Being a football coach comes with a lot of responsibilities and goals. Most of the time those responsibilities and goals have nothing to do with the X’s and O’s of football. Many of the times it is relating with your athletes and finding ways to inspire them and get the most effort out of them on each and every snap. Here are 500+ football quotes to inspire your athletes to promote a trusting and winning culture (and just some funny football stuff as well).
George Halas
“Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.”
“Nothing is work unless you’d rather be doing something else.”
“Many people flounder about in life because they do not have a purpose, an objective toward which to work.”
“Don’t do anything in practice that you wouldn’t do in the game.”
“Find out what the other team wants to do. Then take it away from them.”
“When they boo you, you know they mean you.”
“You can achieve only that which you will do.”
Vince Lombardi
“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
“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.”
“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”
“Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”
Paul Brown
“When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less.”
“The key to winning is poise under stress.”
“Leave as little to chance as possible. Preparation is the key to success.”
“A winner never whines.”
“Football is a game of errors. The team that makes the fewest errors in a game usually wins.”
“You can learn a line from a win and a book from a defeat.”
“The test of a quarterback is where his team finishes.”
“The only thing that counts is your dedication to the game. You run on your own fuel; it comes from within you.”
“Coaches who scrimmage all the time don’t know what to practice.”
Bill Parcells
“Losers assemble in small groups & complain, winners assemble as a team & find ways to win.
“Confidence is only born out of one thing demonstrated ability. It is not born of anything else. You cannot dream up confidence. You cannot fabricate it. You cannot wish it. You have to accomplish it.”
“You are what your record says you are.”
“Blame no one. Expect nothing. Do something.”
“The more you prepare beforehand, the more relaxed and creative and effective you’ll be when it counts.”
“Don’t ever let good enough be good enough.”
“You can easily separate ‘team guys’ from ‘me guys’ by how they accept coaching. The guys that accept it are about winning.”
“What sets disciplined people apart? – The capacity to get past distractions. Focus on the task at hand.”
“The only players I hurt with my words are the ones who have an inflated opinion of their ability.”
“Potential means you haven’t done anything yet.”
“A coach wouldn’t throw you to the wolves if he didn’t think you had some wolf in you.”
“I just try to do the best job I possibly can – put the blinders on, go to work and be the best you can possibly be. Once you have done everything that you possibly can – you’ve put forth your greatest effort – then I can live with whatever’s next.”
“I think confrontation is healthy, because it clears the air very quickly.”
“A good teacher creates an environment which allows the student to succeed.”
“You don’t get any medal for trying something, you get medals for results.”
“There is winning and there is misery.”
“A team divided against itself can break down at any moment. The least bit of pressure or adversity will crack it apart.”
“Accept false steps as opportunities to learn. It’s one thing to hate failure, it’s another to fear it.”
“No matter how much you’ve won, no matter how many games, no matter how many championships, no matter how many Super Bowls, you’re not winning now, so you stink.”
“You lose with potential. You win with performance.”
“My job is to call attention to the things that I think are the difference between winning and losing. If I can’t do that then I have failed as a coach.”
Tom Landry
“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.”
“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.”
“I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.”
“Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.”
“Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it’s so incredible, it’s unbelievable.”
“When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn.”
“A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.”
“Today, you have 100% of your life left.”
“A winner never stops trying.”
“If you are prepared, you will be confident, and will do the job.”
“The secret to winning is constant, consistent management.”
“The quality of a man’s life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence.”
Bill Walsh
“Like water, many decent individuals will seek lower ground if left to their own inclinations. In most cases you are the one who inspires and demands they go upward rather than settle for the comfort of doing what comes easily.”
“MY FIVE DOS FOR GETTING BACK INTO THE GAME:
- Do expect defeat. It’s a given when the stakes are high and the competition is working ferociously to beat you. If you’re surprised when it happens, you’re dreaming; dreamers don’t last long.
- Do force yourself to stop looking backward and dwelling on the professional “train wreck” you have just been in. It’s mental quicksand.
- Do allow yourself appropriate recovery—grieving—time. You’ve been knocked senseless; give yourself a little time to recuperate. A keyword here is “little.” Don’t let it drag on.
- Do tell yourself, “I am going to stand and fight again,” with the knowledge that often when things are at their worst you’re closer than you can imagine to success. Our Super Bowl victory arrived less than sixteen months after my “train wreck” in Miami.
- Do begin planning for your next serious encounter. The smallest steps—plans—move you forward on the road to recovery. Focus on the fix.”
“MY FIVE DON’TS:
- Don’t ask, “Why me?”
- Don’t expect sympathy.
- Don’t bellyache.
- Don’t keep accepting condolences.
- Don’t blame others.”
“Someone will declare, “I am the leader!” and expect everyone to get in line and follow him or her to the gates of heaven or hell. My experience is that it doesn’t happen that way. Unless you’re a guard on a chain gang, others follow you based on the quality of your actions rather than the magnitude of your declarations.”
“Do expect defeat. It’s a given when the stakes are high.”
“His leadership example of doing your job, treating others with respect, expecting people to do their jobs, and holding them accountable is a formula for success that will work in any good organization.”
“A good leader is always learning. The great leaders start learning young and continue until their last breath.”
“Often you crash and burn.”
“My Standard of Performance—the values and beliefs within it—guided everything I did in my work at San Francisco and are defined as follows: Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement; demonstrate respect for each person in the organization and the work he or she does; be deeply committed to learning and teaching, which means increasing my own expertise; be fair; demonstrate character; honor the direct connection between details and improvement, and relentlessly seek the latter; show self-control, especially where it counts most—under pressure; demonstrate and prize loyalty; use positive language and have a positive attitude; take pride in my effort as an entity separate from the result of that effort; be willing to go the extra distance for the organization; deal appropriately with victory and defeat, adulation and humiliation (don’t get crazy with victory nor dysfunctional with loss); promote internal communication that is both open and substantive (especially under stress); seek poise in myself and those I lead; put the team’s welfare and priorities ahead of my own; maintain an ongoing level of concentration and focus that is abnormally high; and make sacrifice and commitment the organization’s trademark.”
“For me the starting point for everything – before strategy, tactics, theories, managing, organizing, philosophy, methodology, talent, or experience – is work ethic.”
“When things are going best is when you have the opportunity to be the strongest, most demanding, and most effective in your leadership.”
“Running a football franchise is not unlike running any other business: You start first with a structural format and basic philosophy and then find the people who can implement it.”
“And, of course, between the ups and downs, the good times and bad, there are ongoing challenges to keep everyone firing on all cylinders at all times. Not to get too clever, but “consistent effort is a consistent challenge.” 71
“Leaders sometimes wonder why they or their organization fail to achieve success, never seem to reach their potential. It’s often because they don’t understand or can’t instill the concept of what a team is all about at its best: connection and extension. This is a fundamental ingredient of ongoing organizational achievement. (Of course, incompetence as a leader is also a common cause of organizational failure.) Combat soldiers talk about whom they will die for. Who is it? It’s those guys right next to them in the trench, not the fight song, the flag, or some general back at the Pentagon, but those guys who sacrifice and bleed right next to them. “I couldn’t let my buddies down,” is what all soldiers say. Somebody they had never seen before they joined the army or marines has become someone they would die for. That’s the ultimate connection and extension.”
“Even when you have an organization brimming with talent, victory is not always under your control. There is no guarantee, no ultimate formula for success. It all comes down to intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase your chance of prevailing. When you do that, the score will take care of itself.”
“Not to get too clever, but consistent effort is a consistent challenge.”
“Communication creates collaboration. Big ears are better than big egos. When you’re not listening, ask good questions.”
Bill Belichick
“You either get the job done, or you don’t.”
“You definitely go through a stage, most coaches do, where you see a good player and you get enamored, you really like what the player does, but then when you put him into your system, its not quite the same player that he was in another system. They have some strengths, but you can’t utilize all of those strengths. If you try to utilize all of their strengths, you end up weakening a lot of the other players who are already in your system.”
“The less versatile you are, the better you have to be at what you do well.”
“I’m not really worried about the other 31 teams.”
“My personal coaching philosophy, my mentality, has always been to make things as difficult as possible for players in practice, however bad we can make them, I make them.”
“I’m a football coach. I’m not a doctor. They don’t call plays, I don’t do surgeries. We have a great deal here.”
“Whatever success I’ve had it is because I’ve tried to understand the situation of the player. I think the coach’s duty is to avoid complicating matters.”
“Every game is an important game for us. Doesn’t matter what’s the next week – who we play, whether it’s a bye week, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween, Columbus Day. We don’t care. We’re just trying to go out there and win a game.”
“I think a smart guy can learn. Some guys learn – it’s just like all of us – some guys can learn electronics, some of us can’t. Some people can learn something else, some of us can’t. I mean, we’re all wired differently.”
“I’m not on SnapFace and all those … I’m not too worried about what they put on InstantChat.”
“If you like football, and you like to come in and work on football, then the New England Patriots is a great place to be. If you don’t, if it’s a job, if you’d rather be doing something else, honestly you’d be better off with another team.”
“I believe to have a championship team you want to have a championship team in every area, whether that’s your starting quarterback, your strength coach, your medical staff, your area scouts, whatever it happens to be.”
“Tell me what the guy can do, don’t tell me what he can’t do, and we’ll find a way to put that positive skill set in the defense and not ask him to be in a position where he can fail.”
“You have to go with the person who you have the most confidence in, the most consistent. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but I’m going down with that person.”
“You can’t look back. We don’t talk about last year. We don’t talk about next week. We talk about today, and we talk about the next game. That’s all we can really control.”
“If there is something that’s your passion when you’re young, do it. Let everything else take care of itself. Don’t pick a career for money, or some other reason. Do what you love, because it will never feel like work.”
“Mental toughness is doing the right thing for the team when it’s not the best thing for you.”
“For a team to accomplish their goal, everybody’s got to give up a little bit of their individuality.”
“There is an old saying about the strength of the wolf is the pack, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. On a football team, it’s not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.”
“If you sit back & spend too much time feeling good about what you did in the past, you’re going to come up short next time”
“There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation, brick by brick.”
“Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling.”
“The only sign we have in the locker room is from ‘The Art of War.’ ‘Every battle is won before it is fought.”
“To live in the past is to die in the present.”
“It is not all about talent. It’s about dependability, consistency, being coachable, and understanding what you need to do to improve.”
“Do your job.”
Mike Holmgren
“Listen to what I tell you and do it. If you do, three things can happen: One, it will work and you’ll get credit. Two, it won’t work and I’ll get the blame. Three, you’ll do it wrong and you’ll be gone.”
“The great ones don’t come cheap.”
“My reputation when I was first here was that I had every single answer in the book. I don’t know, maybe I portrayed that somehow. I was learning, and I continue to learn and I have learned.”
Nick Saban
“The process is really what you have to do day in and day out to be successful, we try to define the standard that we want everybody to sort of work toward, adhere to, and do it on a consistent basis. And the things that I talked about before, being responsible for your own self-determination, having a positive attitude, having great work ethic, having discipline to be able to execute on a consistent basis, whatever it is you’re trying to do, those are the things that we try to focus on, and we don’t try to focus as much on the outcomes as we do on being all that you can be.”
“It’s not human nature to be great. It’s human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by. That is normal. When you have something good happen, it’s the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished.”
“We create a standard for how we want to do things and everybody’s got to buy into that standard or you really can’t have any team chemistry. Mediocre people don’t like high-achievers and high-achievers don’t like mediocre people.”
“Becoming a champion is not an easy process… It is done by focusing on what it takes to get there and not on getting there.”
“I think everybody should take the attitude that we’re working to be a champion, that we want to be a champion in everything that we do. Every choice, every decision, everything that we do every day, we want to be a champion.”
“Your character is your accumulation of your thoughts, habits and priorities on a day-to-day basis.”
“We have got to use every opportunity to improve individually so we can improve collectively.”
“Eliminate the clutter and all the things that are going on outside and focus on the things that you can control with how you sort of go about and take care of your business. That’s something that’s ongoing, and it can never change.”
“People who are role models for the principles and values of the organization, who buy in and understand the vision of what the organization is trying to accomplish, and have the personality to inspire other people to the vision. You know, that’s what team chemistry and leadership is all about.”
“Be all you can be in whatever you choose to do. The sky is the limit, so go for it. And do not create any self-imposed limitations.”
“I’m tired of hearing all this talk from people who don’t understand the process of hard work-like little kids in the back seat asking ‘Are we there yet?’ Get where you’re going 1 mile-marker at a time.”
“The more one emphasizes winning, the less he or she is able to concentrate on what actually causes success.”
“The formula for success is every guy can make a difference for the entire team in whatever his role is. And to do it right, to get it right, is a critical factor in being successful.”
“BE ON TIME BECAUSE IT SHOWS YOU CARE.”
“If you don’t get result-oriented with the kids, you can focus on the things in the process that are important to them being successful.”
“The number one thing on any team that will keep your players from being selfish is respect for the other players.”
“When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it’s make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who’s in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you’re investing your time in that.”
“We have to compete within ourselves relative to the determination it takes to be successful.”
“A good process produces good results.”
“It’s about how the players play and compete. I know everybody is going to equate that on winning or losing, like they always do, but if we play hard and compete well in the game …then I think we are building on something.”
“To be a great player, you have to affect the entire unit.”
“Teaching is the ability to inspire learning.”
“When you play against good people, that’s when you focus your concentration. Your sense of urgency to be disciplined in your execution all become more critical. Sometimes you get away with doing things not quite right against lesser competition, but when you play against real good people that’s when it shows up.”
“I DON’T LIKE TO LOSE. I DON’T EXPECT TO LOSE.”
“One thing about championship teams is that they’re resilient. No matter what is thrown at them, no matter how deep the hole, they find a way to bounce back and overcome adversity.”
“First of all, you’ve got to have a vision of ‘What kind of program do I want to have?’ Then you’ve got to have a plan to implement it. Then you’ve got to set the example that you want, develop the principles and values that are important, and get people to buy into it.”
“We all have anxiety about things. We all have little insecurities, but eventually you have to face your fears if you want to be successful, and everybody has some fear of failure.”
“When people have success, one of two things happen. They either get really satisfied and want to keep thinking about it and talking about what they did, or the success becomes a little addictive, and it makes them want to keep having more.”
“Talent is talent, and everybody knows somebody who has talent or ability, but they never really converted it into a productive performance for whatever reasons.”
“What makes Freddy Krueger such a horrible character? What makes him scare you to death? You can’t get rid of the guy. He never goes away.”
“Honesty and integrity is an important part of our character, my character.”
“It’s not human nature to be great. It’s human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by. That is normal. When you have something good happen, it’s the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished.”
“There is no continuum for success. Focus on the progress, not the results.”
“Every choice, every decision, everything we do everyday, we want to be a champion.”
“It doesn’t matter what you are ranked until the end.”
“I don’t care what you did yesterday. If you’re happy with that, you have bigger problems.”
“You can’t win together if you don’t work together.”
“There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you’ll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment.”
“Discipline is not punishment. Discipline is changing someone’s behavior.”
“What happened yesterday is history. What happens tomorrow is a mystery. What we do today makes a difference – the precious present moment.”
“Success doesn’t come from pie-in-the-sky thinking. It’s the result of consciously doing something each day that will add to your overall excellence.”
“You can’t get from A to Z by passing up B.”
Woody Hayes
“The only thing even in this world is the number of hours in a day. The difference in winning or losing is what you do with those hours.”
“There’s nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.”
“We do not pull in and fill up. And I’ll tell you why we don’t. It’s because I don’t buy one goddamn drop of gas in the state of Michigan. We’ll coast and push this goddamn car to the Ohio line before I give this state a nickel of my money.”
“Because I couldn’t go for three.”
“I’ve had smarter people around me all my life, but I haven’t run into one yet that can outwork me. And if they can’t outwork you, then smarts aren’t going to do them much good. That’s just the way it is. And if you believe that and live by it, you’d be surprised at how much fun you can have. “Any time you give a man something he doesn’t earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect.”
“Football represents and embodies everything that’s great about this country, because the United States of America is built on winners, not losers or people who didn’t bother to play.”
“There’s nothing in this world that comes easy. There are a lot of people who aren’t going to bother to win. We learn in football to get up and go once more.”
“It does not matter the size of the man, rather the amount of effort the man is willing to put forth.”
“You don’t get hurt running straight ahead…three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust offense. I will pound you and pound you until you quit.”
“Any time you give a man something he doesn’t earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect.”
“The height of human desire is what wins, whether it’s on Normandy Beach or in Ohio Stadium.”
“You can never really pay back. You can only pay forward.”
“In football we always said that the other team couldn’t beat us. We had to be sure that we didn’t beat ourselves. And that’s what people have to do, too – make sure they don’t beat themselves.”
“Even the best team, without a sound plan, can’t score.”
“Perfect preparation prevents piss-poor performance.”
“When you’re winning – you don’t need any friends. When you’re losing – you don’t have any friends anyway.”
“Statistics always remind me of a fellow who drowned in a river where the average depth was only three feet.”
“I recruited a Czech kicker, and during the eye exam, when asked to read the bottom line, the kicker replied, Read it? I know him.”
“Paralyze resistance with persistence.”
“Nothing that comes easy in this world is worth a damn.”
“I don’t apologize for anything. When I make a mistake, I take the blame and go on from there. I just despise to lose, and that has taken a man of mediocre ability and made a pretty good coach out of him.”
“Football is, after all, a wonderful way to get rid of your aggressions without going to jail for it.”
“I love football. I think it is most wonderful game in world and I despise to lose.”
“To hell with exciting. I’d rather be drab as hell and win.”
Bo Schembechler
“No man is more important than The Team. No coach is more important than The Team. The Team, The Team, The Team, and if we think that way, all of us, everything that you do, you take into consideration what effect does it have on my Team?”
“We’re gonna believe in each other, we’re not gonna criticize each other, we’re not gonna talk about each other, we’re gonna encourage each other.”
“Every day you either get better or you get worse. You never stay the same.”
“By your own soul, learn to live. If some men force you, take no heed. If some men hate you, have no care. Sing your song, dream your dreams Hope your hopes, and pray your prayers.”
“When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing.”
“Not making a decision is the worst thing you can do. So long as you feel you made the right decision based on the information you had at that time, there’s no need to fret about it. If it fails, you’ll know what to do next time.”
“Those who stay will be champions.”
“For God’s sakes, quit worrying about your next job. Just do the best you can at the job you have now, and the offers will come. And when they do, if you have confidence in yourself you don’t have to feel that you can’t turn it down if it isn’t quite right for you because you fear you’ll never get another offer. You will. Wait for the right opportunity, and turn down all the rest. It will make all the difference.”
“Deep down, your players must know you care about them. This is the most important thing. I could never get away with what I do if the players feel I didn’t care for them. They know, in the long run, I’m in their corner.”
“I figured this was the easy stuff, and if we couldn’t show up on time, looking right and acting right, we weren’t going to be able to do anything else.”
“Early is on time and on time is late.”
“Every coach, every executive, every leader: They all know right from wrong. Even those Enron guys. When someone uncovers a scandal in their company, I don’t think they can say, “I didn’t know that was going on.” They’re just saying they’re too dumb to do their job! And if they really are too dumb, then why are they getting paid millions of dollars to do it? They know what’s going on.”
“Nothing good ever happens after midnight.”
“No coach is more important than the team.”
Knute Rockne
“Let’s win one for the Gipper.”
“Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
“One man practicing sportsmanship is better than a hundred teaching it.”
“I’ve found that prayers work best when you have big players.”
“The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.”
“No star playing, just football.”
“Show me a good and gracious loser, and I’ll show you a failure.”
“Tell the public about the boys. They’re the ones that do the work and they should get the credit. The people are interested in them, not me.”
“Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up”
“At home we’re the hosts, and I never liked the idea of being embarrassed in front of our friends.”
“Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.”
“Generalities don’t count and won’t help you in football.”
“I enjoy talking to my football men and my chemistry classes and I feel sure that they are quite interested in what I have to say.”
“I’m getting sick and tired of doing anything half-way.”
“We can all be geniuses because one definition of genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains.”
“We count on winning. And if we lose, don’t beef. And the best way to prevent beefing is – don’t lose.”
“When you were riding on the crest of a wave, you were most likely to be missing out on something.”
“Yes, I now that you feel you are not strong enough. That’s what the enemy thinks too. But we’re gonna fool them.”
“It isn’t necessary to see a good tackle. You can hear it.”
“Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points.”
“Win or lose, do it fairly.”
“Winning too often is as disastrous as losing too often. Both get the same results, the falling off of the public’s enthusiasm.”
“The essence of football was blocking, tackling, and execution based on timing, rhythm and deception.”
“If we’re a hit, let ’em say anything they want.”
“It’s my show.”
“One loss is good for the soul, too many losses is not good for the coach.”
“Play like you’re positive on the victory, even though they’re leading big now.”
“A coach’s greatest asset is his sense of responsibility – the reliance placed on him by his players.”
“If I flop, let ’em pan me.”
“There is no need for me continuing unless I’m able to improve.”
Chuck Noll
“Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else.”
“On every team, there is a core group that sets the tone for everyone else. If the tone is positive, you have half the battle won. If it is negative, you are beaten before you ever walk on the field.”
“If you want to win, do the ordinary things better than anyone else does them day in and day out.”
“Pressure is something you feel when you do not know what you are doing.”
“Good things come to those who hustle.”
“Being stubborn is a virtue when you’re right; it’s only a character flaw when you’re wrong.”
“Leaving the game plan is a sign of panic, and panic is not in our game plan.”
“As you gain experience, you mature as an individual, and along with that comes the confidence that you have the ability to solve problems.”
“Some citizens are so good that nothing a leader can do will make them better. Others are so incorrigible that nothing can be done to improve them. But the great bulk of the people go with the moral tide of the moment. The leader must help create that tide. Some coaches pray for wisdom. I pray for 260-pound tackles. They’ll give me plenty of wisdom.”
“The key to a winning season is focusing on one opponent at a time. Winning one week at a time. Never look back and never look ahead.”
“I can’t tell you how much you gain, how much progress you can make, by working together as a team, by helping one another. You get much more done that way. If there’s anything the Steelers of the ’70s epitomized, I think it was that teamwork.”
“Before you can win a game, you have to not lose it.”
“The most interesting thing about this sport, at least to me, it the activity of preparation-any aspect of preparation for the games. The thrill isn’t in the winning, it’s in the doing.”
“You can’t make a great play until you first do it in practice.”
“A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning.”
“The thrill isn’t in the winning, it’s in the doing.”
“Watch the film, not the stopwatch.”
Bill Cowher
“I didn’t get out of coaching to get back into it. This is my next challenge and I’m planning to work hard at it.”
“Perception is reality, but it may not be actuality, and you have got to be able to keep the difference between that.”
“Pressure is something you put on yourself.”
“Nothing drives me more than to, hopefully, be able to hand (Steelers chairman Dan Rooney) that fifth (Vince Lombardi) trophy. If I can do that, then I would think, that when he brought me here, I finally accomplished what he wanted me to do.”
“I want to bring back the pride and tradition long associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and more importantly, with the people of Pittsburgh.”
“Yeah, I know he discovered the West Indies; it wasn’t America. But the whole thing with Columbus was that people had been telling him, ‘Don’t go. The world’s flat.’ But he kept going. He found land.”
“So many times through the course of a season you are defined by your backups.”
“We’re not attempting to circumcise rules.”
Jon Gruden
“You never stay the same. You either get better or you get worse.”
“If I stop pushing you, if I stop demanding of you, if I stop getting on you, then I probably don’t think you have much to offer.”
“Anything goes on any given Sunday, especially Monday Night.”
“Follow the ball, man. There’s only one ball. They can only give it to one of them at a time, so let’s not get too far away from the reality of it all.”
“You know what I hate, man? Guys that you know haven’t seen the film: they just quote a bunch of statistical bullshit.”
“I just wanna see some football.”
Tom Coughlin
“Winning is what happens when commitment, desire, talent, preparation, hard work, and leadership all come together.”
“Humble enough to prepare, confident enough to perform.”
“Work ethic must exceed the expectation level.”
“Every team is beatable, you never know. The right moment, the right time, every team is beatable.”
“I’ll just say this. There was no way we were going to lose at home on this day in this city for all those people.”
“The best part of it for me is the idea that this group of young men, who came together and believed in themselves, bought the team concept completely, took the names off the back of the jerseys, checked the egos at the door.”
Joe Gibbs
“People who enjoy what they do, invariably do it well.”
“A winning effort begins with preparation.”
“To reach your own goals and dreams, you must learn how to assist others in reaching theirs.”
“Failures are expected by losers, ignored by winners.”
“Once you have a plan, you must sell it to the players. It is not enough to put it on the blackboard and say, ‘Okay, here it is.’ You have to convince the players that the plan is a good one and show them, in specific ways, why it will work. If you do, you send them out to the practice field with more confidence.”
“You don’t win with X’s and O’s. What you win with is people.”
“Look for players with character and ability. But remember, character comes first.”
“I’ll tell you what – if you attend a Cowboy-Redskins game, you better not leave ’til that clock hits zero.”
Jim Harbaugh
“That is football. It started back when they had leather helmets before they started putting numerals on the side and names on the backs of jerseys — that playing time would be earned. And starting positions would be earned, and your contribution to the team being earned. It’s been that way since the inception of football.”
“I don’t take vacations. I don’t get sick. I don’t observe major holidays. I’m a jack hammer.”
“Hustle. Hustling at all times. Better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today.”
“I feel like it’s the only personality I have.”
“I drank a lot of milk, Andrea. A lot of milk. Whole milk, though. Not the candy-ass two percent or skim milk.”
“It’s more than personal. I can’t screw it up. I have to do good.”
“The football gods have provided us heat and sun to shape the body and carve the mind”
“I love football. I think [football] is the last bastion of hope for toughness in America in men.”
“Fans have a constitutional right to expect success and have high expectations.”
“Yeah, it’s like coming out of the mother’s womb. You’re in a nice, warm, cozy environment — safe. And now you are out into the chaos and bright lights. It’s a happening. It’s all those things rolled into one.”
“It’s like Thanksgiving. It’s like New Year’s Day. It’s like a family reunion. And having it all rolled into one. Most people think of January 1st as the start of a new year. To people who espouse to Catholicism and Christianity, they might correlate that with the birth of Christ. Us in football, the start of spring practice and the first day of summer training camp are what you look at as the New Year with fireworks going off, it’s your birthday. It’s being born back into football, it’s a happening.”
“Being on a ball team takes the weight of the world off your shoulders, it’s the 5th dimension! Nothing better!”
Jim Tressel
“My biggest worry is they look awful good across the board.”
“Success is the inner satisfaction and peace of mind that come from knowing I did the best I was capable of doing for the group.”
“Play with heart; Play with passion; Play within yourself; Have fun; Play like a champion.”
“Everything that happens-good and bad-should motivate you to be persistent.”
“Your goals are constantly revised according to circumstance, but your purpose, your real reason for being, that supersedes everything.”
“The hallmark of excellence, the test of greatness, is consistency.”
“There’s two things that you don’t listen to: flattery, which can’t help you, and abuse, which can’t hurt you. You have to look at the facts.”
“I believe that when we write things down, we being the process of activating the fundamentals in our lives.”
“I told (my wife) that there’s a three-month aftermath that you better be able to handle, because it’s real. I think the worst thing we could do is push it away and say, ‘Hey, it’s not happening. We don’t have time for this,’ because we worked so hard to get to that point. … But the reality is (our opponents the next year) are going to come after us.”
Urban Meyer
“If you can raise the level of effort and performance in those around you, you are officially a leader.”
“It is so easy to be average. It takes a little something to be special. Why be around average?”
“I have yet to be in a game where luck was involved. Well-prepared players make plays. I have yet to be in a game where the most prepared team didn’t win.”
“Elite warriors, when they accomplish their mission, they celebrate.”
“At the end of the day, I’m very convinced that you’re going to be judged on how you are as a husband and as a father and not on how many bowl games we won.”
“It’s competition. It’s putting them in environments, in situations where I want to see who the fighters are and who they guys are that are going to compete. And there will be rewards at the end of the day. Gatorade if you win. You drink out of a water hose if you lose and do some running. And that includes the coaching staff.”
“You don’t get 5 years to build a team any more. You get 2 if you’re lucky.”
“Anyone can run the option. I can run the option.”
“Coaches do get very nervous.”
Les Miles
“The team is never about the single player. It’s not about the injury that keeps a star out of a certain game, and it’s not about the coach. It’s about the strength, and the abilities of the sum.”
“When I wake up in the morning and I turn that film on, it’s like reading a book and it’s exciting. I don’t read books, but if I read books it would be like reading a book.”
“I have a little tradition that humbles me as a man that lets me know I’m a part of the field and a part of the game, and it’s the very bottom as well as the very top. Yeah, it’s going to be all over the Internet. You know what? You should’ve seen some games before this. I’ll tell you one thing, the grass at Tiger Stadium tastes best.”
“We ask these players to do some very difficult things, for the team, the coaching staff, the school – at risk of injury. And when they do those things, I feel as if I’m in their debt. It’s an honor to coach those guys. I want to be of service to them.”
Bob Stoops
“Dear Lord, I pray that my place will never be with the cold, timid souls who do not compete yet criticize, for they never know or feel success or failure.”
“It just shows you have come prepared to play and ready to execute. It doesn’t give you that much comfort when it’s early and you still have another two and a half to three quarters to go. You better keep playing. But it is a positive, it gives you energy and it gives you a little boost like that.”
Steve Spurrier
“Coaching to me is correcting mistakes and trying to get your players to think. If raising your voice occasionally gets them to think better, then that’s called coaching.”
“I don’t think telling the truth ever gets anyone in trouble in the long run. Maybe the day after, but not in the long run.”
“It’s easier to win the National Championship than the SEC, ask Nick Saban.”
“Cheating is cheating. Some coaches believe if you can get away with it, cheating is smart. I have no respect for those guys.”
“We all like to prove people wrong who say we’re no good.”
“So, I didn’t say we are going to win a lot, but we are going to play like winners, and we’ve got a plan in place to teach our guys how to play like winners and play like a champion.”
“But as coaches, we need to get a little more fire and passion and be more demanding that our guys get the job done. I think players will respond to that, and we’ll see.”
“So I don’t really believe that how many years you’ve had in the league determines how well your players play… Coaching is coaching.”
“So you get two good hours on the field about every day, you get about an hour and a half in the meeting room and that’s pretty much all you need to thoroughly coach your team.”
“The Pope is 77 years old and he’s in charge of a billion people. All I have to do is put 11 on the field.”
“You keep playing, you get a lead and build on it. People get mad when you keep playing, but that’s part of the game, too.”
Will Muschamp
“Stats are for losers. I like winning games.”
Lou Holtz
“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”
“Remember. Every day, some ordinary person does something extraordinary. Today, it’s your turn.”
“The answers to these questions will determine your success or failure. 1) Can people trust me to do what’s right? 2) Am I committed to doing my best? 3) Do I care about other people and show it? If the answers to these questions are yes, there is no way you can fail.”
“The price of LEADERSHIP is RESPONSIBILITY….and part of that responsibility is to STAY POSITIVE whether you feel like it or not.”
“Teamwork is the foundation of success. The three universal questions that an individual asks of his coach, player, employee, employer are: Can I trust you? Are you committed to excellence? And, do you care about me?”
“The greatest power God gave us is the power to choose. We have the opportunity to choose whether we’re going to act or procrastinate, believe or doubt, pray or curse, help or heal. We also choose whether we’re going to be happy or whether we’re going to be sad.”
“Don’t tell your problems to people: eighty percent don’t care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.”
“Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference.”
“There are certain things in this world we all have in common such as time. Everybody has sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, twenty-four hours to a day. The difference is what we do with that time and how we use it.”
“Don’t ever promise more than you can deliver, but always deliver more than you promise.”
“Everybody needs four things in life: Something to do, someone to love, someone to believe in and something to hope for.”
“Everybody is looking for instant success, but it doesn’t work that way. You build a successful life one day at a time.”
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.”
“You might not be able to outthink, out-market or outspend your competition, but you can outwork them.”
“I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.”
“Everyone wants to win on Saturday afternoon when the game is played. It’s what you do the other six days that decides the outcome.”
“You were not born a winner, and you were not born a loser. You are what you make yourself be.”
“We aren’t where we want to be; we aren’t where we ought to be; but thank goodness we aren’t where we used to be.”
“It always amazes me that spectators want to coach, coaches want to officiate, and officials just want to watch the game.”
“The standards you establish for others must reflect the standards you set for yourself. No one will follow a hypocrite.”
“You must have dreams and goals if you are ever going to achieve anything in this world.”
“You’ll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.”
“Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.”
“It’s always better to face the truth, no matter how uncomfortable, than to continue coddling a lie.”
“If you don’t make a total commitment to whatever you are doing, then you start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts leaking.”
“If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.”
“One day you are drinking the wine, and they next day you are picking the grapes.”
“In life, be a participant, not a spectator.”
“Never settle for second when first is available.”
“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”
“No one has ever drowned in sweat.”
“If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.”
“The only people who aren’t going to be criticized are those who do absolutely nothing.”
“So what if someone wrote your obituary… that doesn’t mean you are obligated to die.”
“Broadcasting is easy; you just talk until you think of something to say.”
“How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.”
Mike Ditka
“You gotta live in the moment. I don’t care what you’ve done in your life, it has nothing to do with what you’re gonna do or what you can do. The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift-that’s why they call it the present.”
“The ones who want to achieve and win championships motivate themselves.”
“I don’t believe in living in the past. Living in the past is for cowards. If you live in the past, you die in the past.”
“Effort without talent is a depressing situation… but talent without effort is a tragedy.”
“You’re never a loser until you quit trying.”
“If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn’t have given us arms.”
“Losers quit when they’re tired. Winners quit when they’ve won.”
“Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.”
“Motivation comes from within each individual. It’s a personal thing. It’s pride, guts, desire, whatever you want to call it; some people have it in their bellies, and some don’t.”
“Before you can win, you have to believe you are worthy.”
“Life’s not about money. Look at achievements, accomplishments . It’s about having fun. It’s about enjoying life.”
“I don’t think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it. I think if you are determined enough and willing to pay the price, you can get it done.”
“What’s the difference between a three-week-old puppy and a sportswriter? In six weeks, the puppy stops whining.”
“If things came easy, then everybody would be great at what they did.”
“We have a strange and wonderful relationship – he’s strange and I’m wonderful.”
“If you’re not in the parade, you watch the parade. That’s life.”
“Sometimes, God gives you physical talent and takes away the brain.”
“I don’t know how to put it, but yet you know we have so many people who the way they look at life, the way they work depends on what happens, us winning or losing. It’s kind of crazy. So, I kind of got caught up in that, I’m gonna try to stay away from that.”
“Success is about having, excellence is about being. Success is about having money and fame, but excellence is being the best you can be.”
“The greatest gift we have is the gift of life.”
“Success is never permanent, and failure is never final.”
“Success is about taking advantage of opportunity.”
Ara Parseghian
“You know what it takes to win. Just look at my fist. When I make a fist, it’s strong and you can’t tear it apart. As long as there’s unity, there’s strength. We must become so close with the bonds of loyalty and sacrifice, so deep with the conviction of the sole purpose, that no one, no group, no thing, can ever tear us apart.”
“A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.”
Duffy Daugherty
“The difference between good and great is just a little extra effort.”
“My only feeling about superstition is that it’s unlucky to be behind at the end of the game.”
“We like them big … but we’ll settle for players with three kinds of bones – a funnybone, a wishbone and a backbone. The funnybone is to enjoy a laugh, even at one’s own expense. The wishbone is to think by, set one’s goals high and have dreams and ambitions. And the backbone – well, that’s what a player needs to get up and go to work and make those dreams come true.”
“A tie is like kissing your sister.”
“Football is not a contact sport. It’s a collision sport.”
“All those football coaches who hold dressing-room prayers before a game should be forced to attend church once a week.”
“Not only is he ambidextrous, but he can throw with either hand.”
“When you are playing for the national championship, it’s not a matter of life or death. It’s more important than that.”
Dabo Swinney
“To be an overachiever you have to be an over-believer.”
“Think about your dream. Then, put your head down and go to work.”
“You can’t be afraid to play. Commit to play and you live with the results.”
“You’re never going to be a great program if you lose a game and your season’s over and you act like the world’s coming to an end; [like] none of the other games matter. That’s a bad attitude and you’re probably going to live a miserable life.”
“We’re the rednecks who moved into the nice neighborhood, but we belong.”
“Let the light that shines in you be brighter than the light that shines on you.”
“Bad things happen in life. Two years ago we got our butts kicked on this field, but it’s how you respond that counts.”
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.”
“It takes a lot to be Dabo Swinney, and not everyone can live this lifestyle. But, boy is it fun.”
Buddy Ryan
“I don’t think coming in late hurt his chances. I think because he can’t punt might hurt his chances.”
“I don’t know what his status is. I don’t even know who he is.”
“Dumb guys sulk and pout. You never see smart guys pout. Hey, they are paid very well. If they don’t do the job, somebody’s gotta get on ’em. The good players always react the way they should.”
“He probably checked the job market out there and found there wasn’t a lot of demand for return specialists that won’t block.”
“Trade him for a six pack; it doesn’t even have to be cold.”
“I think with me what you see is what you get. But some people don’t like what they see.”
“It’s good to have friends, but you want to beat them just like you do your enemies.”
“Football kickers are like taxi cabs. You can always go out and hire another one.”
“We might have the worst bunch of guys together we’ve ever seen as a football team. I don’t know what anybody else has, but I’d trade mine with anybody, sight unseen.”
John Madden
“Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.”
“Well, when you’re playing good football, it’s good football and if you don’t have good football, then you’re not really playing good football.”
“The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.”
“If the quarterback throws the ball in the endzone and the wide receiver catches it, it’s a touchdown.”
“Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.”
“The defense should be expecting a run or a pass here.”
“The best way to gain more yards is advance the ball down the field from the line of scrimmage.”
“If a guy doesn’t work hard and doesn’t play well, he can’t lead anything. All he is, is a talker.”
“The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else.”
“Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.”
“Knowing his coach likes him is more important to a player than anything else.”
Don Shula
“You set a goal to be the best and then you work hard every hour of every day, striving to reach that goal. If you allow yourself to settle for anything less than number one, you are cheating yourself.”
“The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others.”
“Strive for perfection, but settle for excellence.”
“To be successful, all you have to do is work half-days; you can work the first twelve hours or the second twelve hours.”
“My responsibility is leadership, and the minute I get negative, that is going to have an influence on my team.”
“The problem with most leaders today is they don’t stand for anything. Leadership implies movement toward something, and convictions provide that direction. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
“There’s nothing wrong with setting goals, but it doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t pay attention to the day-to-day details.”
“As a coach, your high standards of performance, attention to detail and – above all – how hard you work set the stage for how your players perform.”
“I have no magic formula. The only way I know to win is through hard work.”
“Success is not forever, and failure is never final.”
“It’s the start that stops most people.”
“Success is the peace of mind that comes when you know you have given everything you have to give to the opportunities that life has presented you.”
“The ultimate goal is victory. And if you refuse to work as hard as you possibly can toward that aim, or if you do anything that keeps you from achieving that goal, then you are just cheating yourself.”
“Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.”
“The whole idea is to get an edge. Sometimes it takes just a little extra something to get that edge, but you have to have it.”
“I think what coaching is all about, is taking players and analyzing there ability, put them in a position where they can excel within the framework of the team winning. And I hope that I’ve done that in my 33 years as a head coach.”
“I don’t know any other way to lead but by example.”
“Lots of leaders want to be popular. I never cared about that. I want to be respected.”
“One thing I never want to be accused of is not working.”
“The one thing that I know is that you win with good people.”
“My coaching philosophy? Determine your players talents and give them every weapon to get the most from those talents.”
“Leadership implies movement toward something and convictions provide that direction.”
Barry Switzer
“Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”
“People don’t know what it means to be champions. Oklahoma invented it.”
“It never changes. Football is a game of repetition, mental and physical. You may try to articulate it a little different, but it’s the same thing: Get better players, make fewer mistakes, and drill the fundamentals into your players’ heads. The rest of it is a joke. Teams aren’t winning because of what they had for breakfast of what some coach said in the locker room.”
“The key to his success? He’s just faster than the guys chasing him.”
“It was like a heart transplant. We tried to implant college in him but his head rejected it.”
Jimmy Johnson
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”
“The only thing worse than a coach or CEO who doesn’t care about his people is one who pretends to care. People can spot a phony every time.”
Mark Richt
“The only thing that helps you win the game is preparation and getting your mind ready to go to battle. That’s what you’ve got to do.”
“The Energy Bus serves as a force field to ward off any negativity that tries to infiltrate or enter your team or business. It made a big impact on our team. I recommend it highly!”
“I didn’t know I got criticism.”
“I felt like looking at the season to this point, we probably hadn’t taken enough shots downfield to loosen thing up, … It does serve a purpose even if you don’t hit it. There’s nothing that will get a cornerback to back off a little bit than knowing he got beat even if you hit it or not.”
Gus Malzahn
“I totally believe that God has blessed me with the unique ability to know offense, to call offense.”
“Of course, I was a head coach at high school for 15 years, so as far as on the field stuff it’s the same but for college football it’s off the field experience you got to get used to. It was a great learning experience for me, I learned a lot and I feel very prepared coming in here.”
Barry Alvarez
“We did not underestimate what we could do.”
“Everybody has a role on the team, and some have a role as a scout team player. They have to emulate the offenses that we are going to face. Those players still have to go through the out-of-season work and they work hard.”
Biggie Munn
“Don’t give up on the impossible before you try it.”
Mark Dantonio
“We came here with an idea that we were going to have to weather the storm or be the storm.”
“I find a lot of the things they do amusing. They need to check themselves sometimes. Let’s just remember, pride comes before the fall.”
Mack Brown
“Most players don’t mind drug testing once they realize they don’t have to study for it.”
“Don’t let this [football] be the best thing that ever happens in your life. Maybe it’ll be the best sports event, but don’t let it be the best thing. Make sure you’re a better father than this today. Make sure you’re a better husband than this today. Because this goes away… It’s a game.”
“I own the restaurant. There are a lot of cooks, waiters and waitresses in this restaurant. They worry about their problems. I worry about all the problems.”
“I don’t think you ever silence critics. They’ll be critics in the morning. That’s part of the deal.”
Bobby Bowden
“Don’t go to the grave with life unused.”
“That boy don’t know the meaning of the word fear. In fact, I just saw his grades, and that boy don’t know the meaning of a lot of words.”
“Discipline to me is sacrifice; it’s willingness to give up something you want to do, so you can better yourself.”
“People that are brilliant and successful, we think they’ve just always been that way. That’s not the case. Most of them have had some tough adversity in their life. It’s prepared them. I’ve never felt like you could develop character without adversity.”
“The greatest mistake is to continue to practice a mistake.”
“Integrity makes my job easier. It’s deception and dishonesty that requires so much diligent effort.”
“When I go after something, I go after it hard. It has always been that way. I don’t know. It’s in my blood.”
“Son, you’ve got a good engine, but your hands aren’t on the steering wheel.”
“To have the kind of year you want to have, something has to happen that you can’t explain why it happened. Something has to happen that you can’t coach.”
“I learned more from the mistakes than from the good things.”
“If somebody mistreats you, treat’em good. That kills’em.”
“Courage is doing something you need to do that might get you hurt.”
“I’m not too proud to change. I like to win too much.”
“There’s only about 6 inches that turns that halo into a noose.”
“I am not happy with moral victories. Those things are forgotten.”
Joe Paterno
“Today, you’ve got a decision to make. You’re gonna get better or you’re gonna get worse, but you’re not gonna stay the same. Which will it be?”
“Believe deep down in your heart that you’re destined to do great things.”
“Success and excellence are not the same. Excellence grows within a person, is largely within that person’s control, and its meaning lasts. Success is measured externally, by comparison to others, is often outside our control, and is perishable.”
“It’s the name on the front of the jersey that matters most, not the one on the back.”
“Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.”
“Keep hustling, something good will happen.”
“A hard-fought, well-fought, hairline-close game is as classical in sports as tragedy is in the theater. Victory is contained within defeat, and defeat is contained within victory. That’s the way it is in the best of games. What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.”
“When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.”
“Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won’t taste good.”
“Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.”
“We need people who influence their peers and who cannot be detoured from their convictions by peers who do not have the courage to have any convictions.”
“The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.”
“Failure is not getting beat. Failure is when you don’t do a good job preparing.”
“What is a coach? We are teachers. Educators. We have the same obligations as all teachers, except we probably have more influence than anybody but their families. And, in a lot of cases, more than their families.”
“Don’t just stand back and play the way you’re coached. A great player must rise to the occasion and turn the game around on his own.”
“You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.”
“If I had to do it over again, I’d probably play the game the same way.”
“The minute you think you’ve got it made, disaster is just around the corner.”
“We play with enthusiasm and recklessness. We aren’t afraid to lose. If we win, great; but win or lose, it is the competition that gives us pleasure.”
“Success is best measured by the achiever.”
Bear Bryant
“I’m no miracle man. I guarantee nothing but hard work.”
“Losing doesn’t make me want to quit. It makes me want to fight that much harder.”
“It’s not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”
“Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don’t quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don’t quit until you reach it. Never quit.”
“There’s a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success.”
“If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.”
“I think the most important thing of all for any team is a winning attitude. The coaches must have it. The players must have it. The student body must have it. If you have dedicated players who believe in themselves, you don’t need a lot of talent.”
“If a man is a quitter, I’d rather find out in practice than in a game. I ask for all a player has so I’ll know later what I can expect.”
“The idea of molding men means a lot to me.”
“You must learn how to hold a team together. You must lift some men up, calm others down, until finally they’ve got one heartbeat. Then you’ve got yourself a team.”
“If wanting to win is a fault, as some of my critics seem to insist, then I plead guilty. I like to win. I know no other way. It’s in my blood.”
“If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride – and never quit – you’ll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards.”
“Get the winners into the game.”
“Set goals – high goals for you and your organization. When your organization has a goal to shoot for, you create teamwork, people working for a common good.”
“The old lessons (work, self-discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, fighting to achieve) aren’t being taught by many people other than football coaches these days. The football coach has a captive audience and can teach these lessons because the communication lines between himself and his players are more wide open than between kids and parents. We better teach these lessons or else the country’s future population will be made up of a majority of crooks, drug addicts, or people on relief.”
“Sacrifice. Work. Self-discipline. I teach these things, and my boys don’t forget them when they leave.”
“I’ll never give up on a player regardless of his ability as long as he never gives up on himself. In time he will develop.”
“Don’t give up at halftime. Concentrate on winning the second half.”
“Don’t talk too much. Don’t pop off. Don’t talk after the game until you cool off.”
“Mama wanted me to be a preacher. I told her coachin’ and preachin’ were a lot alike.”
“It’s awfully important to win with humility. It’s also important to lose. I hate to lose worse than anyone, but if you never lose you won’t know how to act. If you lose with humility, then you can come back.”
“In life, you’ll have your back up against the wall many times. You might as well get used to it.”
“The biggest mistake coaches make is taking borderline cases and trying to save them. I’m not talking about grades now, I’m talking about character. I want to know before a boy enrolls about his home life, and what his parents want him to be.”
“There is no sin in not liking to play; it’s a mistake for a boy to be there if he doesn’t want to.”
“In a crisis, don’t hide behind anything or anybody. They’re going to find you anyway.”
“Be aware of “yes” men. Generally, they are losers. Surround yourself with winners. Never forget – people win.”
“If there is one thing that has helped me as a coach, it’s my ability to recognize winners, or good people who can become winners by paying the price.”
“If you whoop and holler all the time, the players just get used to it.”
“If you want to coach you have three rules to follow to win. One, surround yourself with people who can’t live without football. I’ve had a lot of them. Two, be able to recognize winners. They come in all forms. And, three, have a plan for everything. A plan for practice, a plan for the game. A plan for being ahead, and a plan for being behind 20-0 at half, with your quarterback hurt and the phones dead, with it raining cats and dogs and no rain gear because the equipment man left it at home.”
“My approach to the game has been the same at all the places I’ve been. Vanilla. The sure way. That means, first of all, to win physically. If you got eleven on a field, and they beat the other eleven physically, they’ll win. They will start forcing mistakes. They’ll win in the fourth quarter.”
“Little things make the difference. Everyone is well prepared in the big things, but only the winners perfect the little things.”
“The first time you quit, it’s hard. The second time, it gets easier. The third time, you don’t even have to think about it.”
“But there’s one thing about quitters you have to guard against – they are contagious. If one boy goes, the chances are he’ll take somebody with him, and you don’t want that. So when they would start acting that way, I used to pack them up and get them out, or embarrass them, or do something to turn them around.”
“Scout yourself. Have a buddy who coaches scout you.”
“People who are in it for their own good are individualists. They don’t share the same heartbeat that makes a team so great. A great unit, whether it be football or any organization, shares the same heartbeat.”
“I told them my system was based on the “ant plan,” that I’d gotten the idea watching a colony of ants in Africa during the war. A whole bunch of ants working toward a common goal.”
“We can’t have two standards, one set for the dedicated young men who want to do something ambitious and one set for those who don’t.”
“When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: 1. Admit it. 2. Learn from it, and 3. Don’t repeat it.”
“I honestly believe that if you are willing to out-condition the opponent, have confidence in your ability, be more aggressive than your opponent and have a genuine desire for team victory, you will become the national champions. If you have all the above, you will acquire confidence and poise, and you will have those intangibles that win the close ones.”
“Don’t ever give up on ability. Don’t give up on a player who has it.”
“A good, quick, small team can beat a big, slow team any time.”
“I have always tried to teach my players to be fighters. When I say that, I don’t mean put up your dukes and get in a fistfight over something. I’m talking about facing adversity in your life. There is not a person alive who isn’t going to have some awfully bad days in their lives. I tell my players that what I mean by fighting is when your house burns down, and your wife runs off with the drummer, and you’ve lost your job and all the odds are against you. What are you going to do? Most people just lay down and quit. Well, I want my people to fight back.”
“I always want my players to show class, knock’em down, pat on the back, and run back to the huddle.”
“I tell young players who want to be coaches, who think they can put up with all the headaches and heartaches, can you live without it? If you can live without it, don’t get in it.”
“I have tried to teach them to show class, to have pride, and to display character. I think football, winning games, takes care of itself if you do that.”
“If they don’t have a winning attitude, I don’t want them.”
Conclusion
Be sure to check back or comment with a favorite football coaching quote here so I can add it to the list! Or if you want to find great quotes from other sports you can check out the following great lists here:
