi
"When Lombardi said 'sit down' we didn't look for a chair."
-Forrest Gregg
"He made us all better than we thought we could be."
-Jerry Kramer
"He pushed you to the end of your endurance and then beyond it. And if there was reserve there, well he found that too."
-Henry Jordan
You might reduce Lombardi's coaching philosophy to a single sentence: In any game, you do the things you do best and you do them over and over and over."
-George Halas
Quotes taken from the Vince Lombardi Web Page, Coach B's Page and Coach Hugh Wyatt's Page