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Writer's pictureJonno White

900 Motivational Game Day Quotes: Sports Teams (2023)

1. “Success doesn’t care which road you take to get to its doorstep.”


2. Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play. –Mike Singletary


3. “The only one who can tell you ‘you can’t win’ is you and you don’t have to listen.”—Jessica Ennis-Hill


4. Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't. –Jerry Rice


5. “A baseball game is twice as much fun if you’re seeing it on the company’s time.” ― William Feather


6. You've got to be confident when you're competing. You've got to be a beast. –Gabby Douglas


7. ​“Yeah, it’s nice to look up to people, but the more you try to be somebody else, the less you are of yourself.”


8. “It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.” - Evander Holyfield


9. “We have this thing in our mind of I gotta feel perfect, calm and confident and THEN I’ll perform well. Mate, if that’s the case you’re going to perform well a very, very small portion of the time.”


10. “To win those big games you’re going to have to complete some third-down passes, you’re going to have to be able to get some explosive games in the passing game.” – Tony Dungy, Football coach.


11. “What makes the difference between a great player and just a normal player is dedication, work, commitment.” — Thierry Henry


12. “You’re never a loser until you quit trying.” – Mike Ditka


13. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” — Vince Lombardi


14. The body achieves what the mind believes. –Unknown


15. Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. –Lou Holtz


16. “You are NOT your thoughts.”


17. “The ability to conquer one’s self is no doubt the most precious of all things that sports bestows.” — Olga Korbut


18. You never lose until you quit trying. –Mike Ditka


19. “The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.” – John Madden


20. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” —Vince Lombardi


21. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING


22. “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” – Jack Dempsey


23. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.” – Mike Singletary


24. “Nothing else will show your true character than how you lose.” – Ken Gleed


25. “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar


26. “Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.” – John Wooden


27. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson


28. “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.”


29. “The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better.” – Tony Dungy


30. “I would have thought that the knowledge that you are going to be leapt upon by half-a-dozen congratulatory, but sweaty team-mates would be inducement not to score a goal.” – Arthur Marshall


31. “If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.” – Jack Lemmon


32. “Today, you have 100% of your life left.” – Tom Landry


33. “Our brain craves reducing uncertainty. Uncertainty is the hardest human emotion.”


34. “It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.” – Carl Lewis


35. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING


36. “I would never do anything outside of the rules of play.” – Tom Brady


37. “If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.” – Mark Spitz


38. The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. –Denis Waitley


39. “[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”


40. “I am the greatest. I said that before I knew I was.” Muhammad Ali


41. Adversity is an opportunity for heroism. –Marv Levy


42. “You should never stay at the same level. Always push yourself to the next.” —Marnelli Dimzon


43. “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.” – Lou Brock


44. “Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”


45. “I always tell kids, you have two eyes and one mouth. Keep two open and one closed. You never learn anything if you’re the one talking.”


46. “There’s no better feeling than stepping out on the field and stunning them all by doing what none of them thought you could do.”


47. I don’t count my situps. I only start counting once it starts hurting. –Muhammad Ali


48. “I’m not 23 anymore. But the defensive ends and linebackers chasing me are. If I had to chose between youth and experience, I’d take experience every time.” — Peyton Manning


49. “I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.” – Bruce Jenner


50. “There is no ‘I’ in team” – unknown


51. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six 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


52. “Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.” –John Madden


53. “To give any less than your best is to sacrifice a gift.” — Steve Prefontaine


54. “Be clear in your own mind as to what you stand for. And then stand up for it.”


55. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”


56. “If you want trophies, they don’t get given to you, you have to earn them, you have to play well in big games.” – Jamie Carragher, soccer player.


57. “I’ve had to learn to fight all my life – got to learn to keep smiling. If you smile things will work out.” – Serena Williams


58. “The integrity and self-esteem gained from winning the battle against extremity are the richest treasures in my life.” — Diana Nyad


59. “Good enough … isn’t”


60. “A champion is someone who does not settle for that day’s practice, that day’s competition, that day’s performance. They are always striving to be better. They don’t live in the past.” – Briana Scurry


61. “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.”


62. “Everybody is going to be excited to play in a Super Bowl. When you still enjoy the preparation and the work part of it, I think you ought to be still doing that. I think as soon as I stop enjoying it, if I can’t produce, if I can’t help a team, that’s when I will stop playing.” — Peyton Manning


63. “The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.” —Ernie Banks


64. “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” – Vince Lombardi


65. I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all. –Simone Biles


66. “You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.” —Herb Brooks


67. “After all the cheers have died down, and the stadium is empty after the headlines have been written, and after you are back in the quiet of your room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser, and after all the pomp and fanfare have faded, the enduring thing that is left is the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.”


68. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.” – Satchel Paige


69. “The big games against big opponents, those are the best games to play in.” – Oscar, soccer player.


70. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”


71. “Set realistic goals, keep re-evaluating, and be consistent.” – Venus Williams


72. “Your biggest opponent isn’t the other guy. It’s human nature.” – Bobby Knight


73. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” — Marv Levy


74. “Adversity causes some to break; others to break records.” – William Ward


75. “To me, football is so much about mental toughness. It’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win, and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.”


76. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'”


77. When you hit failure, your workout has just begun. –Ronnie Coleman


78. “There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” - Derek Jeter


79. “Victory is in having done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won.” – Bill Bowerman


80. “Before a big game, I’m pretty consistent with my routine. I try to do the same thing every single day on a game day because that’s just how I lock in.” – LeBron James, basketball player.


81. “You don’t just want to beat a team. You want to leave a lasting impression in their minds so they never want to see your face again.” ― Mia Hamm


82. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” - George Halas


83. “To be prepared is half the victory.” – Miguel Cervantes


84. “No matter the circumstances that you may be going through, just push through it.” —Ray Lewis


85. “When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less.” — Paul Brown


86. “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”


87. “My routine prior to a big game is the same for any other match. Eat, sleep, chat with teammates during the day.” – Gerard Pique, soccer player.


88. “Somebody gives you an opportunity, say yes to it. So what if you fail? you won’t know if you fail or succeed unless you try.” —Ann Meyers


89. “You must have confidence in your competence.” – Elijah Cummings


90. “I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge and I’ve never been one to shy away from talking a big game.” – Aljamain Sterling, MMA.


91. You control your own wins and losses. –Maria Sharapova


92. Victory is in having done your best. If you've done your best, you've won. –Billy Bowerman


93. “The best motivation always comes from within.” – Michael Johnson


94. Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you do repeatedly. –Shaquille O'Neal


95. “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” – Jim Valvano


96. “I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.” —Bruce Jenner


97. “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong


98. “If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you’ll never change the outcome.” – Michael Jordan


99. “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”


100. “I’ve been a Colt for almost all of my adult life, but I guess in life, and in sports, we all know nothing lasts forever. Times change, circumstances change, and that’s the reality of playing in the NFL.” — Peyton Manning


101. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”— Vince Lombardi


102. “You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, but you gotta suit up for them all.” —J. Askenberg


103. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” – John Wooden


104. “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” – Muhammad Ali


105. “You never know if you can actually do something against all odds until you actually do it.” – Abby Wambach


106. “Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss.”


107. “Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.” – Pat Riley


108. “The most valuable player is the one who makes the most players valuable.” –Peyton Manning


109. “If you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion.”


110. “We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”


111. “Set your goals high, and don't stop till you get there.”


112. “Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It’s our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.”


113. “I don’t count my situps. I only start counting once it starts hurting.” — Muhammad Ali


114. Every time I step on the field, I’m going to give my whole heart, regardless of the score. –Tim Tebow


115. “A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.” —Mary Lou Retton


116. “To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them.”– Picabo Street


117. True champions aren't always the ones that win, but the ones with the most guts. –Mia Hamm


118. “An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.” —Emil Zatopek


119. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” - Wayne Gretzky


120. I believe in the impossible because no one else does. –Florence Griffith Joyner


121. “I don’t want to be the next Michael Jordan, I only want to be Kobe Bryant.” —Kobe Bryant


122. “I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.” — Tom Landry


123. Greatness isn't born, it's grown. –Malcolm Gladwell


124. “You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.” –Joe Paterno. SOUTHERN LIVING


125. “No matter the circumstances you may be going through, just push through it.” –Ray Lewis


126. “I am no genius; I just worked hard like my other teammates, and I believe all my teammates can win the title as they work hard, too.” – Lin Dan


127. “You’re playing a game, whether it’s Little League or Game 7 of the World Series. It’s impossible to do well unless you’re having a good time. People talk about pressure. Yeah, there’s pressure. But I just look at it as fun.” —Derek Jeter


128. “Overpower. Overtake. Overcome.” —Serena Williams


129. “I always try to start out with some type of goal. Then I work backward and think of what I need to do to get there and give myself smaller goals that are more immediate.” —Kristi Yamaguchi


130. “I’ve got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.” – Larry Bird


131. “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” — Will Rogers


132. “Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.” — George F. Will


133. “Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.” –John Madden. SOUTHERN LIVING


134. “Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character.” – Vince Lombardi


135. “For me, winning isn’t something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream.” — Emmitt Smith


136. It's hard to beat a person who never gives up. –Babe Ruth


137. “An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.”– Emil Zatopek


138. “If you watch a game, it’s fun; if you play it, it’s recreation; if you work at it, it’s golf.” ― Evan Esar


139. “Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything that comes in second.” – Paul Bryant


140. “I’ve always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn’t have a chance to win.” – Arnold Palmer


141. “I’ve never left the field saying, ‘I could’ve done more to get ready,’ and that gives me peace of mind.” — Peyton Manning


142. “If you only ever give 90% in training then you will only ever give 90% when it matters.”


143. “You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place.” – James Lane Allen


144. “Driven by the moral imperative of paying the price to be great.”


145. “It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort.” – Jillian Michaels


146. “Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.”


147. “If he is to become a ball player, he must learn the rules of the game. And, contrary to popular thinking, children appreciate rules.” ― Billy Graham


148. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.”


149. “Some wish for it. Champions work for it.”


150. “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” – Michael Jordan


151. Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown." –Ross Perot


152. “To do things you’ve never done before, you have to do things you’ve never done before.” –Sean Payton


153. “You can’t win unless you learn how to lose.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar


154. “We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.”


155. “The hardest skill to acquire in this sport is the one where you compete all out, give it all you have, and you are still getting beat no matter what you do. When you have the killer instinct to fight through that, it is very special.” —Eddie Reese


156. “Erase the word ‘failure’ from your vocabulary. No case is ever truly closed, and no challenge is ever over.” – Mary Lou Retton


157. “I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down, and I will not let myself down.”


158. All coaching is, taking a player where he can't take himself. –Bill McCartney


159. “I don’t try to get players emotionally up for a game; it creates too many peaks and valleys… I strive for even keel; they will get up for the big games.” – Denny Crum, basketball coach.


160. “We have seen some of the greatest athletes fall because they have tried to take shortcuts.”


161. Being uncomfortable is the life blood of toughness. –Bo Hanson


162. Great results never came from comfort zones. –Unknown


163. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” – Bo Jackson


164. “It ain’t over till it’s over.”


165. Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome. –Arthur Ashe


166. Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. –Satchel Paige


167. “There are certain basic qualities and characteristics you’ve got to have. Number one: you’ve got to have a will to win.” – Bob Richards


168. “Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.” – Phil Jackson


169. “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.”


170. “I shot millions and millions of shots, just wanted the ball and felt good every time I released the ball, especially in those last seconds of big games.” – Toni Kukoc, basketball player.


171. “To me, it was never about what I accomplished on the football field; it was about the way I played the game.”


172. “Sport, at its best, at its most human, is able to inspire an innocence and joy that is unique to each of us.” — Richard J. Corman


173. “Self-talk is overrated. Don’t think about doing it … just do it”


174. “Fall means football”


175. “Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”


176. Overpower. Overtake. Overcome. –Serena Williams


177. “Team guts always beats individual greatness.” – Robert Zuppke


178. “You’re never a loser until you quit trying.” - Mike Ditka


179. “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.”


180. “Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.”


181. If you train hard, you'll not only be hard, but you'll be hard to beat. –Herschel Walker


182. “Leadership, like coaching, is fighting for the hearts and souls of men and getting them to believe in you.” —Eddie Robinson


183. “Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.”


184. “There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation brick by brick.”


185. “Never underestimate the heart of a champion!” – Doc Rivers


186. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” – George S. Halas


187. “If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.”


188. The only way to prove that you're good at a sport is to lose. –Ernie Banks


189. “The secret of winning football games is working more as a team, less as individuals. I play not my 11 best, but my best 11.” – Knute Rockne


190. “You can’t let success diminish the desire to be a winner. There’s room for improvement in every sportsman.” — Lionel Messi


191. “Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.” – William A. Ward


192. “Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.” –Mike Ditka


193. “Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.”


194. “Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.” — William James


195. “After the first day of practice, there’s not one guy who’s playing at 100 percent or who feels great. Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day – it all just hurts.”


196. “It’s not wanting to win that makes you a winner; it’s refusing to fail.” — Peyton Manning


197. “True disputants are like true sportsmen: their whole delight is in the pursuit.” — Alexander Pope


198. “Life is about choices. You ask the questions and you listen to the answers. Then you listen to your heart.” — Peyton Manning


199. “The only competition that matters is the one that takes place within yourself.” – Pete Carroll


200. The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done. –Arnold Palmer


201. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi


202. “The greatest team you’ve never heard of has together missed out on 13 proms, 74 birthdays, 21 Thanksgivings and 989 boyfriends. And they don’t regret it. They know why they give up these things. They know that game changing slide tackles and goals and championships and having a second family and doing it all for each other are the rewards. They know to put team above all else.” -USWNT


203. “I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.”


204. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success.” – Babe Ruth


205. “Most talented players don’t always succeed. Some don’t even make the team. It’s more what’s inside.”– Brett Favre


206. “When you see a good move, look for a better one.” – Emanuel Lasker


207. Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential. –Winston Churchill


208. “I just knew if it could be done, it had to be done, and I did it.” —Gertrude Ederle


209. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” –Bo Jackson


210. “My attitude is that if you push me towards a weakness, I will turn that weakness into a strength.”


211. “You know, there’s a rule in sports, ‘Don’t do anything great if you can’t handle the congratulations.’”


212. “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.” —Kareem Abdul-Jabbar


213. “I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else.”


214. Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle. –Wilma Rudolph


215. Don't wait for opportunity. Create it. –Unknown


216. “A man who has no imagination has no wings.”


217. “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” -Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING


218. Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. –William Arthur Ward


219. “Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.”– Ted Williams


220. “Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.”


221. “Win. Lose. But never defeated.”


222. “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.”


223. Dead last finish is greater than did not finish, which trumps did not start. –Unknown


224. “Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.”– Dan Gable


225. “Life is about choices. You ask the questions, and you listen to the answers. Then you listen to your heart.”


226. “We make too much of winning. The mere fact of winning doesn’t make you great.” — Wilt Chamberlain


227. “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” —Andrew Carnegie


228. “Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.” – Jimmy Valvano


229. “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” - Dean Karnazes


230. “Our mind is way more powerful than really anything else. If you can utilize that the right way, it’s inevitably going to help your game on the course.” – Rory McIlroy, golfer.


231. A coach will impact more people in one year than the average person will in an entire lifetime. –Billy Graham


232. “If at first you don’t succeed, you are running about average.” – M.H. Alderson


233. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” —Marv Levy


234. “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a determination.”


235. “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” – Yogi Berra


236. “Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.”


237. “Let me tell you something kid; everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either because they’re too scared, or they don’t recognize it when it spits on their shoes.” -The Sandlot


238. “Sweat + Spirit = Success”


239. “In big games they don’t panic, they continue to focus and continue to fight hard.” – Ned Yost, Baseball manager.


240. If you can't outplay them, outwork them. –Ben Hogan


241. “The enemy of the best is the good. If you’re always settling with what’s good, you’ll never be the best.”


242. “I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.”


243. “Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.” – Wilma Rudolph


244. “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.” - Andre Agassi


245. “The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” —Steve Young


246. “Good players inspire themselves. Great players inspire others.”


247. “Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.” – Arnold Palmer


248. “If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.” Hershel Walker


249. “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” – Fred Devito


250. “There is only one way to succeed in anything…and that is to give it everything.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING


251. “Number one is just to gain a passion for running. To love the morning, to love the trail, to love the pace on the track. And if some kid gets really good at it, that’s cool too.” — Pat Tyson


252. “If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.” – Lou Holtz


253. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” –Vince Lombardi


254. “Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.” –Mike Ditka. SOUTHERN LIVING


255. Success isn't owned, it's leased. And rent is due every day. –J.J. Watt


256. “Remember, once you set a goal, it’s all about how hard you’re willing to work, how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it.” –J.J. Watt. SOUTHERN LIVING


257. “Success isn’t owned, it’s leased. And rent is due every day.“ – J.J. Watt


258. “The past doesn’t matter. Take today.” —Becky Sauerbrunn


259. “People say to me all the time, ‘You have no fear.’ I tell them, ‘No, that’s not true. I’m scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I’m a courageous person because I’m a scared person.”


260. I really think a champion is defined not by their wins, but how they recover when they fall. –Serena Williams


261. “After you have a big game, you can’t just say, ‘That’s it, I’ve arrived,’ by any means. I’m always pushing it to be better. You always want to be better than you are, no matter what.” – Blake Griffin, Basketball player.


262. “If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.” – Ronnie Lott


263. “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” - Jack Dempsey


264. “Failure is part of success, an integral part. Everybody gets knocked down. Knowing it will happen and what you must do when it does is the first step back.”


265. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” —Matt Biondi


266. “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.”


267. “If you’re not gonna go all the way, why go at all?” – Joe Namath


268. “There may be people that have more talent than you, but theres no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” – Derek Jeter


269. “I was forced to learn a lot about psychology as a player, and as a captain to get the best out of others. There’s still a lot of scepticism about it in sport and the workplace, but dealing with fluctuations of form, and pressure, and being away from home is more important than your cover drive.”


270. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” –Bo Jackson. SOUTHERN LIVING


271. “The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.”– Joe Paterno


272. Champions have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. –Muhammad Ali


273. “I’ll always be Number 1 to myself.” — Moses Malone


274. “No judgment of your practice, just practice.”


275. “I’m playing; I’m here. I’m going to fight until they tell me they don’t want me anymore.” —Steve Nash


276. “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.”


277. “When you don’t give up, you cannot fail.” – Adrian Peterson


278. “Difficulties in life are intended to make us better, not bitter.” – Dan Reeves


279. “Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.”


280. “Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision.”


281. “Multitasking is seriously overrated. Try to do one task at a time and learn to do it with more purpose. “


282. “Before you can win the fight, you’ve got to be in the fight.”


283. “You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.” – Satchel Paige


284. “If you come in second, you’re just the first loser!” — Tiger Woods


285. “Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death.”


286. “Success is dependent upon effort.” – unknown


287. “Winning is a habit leadership is calmly maintaining that habit against all odds.” – Amit Ray


288. “Winners act like winners before they’re winners…The culture precedes positive results. It doesn’t get tacked on as an afterthought on your way to the victory stand. Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they’re winners.”


289. Don't be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed. –LeBron James


290. “Many times, I had to dig deep and perform. All of that adversity helped me and drove me to want to be the best.” —Hayley Wickenheiser


291. “You have to remember that the hard days are what make you stronger. The bad days make you realize what a good day is. If you never had any bad days, you would never have that sense of accomplishment!” —Aly Raisman


292. “I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.” —Tom Landry


293. “The five S’s of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit; but the greatest of these is spirit.” — Ken Doherty


294. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I cannot accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan


295. “Being nervous is not something you should be ashamed of. Nervous means you care, you really want to do well.” —Paula Creamer


296. Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. –William James


297. “It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.” — Seneca the Younger


298. “Once you give them the power to tell you you’re great, you’ve also given them the power to tell you you’re unworthy. Once you start caring about people’s opinions of you, you give up control.” —Ronda Rousey


299. “How much ever you keep saying about it being just like any other normal game, it is a bit different. What we try is to keep that slight difference nominal, and try to play like we would against any other international team.” – MS Dhoni, cricket player.


300. “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky


301. “If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough.” – Mario Andretti


302. “A champion is simply someone who did not give up when they wanted to.” – Tom Landry


303. “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”– Wayne Gretzky


304. “If you wait for others to initiate change, you automatically become a follower.”


305. “Anyone can support a team that is winning — it takes no courage. But to stand behind a team, to defend a team when it is down and really needs you, that takes a lot of courage.” – Bart Starr


306. “What keeps me going is not winning, but the quest for reaching potential in myself as a coach and my kids as divers. It’s the pursuit of excellence.” – Ron O’Brien


307. “I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.” – Mia Hamm


308. “The man who has no imagination has no wings.” – Muhammad Ali


309. “The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing.”


310. A champion is simply someone who did not give up when they wanted to. –Tom Landry


311. “Sports do not build character. Sports reveal character.” – Heywood Hale Broun


312. “Remember, once you set a goal, it’s all about how hard you’re willing to work, how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it.” –J.J. Watt


313. Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory. –Bill Russell


314. “Big games are usually about doing the simple things well – not trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat.” – Owen Farrell, rugby union player.


315. “We old athletes carry the disfigurements and markings of contests remembered only by us and no one else. Nothing is more lost than a forgotten game.” – Pat Conroy


316. “I always want to give more than I gave yesterday.” – Allyson Felix


317. “Gotta stay in to win”


318. “Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less-than-perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.”


319. “Ain’t no chance, if you don’t take it.” – Guy Clark


320. “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.”


321. “Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence. If you’re in control, they’re in control.” –Tom Landry


322. “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.” —Andre Agassi


323. “I wouldn’t let the boys down, no way. If my arm came off I’d still play.” — Jack Bird


324. “Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.” — Laird Hamilton


325. “You know what we worry about, things we care about. I didn’t get nervous making breakfast this morning.”


326. Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble. –John Madden


327. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi


328. The game is 90% mental, the other half is physical. –Yogi Berra


329. “If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.”– Herschel Walker


330. “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


331. “Your basketball goals should be out of reach, but never out of sight.” – Felicity Luckey


332. Passion first, and everything else will fall into place. –Holly Holm


333. “You don’t play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.” – Bobby Knight


334. “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” – Jerry Rice


335. “This won’t be good enough. It wasn’t good enough today. It won’t be good enough against anybody else, either.”


336. “I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.” –Emmitt Smith. SOUTHERN LIVING


337. “Every quarterback can throw a ball, every running back can run, and every receiver is fast, but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness.”


338. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” –George S. Halas


339. “When you lose, talk little. When you win, talk less.”


340. “Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.” – Rocky Balboa


341. You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy. –Arthur Ashe


342. “You play to win the game…Hello. You play to win the game.” — Herman Edwards


343. “You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.” — A. J. Kitt


344. 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


345. “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.” —Tommy Lasorda


346. Behind every fearless player is a fearless coach who refused to let them be anything but the best they could be. –Unknown


347. “The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.” – Arnold Palmer


348. Never limit yourself, never be satisfied, and smile…it’s free! –Jennie Finch


349. “I mean, it’s not important what kind of pants you were; it’s how you wear them.” – Ronnie Lott


350. “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”


351. “If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.” – Ben Hogan


352. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.” – Babe Ruth


353. “Winning solves everything.” — Tiger Woods


354. “You will never get the best out of anyone professionally unless you understand what motivates and makes them tick personally as a human being.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru


355. “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.” – Ross Perot


356. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” – Matt Biondi


357. Around 70,000 visitors are expected at this year's OMR Festival in Hamburg. It is one of the largest marketing and digital conferences in Europe. Photo: Marcus Brandt/dpa (Photo by Marcus Brandt/picture alliance via Getty Images)


358. The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning. –Pele


359. Your body can stand almost anything. It’s your mind that you have to convince. –Andrew Murphy


360. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” – George Halas


361. “No one ever drowned in sweat.” –Lou Holtz. SOUTHERN LIVING


362. “Don’t be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed.” —LeBron James


363. “Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.” – Ted Williams


364. “Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.”


365. “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”


366. “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” – Babe Ruth


367. “In sports, players need to be reminded of their competition to become motivated to practice. The same can be applied in business.” – Gavin McGinnis


368. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” –George S. Halas. SOUTHERN LIVING


369. “It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”


370. “Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t pretend that you do and, and some point, you will.” —Venus Williams


371. A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are. –Ara Parseghian


372. “What do you do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.” – Dean Smith


373. I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability. –Bruce Jenner


374. “Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back… play for her.” —Mia Hamm


375. “A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.” – Mary Lou Retton


376. “Sometimes, a winner is a dreamer who just won’t quit.” – Rudy


377. “The ability to conquer one’s self is no doubt the most precious of all things that sports bestows.” —Olga Korbut


378. “Don’t complain about not getting a chance and then be unprepared when you finally do.”


379. “Don’t tell me how rocky the sea is, just bring the ship in.” – Lou Holtz


380. “Our Team. Our Mission.”


381. “New Season. New Team. One Dream.”


382. Players respond to coaches who really have their best interest at heart. –Mike Singletary


383. “The five S’s of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit; but the greatest of these is spirit.” —Ken Doherty


384. “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


385. “I believe in the impossible because no one else does.” —Florence Griffith Joyner


386. “I think team first. It allows me to succeed, and it allows my team to succeed.”


387. “When you don’t give up, you cannot fail.” –Adrian Peterson


388. “It’s good to be successful, but it’s great to be significant.” – Lou Holtz


389. “I got more bruises, grass-burns and cuts in practice than in match play.”


390. “Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence. If you’re in control, they’re in control.” –Tom Landry. SOUTHERN LIVING


391. “You can learn a line from a win and a book from defeat.” –Paul Brown


392. “You might not be able to outthink, out market or outspend your competition, but you can outwork them.” – Lou Holtz


393. “Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We.”


394. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, don’t quit, suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” —Muhammad Ali


395. “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it – then I can achieve it.” – Muhammad Ali


396. Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period. –Lou Holtz


397. “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.”


398. Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t pretend that you do and, and some point, you will. –Venus Williams


399. “If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.” —Ben Hogan


400. 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. –Nick Saban


401. “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden


402. “Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.” —George F. Will


403. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” - Tim Notke


404. “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


405. No matter the circumstances you may be going through, just push through it. –Ray Lewis


406. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” – Billie Jean King


407. “Effort without talent is a depressing situation. But talent without effort is a tragedy.” – Mike Ditka


408. “Competition is an ordinary performance on a special day.”


409. I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion. –Billie Jean King


410. “If you don’t want to be the best, then there’s no reason going out and trying to accomplish anything.”


411. What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose. –Andre Agassi


412. “The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.” – Ernie Banks


413. “The best motivation always comes from within.”


414. “On a team, it’s not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.”


415. A coach is someone who sees beyond your limits and guides you to greatness! –Michael Jordan


416. “Winners, I am convinced, imagine their dreams first. They want it with all their heart and expect it to come true. There is, I believe, no other way to live.”


417. “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.” – Knute Rockne


418. “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.” —Arthur Ashe


419. “It’s not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”


420. “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.” – Paul “Bear” Bryant


421. “You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.” – Yogi Berra


422. “You must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to never quit.” —Abby Wambach


423. “A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.” – Billie Jean King


424. “You can learn a line from a win and a book from defeat.” –Paul Brown. SOUTHERN LIVING


425. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.” —Mike Singletary


426. “Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.”– Satchel Paige


427. “To give any less than your best is to sacrifice a gift.” - Steve Prefontaine


428. That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased. –Heber Grant


429. “I’ve never lost a game. I just ran out of time.” — Michael Jordan


430. “If at first you don’t succeed, try doing what your coach told you to do the first time.”


431. “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” — Michael Jordan


432. “In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I’m going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here’s a chance to grow.” —Carol Dweck


433. “Competitive sports are played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch court, the space between your ears.” – Bobby Jones


434. “It is action that creates motivation.” —Steve Backley


435. “There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” – Derek Jeter


436. “One of the biggest errors we have made in elite sport is we use the word confident when we actually mean competent. I can’t sing. I am not competent at singing. Put six beers in me in a karaoke bar and now I’m confident … but I am still terrible at singing.”


437. “It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that really counts.”


438. “Every man, at some point in his life, is going to lose a battle. He is going to fight and he is going to lose. But what makes him a man is that in the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself.” -Friday Night Lights


439. “Whatever is going to happen will happen, whether we worry or not.” – Ana Monnar


440. “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.” – Michael Jordan


441. “Football is like life. It requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING


442. “If you want to be the best, you have to do the things that other people aren’t willing to do.” — Michael Phelps


443. “Bodybuilding is much like any other sport. To be successful, you must dedicate yourself 100% to your training, diet and mental approach.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger


444. “Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.” – Bethany Hamilton


445. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” - Matt Biondi


446. “To live in the past is to die in the present.”


447. “When you go into the really big games you look at your team and think ‘where are we weak, where are we vulnerable.” – Graeme Souness, soccer player.


448. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – unknown


449. “Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.” ― Paul Tournier


450. “It never gets easier, you just get better.”


451. “There is always going to be a reason why you can’t do something; your job is to constantly look for the reasons why you can achieve your dreams.” —Shannon Miller


452. “Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.”


453. “If you are afraid of failure you don’t deserve to be successful!” – Charles Barkley


454. “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while–you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”


455. It's not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters. –Paul "Bear" Bryant


456. “Soccer forces life to move on. There’s always a new match. A new season. There’s always a dream that everything can get better. It’s a game of wonders.” – Fredrik Backman


457. “When you get that nice celebration coming into the dugout and you’re getting your ass hammered by guys—there’s no better feeling than to have that done."


458. “I don’t count my situps. I only start counting once it starts hurting. ” -Muhammad Ali


459. One man practicing sportsmanship is better than 50 men preaching it. –Knute Rockne


460. “Sports for me is when a guy walks off the court, and you really can’t tell whether he won or lost, when he carries himself with pride either way.” — Jim Courier


461. “So many players enter the game with the same approximate skills. The difference is not aptitude but attitude.” — Dave Winfield


462. “The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.” – Bobby Knight


463. You are not defeated when you lose, you are defeated when you quit. –Paulo Coelho


464. “Win From Within”


465. “I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me. And the one guy who didn’t vote for me, thank you, too.” – Shaquille O’Neal


466. Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you what it feels like to win and lose – it teaches you about life. –Billie Jean King


467. “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


468. 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. –Lou Holtz


469. “I think sports gave me the first place where this awkward girl could feel comfortable in my own skin. I think that’s true for a lot of women—sports gives you a part of your life where you can work at something and you look in the mirror and you like that person.” – Teri McKeever


470. “You’re never a loser until you quit trying.”– Mike Ditka


471. “Good players want to be coached… Great players want to be told the truth.” — Doc Rivers


472. “Moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.” – Martina Navratilova


473. “Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss.” — Doug Williams


474. “Champions don’t become champions when they win an event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it.” – Michael Jordan, basketball player.


475. “You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.” – Michael Phelps


476. “You’ll score a lot of goals in your career but not one of them will happen without the help of a teammate.” – Abby Wambach


477. “Act as if it was, and it will be.”― Lailah Gifty Akita


478. “In baseball and in business, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened.”


479. “There is no getting around the fact that the moment you are at your very best is the moment you begin to become worse and worse. Others will come along who can run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and you will be forgotten. Your winning moment is dated to die.” – Charlie Higson


480. “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.”


481. “At one point in your life you either have the thing you want or the reasons why you don’t.” – Andy Roddick


482. “The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.”


483. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” - Vince Lombardi


484. “WE ARE ONE”


485. “Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.”


486. “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


487. “It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” - Paul “Bear” Bryant


488. “You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self motivation.”


489. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.” –Vince Lombardi


490. “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.”


491. “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” – Michael Jordan


492. “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.”


493. “It’s not whether you get knocked down – it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi


494. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” —Neale Donald Walsh


495. “Anyone who waits for someone else to make a change automatically becomes a follower.” — Peyton Manning


496. “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”


497. “Work. Pride. Victory.”


498. “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” – Muhammad Ali


499. “The Spirit of Sports: The spirit of sports gives each of us who participate an opportunity to be creative. Sports knows no sex, age, race or religion. Sports gives us all the ability to test ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally in a way no other aspect of life can. For many of us who struggle with ‘fitting in’ or our identity – sports gives us our first face of confidence. That first bit of confidence can be a gateway to many other great things!”


500. “The most valuable player is the one who makes the most players valuable.” –Peyton Manning. SOUTHERN LIVING


501. “Bottom line: You’re the only one who knows—in your heart of hearts—if you are really giving it all you have. You are the only one who knows what you’re capable of—and the only one who can evaluate your effort relative to your own standard.” – Andy Frisella


502. “You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.” – Herb Brooks


503. Don't quit. Suffer now, and live the rest of your life as a champion. –Muhammad Ali


504. “At a young age winning is not the most important thing… the important thing is to develop creative and skilled players with good confidence.” – Arsene Wenger


505. “Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.” —Jackie Joyner-Kersee


506. “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” —Sandy Koufax


507. “Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.” – John Wooden


508. “Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.” —Liane Cardes


509. “No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room.” — Muhammad Ali


510. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”


511. “Remember, once you set a goal, it’s all about how hard you’re willing to work, how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it.” – J.J. Watt


512. “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.” —Knute Rockne


513. “I tell the kids, somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose. Just don’t fight about it. Just try to get better.” – Yogi Berra


514. “The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.” – Pele


515. “A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning.” – Pat Riley


516. “To paly the game is great, to win the game is greater, but to love the game is the greatest of all.” ― Palestra Palque


517. “Hard days are the best because that’s when champions are made.”


518. Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. –Jim Ryun


519. “Goals prepare Olympic athletes physically and mentally. Did you know that goals are used by sports psychologists in order to help athletes improve their performance?” – Paul Bailey


520. Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence...if you're in control, they're in control. –Tom Landry


521. “Winning takes talent; to repeat takes character.” – John Wooden


522. “Commit yourself to something you have a passion for.”


523. “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.” – Vince Lombardi


524. “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”


525. I've learned that something constructive comes from every defeat. –Tom Landry


526. Hard days are the best because that's when champions are made. –Gabby Douglas


527. “Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.”


528. “Remind your critics when they say you don’t have the expertise or experience to do something that an amateur built the ark and the experts built the titanic.


529. “A well-adjusted person is one who can play golf and bridge as if they were games.” ― Evan Esar


530. “You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation.”– Homer Rice


531. “Find the good. It’s all around you. Find it, showcase it, and you’ll start believing it.”


532. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan


533. “There is only one way to succeed in anything…and that is to give it everything.” –Vince Lombardi


534. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.”


535. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” —Billie Jean King


536. “If you don’t fall, how are you going to know what getting up feels like?” – Stephen Curry


537. “If you work hard and you play well, all those critics quiet themselves pretty quickly.”


538. “You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.” –Joe Paterno


539. “I’ve failed over & over & over again in my life & that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan


540. “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” – Terry Bradshaw


541. “Winning is a habit. Watch your thoughts; they become your beliefs. Watch your beliefs; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character.”


542. 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


543. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit. –Aristotle


544. “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” – Sandy Koufax


545. “I never left the field saying I could have done more to get ready and that gives me peace of mind.” —Peyton Manning


546. “They say discipline and dedication and respect are the key factors, but patience is a virtue that is absolutely essential!” —Ria Ramnarine


547. “Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket.”— Gino Bartali


548. You'll never know what you're capable of until you take that first step and just go for it. –Natasha Hastings


549. “I have to leave the games now if the announcer says something I don’t agree with. I’m thinking, ‘Peyton, it is not healthy to be all worked up before a game.’” — Peyton Manning


550. “I don’t have any ideas; my coaches have them. I just pass the ideas on and referee the arguments.” — Bear Bryant


551. “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” –Terry Bradshaw. SOUTHERN LIVING


552. “If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win.”– Carl Lewis


553. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”


554. “I just want to win,” Antetokounmpo says. “All that other stuff takes away from the game, and you just spend extra energy on looking good for five seconds.” – Giannis Antetokounmpo, basketball player.


555. “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realised how seldom they do.”


556. The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's determination. –Tommy Lasorda


557. “Passion first and everything will fall into place.” —Holly Holm


558. “Make this your moment”


559. “Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.”– Larry Bird


560. “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” – Yogi Berra


561. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size in the fight of the dog.” –Archie Griffin


562. “I don’t plan on being disappointed. We plan on being really good, and obviously, we plan on winning.” – Gregg Troy


563. “If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.”– Ronnie Lott


564. The secret of getting ahead is getting started. –Mark Twain


565. I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it. –Gale Sayers


566. “Won’t. Back. Down.”


567. The mind is the most important part of achieving any fitness goal. Mental change always comes before physical change. –Matt McGorry


568. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” - Babe Ruth


569. “I get fired up in big games. Other guys might get scared, but with me, my intensity overrules my jitteriness.” – Lorenzen Wright, basketball player.


570. “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” – Naoki Higashida


571. “It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.” - Carl Lewis


572. “Make each day your masterpiece.” – John Wooden


573. “I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all.” —Simone Biles


574. Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually, it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. –Lance Armstrong


575. “I had to work hard and hit the books because the opportunity to play in the NFL is not really that big, so I knew I needed something to fall back on. That’s the message I want to send to those kids when I talk to them in person and let them know the most important thing is getting your education.”


576. You don't demand respect, you earn it. –Steve Seidler


577. “The sun has been there for 500, 600 years.”


578. “Can’t kick the football habit”


579. “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.”


580. “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz


581. “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong


582. Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you. –Satchel Paige


583. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.”


584. “Sports is human life in microcosm.” ― Howard Cosell


585. “For every pass I caught in a game, I caught a thousand in practice.” – Don Hutson


586. “You dream. You plan. You reach. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, with belief, with confidence and trust in yourself and those around you, there are no limits.” —Michael Phelps


587. “Whenever there is a big game and people don’t think I can do it, I always play my hardest, and now it has become a part of me.” – Dwyane Wade, basketball player.


588. “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.” – Tommy Lasorda


589. “Everybody’s got plans… until they get hit.” – Mike Tyson


590. “Sports creates a bond between contemporaries that lasts a lifetime. It also gives your life structure, discipline and a genuine, sincere, pure fulfillment that few other areas of endeavor provide.”


591. ”Goaltending is a normal job, sure. How would you like it in your job if every time you made a small mistake, a red light went on over your desk and 15,000 people stood up and yelled at you?”


592. Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their growth. –John Whitmore


593. “Rather than focusing on the obstacle in your path, focus on the bridge over the obstacle.” – Mary Lou Retton


594. “A win is a win”


595. “You have to have a real love of your sport to carry you through all the bad times.” — Nancy Greene


596. I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen Covey


597. “That’s one thing you learn in sports. You don’t give up; you fight to the finish.” ― Louis Zamperini


598. “Always work hard, never give up, and fight until the end because it’s never really over until the whistle blows.” —Alex Morgan


599. “No one ever won a game by resigning.” – Ksawery Tartakower


600. “Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. ” — William Arthur Ward


601. “I think the thing about that was I was always willing to work; I was not the fastest or biggest player, but I was determined to be the best football player I could be on the football field, and I think I was able to accomplish that through hard work.”


602. “I don’t have to wait for nobody, I move when I wanna move.” – Floyd Mayweather


603. “It’s not the will to win that matters. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” –Paul “Bear” Bryant


604. “If you are afraid of failure you don’t deserve to be successful!” - Charles Barkley


605. “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” – Wayne Gretzky


606. “To me the beauty of teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.” – Coach Mike Krzyzewski


607. “Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.” – John Wooden


608. “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” – William Shakespeare


609. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.” -Mike Singletary


610. Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. –Lou Holtz


611. “Make each day your masterpiece.” - John Wooden


612. “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.”


613. “You fail all of the time. But you aren’t a failure until you start blaming someone else.” – Bum Phillips


614. “I can only control my performance. If I do my best, then I can feel good at the end of the day”


615. “My only feeling about superstition is that it’s unlucky to be behind at the end of the game.” — Duffy Daugherty


616. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING


617. “It’s not who’s put up the fastest time in the world that year, or who’s put up the fastest time in the previous four years, but who can get their hand on the wall first today.”


618. “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.” — Lou Holtz


619. “Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played ‘em 10 times, they might win 9, but not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, WE are the greatest hockey team in the world.” -Miracle


620. “I love to play big games, it makes you a bigger player.” – Rafael van der Vaart, soccer player.


621. “The hardest skill to acquire in this sport is the one where you compete all out, give it all you have, and you are still getting beat no matter what you do. When you have the killer instinct to fight through that, it is very special.” – Eddie Reese


622. “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.” — Bill Parcells


623. “You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.”


624. “The five S’s of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill and spirit – but the greatest of these is spirit.” – Ken Doherty


625. “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.”


626. “If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.” —Mark Spitz


627. “Sport is part of every man and woman’s heritage and its absence can never be compensated for.” — Pierre de Coubertin


628. “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


629. “Just be patient. Let the game come to you. Don’t rush. Be quick, but don’t hurry.” – Earl Monroe


630. “No man can avoid being born average,but no man has to stay average.” — Satchel Paige


631. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vince Lombardi


632. “I want big games to prove to myself that I’m a winner and not a loser.” – Danilo Gallinari, basketball player.


633. “The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.” - Les Brown


634. “I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan


635. “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” ― Michael Jordan


636. “It’s not the will to win that matters. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” –Paul “Bear” Bryant. SOUTHERN LIVING


637. “The harder the battle, the bigger the victory.”


638. “The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” – Wilma Rudolph


639. “No one ever drowned in sweat.” –Lou Holtz


640. “There’s no way around hard work. Embrace it. You have to put in the hours because there is always something you can improve on”


641. “Winners never quit and quitters never win. Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” – Heywood Broun


642. “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”


643. “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” – Wayne Gretzky


644. “When you go through a significant injury and have a major career change, you truly do go one year at a time, and you don’t look past what’s going on now, because you are not sure what’s going to happen. Tomorrow is not promised.” — Peyton Manning


645. “The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.”– Wayne Gretzky


646. I figure practice puts your brains in your muscles. –Sam Snead


647. Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live. –Jim Rohn


648. “In the sports arena I would say there is nothing like training and preparation. You have to train your mind as much as your body.” — Venus Williams


649. “You learn you can do your best even when its hard, even when you’re tired and maybe hurting a little bit. It feels good to show some courage. “ — Joe Namath


650. “The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing.” – Jackie Joyner Kersee


651. “I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything.”


652. “Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.” - Lou Holtz


653. “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” - Sandy Koufax


654. Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself. –Usain Bolt


655. “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” -Vince Lombardi


656. “It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day.” — Willie Mays


657. “They don’t hand out winner’s medals to those who were feeling the best on the day, nor to those who were thinking clearly and positively. The medals only go to those who did the best.”


658. “Just breathe, relax. Sometimes it can be a little bit too tense. We know how important these moments are. But just come out and play our game.” – Jaylen Brown, basketball player.


659. “Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.” – Vince Lombardi


660. A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life. –John Wooden


661. “You have good days, you have bad days. But the main thing is to grow mentally.”


662. Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up. –Rocky Balboa


663. “Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”


664. “Most of us never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.”


665. “For every pass I caught in a game, I caught a thousand in practice.” – Dom Hutson


666. “If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.” — Mark Spitz


667. It ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. –Rocky Balboa


668. “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.” – Jerry West


669. “Football games are generally won by the boys with the greatest desire.” — Bear Bryant


670. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size in the fight of the dog.” – Archie Griffin. SOUTHERN LIVING


671. “Nothing is black-and-white, except for winning and losing, and maybe that’s why people gravitate to that so much.” – Steve Nash


672. “Being a good teammate isn’t about recognition. I do it because it makes me whole and complete.” – Dwyane Wade


673. “Kill them with success and bury them with a smile.” – Usain Bolt


674. “Sport should be in your Blood/Veins, Not in the Joints or Bones.” ― Binoy Boban


675. I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum capabilities. –Bob Nardelli


676. “It’s game day!”


677. “When you fall, get right back up. Just keep going, keep pushing it.” —Lindsey Vonn


678. “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. So which will it be?” – Joe Paterno


679. “Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding.” – Jim Valvano


680. “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” –Terry Bradshaw


681. “When you’re riding, only the race in which you’re riding is important.” – Bill Shoemaker


682. It is not the size of the man, but the size of his heart that matters. –Evander Holyfield


683. A great coach tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. –Sagi Kalev


684. “Victory requires a down payment”


685. “It’s not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.” – Bear Bryant


686. “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” - Joe Namath


687. “Do not let what you can not do interfere with what you can do.”


688. “I am facing a challenge, I am not facing defeat. Remember this.” – Nikki Rowe


689. You must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to never quit.–Abby Wambach


690. “It’s a great day for football”


691. 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 always known you could be. –Tom Landry


692. “Sometimes in life the biggest challenges end up being the best things that happen in your life.” – Tom Brady, football player.


693. Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. –Winston Churchill


694. It is not what the coach knows; it is what his players have learned. –Unknown


695. “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.”– Lou Brock


696. “I talk a big game because I carry a big stick.” – Richard Sherman, American football player.


697. “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.” – Lou Holtz


698. “You can’t always be the best. You have to remember that everyone makes mistakes sometimes.” —Aly Raisman


699. “As the last ball travelled over the net, and as I realized that the final match was mine, I cannot describe. I felt that here was a prize for all the games I had ever played.” – Helen Wills, tennis player.


700. “Dan Marino never won the big game. Does that mean his career is a failure? No, not at all.” – Donovan McNabb, Football quarterback.


701. I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down, and I will not let myself down. –Mia Hamm


702. “Competitive sports are played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch court, the space between your ears.”


703. “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger


704. “Show me a gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.” – Knute Rockne


705. “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” ― Dean Karnazes


706. “Stay focused. Your start does not determine how you’re going to finish.“ – Herm Edwards


707. You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. –Wayne Gretzky


708. “To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them.” – Picabo Street


709. “It ain’t over till it’s over.” – Yogi Berra


710. “Pain is only temporary but victory is forever.” ― Jeremy H


711. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth


712. “Nobody who gave his best ever regretted it.” – George Halas


713. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” and “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”


714. “You’ve got to be confident when you’re competing. You’ve got to be a beast.” —Gabby Douglas


715. “Number one is just to gain a passion for running. To love the morning, to love the trail, to love the pace on the track. And if some kid gets really good at it, that’s cool too.” —Pat Tyson


716. “A team isn’t a bunch of kids out to win. A team is something you belong to, something you feel, something you have to earn.”


717. “Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.”


718. “Close don’t count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.” — Frank Robinson


719. Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. –Earl Nightingale


720. “Passion first and everything will fall into place.” – Holly Holm


721. “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” — Jack Dempsey


722. “To do things you’ve never done before, you have to do things you’ve never done before.” –Sean Payton. SOUTHERN LIVING


723. “All I know is, I don’t want to stop coaching, and I don’t want to stop winning, so we’re gonna break the record unless I die.” — Bear Bryant


724. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.”


725. Champions keep playing until they get it right. –Billie Jean King


726. “Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.” – Casey Stengel


727. “I got more bruises, grass burns and cuts in practice than in match play.” – Jonty Rhodes


728. I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six 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


729. “Football is like life. It requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority.” –Vince Lombardi


730. “Winning means you’re willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.” – Vince Lombardo


731. Most talented players don’t always succeed. Some don’t even make the team. It’s more what’s inside. –Brett Favre


732. “In baseball and in business, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” – Tommy Lasorda


733. You’re playing a game, whether it’s Little League or Game 7 of the World Series. It’s impossible to do well unless you’re having a good time. People talk about pressure. Yeah, there’s pressure. But I just look at it as fun. –Derek Jeter


734. “So many people along the way, whatever it is you aspire to do, will tell you it can’t be done. But all it takes is imagination. You dream. You plan. You reach.” – Michael Phelps


735. “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.” - Vitas Gerulaitis


736. “Losing teaches you how to win, winning teaches you how not to lose.” – Matshona Dhliwayo


737. “And I understood that in an age where there was so much ego, because of the camera, that it was very important to look for that kind of player … I began to look for the kind of player that doesn’t need his ego fed by stardom, but will do what he’s supposed to do because he knows the game and loves the game, and will do the job the right way even if someone else gets the glory.”


738. “An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.” – Emil Zatopek


739. “In the field of sports you are more or less accepted for what you do rather than what you are.” — Althea Gibson


740. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop until you get there.” – Bo Jackson


741. “No matter the circumstances you may be going through, just push through it.” –Ray Lewis. SOUTHERN LIVING


742. “Comfort the challenged, and challenge the comfortable.” – Ric Charlesworth


743. “Losing feels worse than winning feels good.” — Vin Scully


744. “Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts.”


745. “When the going gets tough, I’m not always sure what you do. I’m not saying that I know how to fix everything when the going gets tough, but I do know this: when the going goes tough, you don’t quit. And you don’t fold up. And you don’t go in the other direction.”


746. “You’ve got to remember what your priorities are. When you’re playing, what you do on the field is the most important thing.“ — Peyton Manning


747. “If you can’t win, make the one ahead of you break the record.” — John McKeithen


748. “If you’re going to win games, you’re going to have to come up with the big hits. That’s the bottom line.” – Derek Jeter, baseball player.


749. “Even while they teach, men learn.” —Seneca the Younger


750. If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh


751. “Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.” – Frank L. Gaines


752. “From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.” – Arthur Ashe


753. “It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” – Paul “Bear” Bryant


754. “We know how rough the road will be, how heavy here the load will be, we know about the barricades that wait along the track, but we have seen our soul ahead upon a certain goal ahead, and nothing left from hell to sky shall ever turn us back.”


755. “As I look back now on my coaching career, I think of my family, I think of the days that we spent together. So I say this to coaches everywhere: If you ever have a chance to take your kids with you, take them. Don’t miss that opportunity. Because when it’s all over and done with, when you look back, those are going to be your fondest memories.”


756. “Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.” – Jackie Joyner-Kersee


757. “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.”


758. “If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.” – Herschel Walker


759. “It’s not about motivation, it’s about connecting to what matters.”


760. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they worked on it every single day. –Unknown


761. “Never say never because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.” – Michael Jordan


762. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. –Mahatma Ghandi


763. “In sports, it is not the strongest, who wins, but the most practical and skillful” — Sunday Adelaja


764. “Some may have more talent than you, but there is no excuse for anyone working harder than you do.” – John Tavares


765. “Teamwork makes the dream work”


766. “It never gets easier. You just get better.” – Jordan Hoechlin


767. “A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.”


768. “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”


769. “Preparation is everything and focus is the key. It’s easy to say you gave it your all out on the pitch. But the point is if you’d prepared you’d have had more to give and you’ve played better”.


770. “It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” – Paul Bryant


771. Nothing will work unless you do. –John Wooden


772. “The best athletes in the world are those who are willing to push harder then anyone else, and go through more pain then anyone else.” ― Ashley M.L.


773. Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back…play for her. –Mia Hamm


774. “It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.”


775. “Kids who dream of reaching the top must grow up looking forward to the big games which define them at every level they play.” – Robbie Savage, soccer player.


776. “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


777. “Life is gonna throw you curve balls and it’s how you deal with them and your attitude and your work ethic.” – Kerri Strug


778. “You learn from mistakes, you learn from losses, but this game doesn’t put something on me where it’s, ‘Hey, I’ve finally done it. This was a big game. We won it and we have to move on.” – LeBron James, basketball player.


779. “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.” – Vernon Law


780. “You can’t win if you don’t play as a unit.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar


781. “I keep all my letters saying I wasn’t good enough in my living room as motivation to prove them wrong.” – Aaron Rodgers


782. “Finding the right balance is very important in preparing for a big game or for business. If you are mentally in the right zone, you will play well whether in sports or in business.” – Virat Kohli, cricket player.


783. “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.” – Andre Agassi


784. “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”


785. “When the game is over, I just want to look at myself in the mirror, win or lose, and know I gave it everything I had.”


786. Room 235, Terrill Hall, University of North Texas


787. “A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive, and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.”


788. “It’s not about reducing pressure it’s about building the capacity to embrace more.”


789. “Do not let what you can not do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden


790. “Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling.”


791. “A good sport can be contrasted with someone who tries to ‘win at all costs’.” ― Nick Hunter


792. Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears. –Laird Hamilton


793. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Tim Notke


794. “You have to do something in your life that is honorable and not cowardly if you are to live in peace with yourself.” – Larry Brown


795. You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within. –Bob Nelson


796. “I’ve always thrived under the pressure of the big games. I enjoy that, and there’s nothing I get afraid about.” – Dele Alli, Soccer player.


797. “It’s not wanting to win that makes you a winner; it’s refusing to fail.”


798. “To give any less than your best is to sacrifice a gift.” – Steve Prefontaine


799. “You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation.” —Homer Rice


800. “I believe in the impossible because no one else does.” – Florence Griffith Joyner


801. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” – Archie Griffin


802. “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.” – Bill Belichik


803. “Listen to everyone because even an idiot will have a good idea once or twice in their life. Then evaluate and pick out what works for you and commit to it.”


804. “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” – Dean Karnazes


805. “Stubbornness usually is considered a negative; but I think that trait has been a positive for me.”- Cal Ripken, Jr.


806. “If you think you’re done, you always have at least 40 percent more.” —Lauren Crandall


807. “Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever.” — Billie Jean King


808. “To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.”


809. “Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.” – John Wooden


810. “It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that really counts.” – John Wooden


811. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” –Vince Lombardi


812. “Don’t be a spectator. Don’t let life pass you by.” – Lou Holtz


813. “Blessed, stressed and football-obsessed”


814. “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz


815. “Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points.” – Knute Rockne


816. “Sports teaches you character. It teaches you to play by the rules. It teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose. It teaches you about life.”— Billie Jean King


817. “I believe in myself.” – Muhammad Ali


818. “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” – Vince Lombardi


819. “Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next.”— George Steinbrenner


820. “If you don’t start out aiming for the big game, you almost never can get there.” – Reid Hoffman


821. “Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.” —Laird Hamilton


822. If something stands between you and your success, move it. Never be denied. –Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson


823. But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration — because it’s a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. –James Cameron


824. “Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it’s because you’ve started to think of failure.” – Tommy Lasorda


825. “Before you can win, you have to believe you are worthy.” – Mike Ditka, American football coach.


826. “Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.” – Pat Riley


827. “Dreams are free. Goals have a cost. While you can daydream for free, goals don’t come without a price. Time, Effort, Sacrifice, and Sweat. How will you pay for your goals?“


828. “Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.”– Lou Holtz


829. “Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.” – Lou Holtz


830. “Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.”


831. “Good is not good when better is expected.” – Vin Scully


832. “I’ve never lost a game I just ran out of time.” ― Michael Jordan


833. “The only way to prove you are a good sport is to lose.” – Ernie Banks


834. “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.”


835. Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.” –Arnold Schwarzenegger


836. “The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.” — Les Brown


837. “Victory is in having done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won.” – Billy Bowerman


838. “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”


839. To be a champ you have to believe in yourself when no one else will. –Sugar Ray Robinson


840. “Sports creates complicated men, proud enough to refuse to admit their mistakes, but humble enough always to put their team first.” — Fredrik Backman


841. “The road to success runs uphill.”


842. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” - Billie Jean King


843. Winners never quit and quitters never win. –Vince Lombardi


844. “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” – Bobby Unser


845. “Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed in the loss.”


846. “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them; a desire, a dream, a vision.”


847. “It’s not about positive thinking it’s about taking positive action, no matter what you feel. There are no gold medals for the best positive self talk at the Olympics. Sport is a behaviour.”


848. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. –Tim Notke


849. “Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.” —Wilma Rudolph


850. “Show me a guy who's afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time.”


851. “If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don’t care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book were gonna be winners.” -Hoosiers


852. “Wisdom is always an over match for strength.” – Phil Jackson


853. “Comfort the challenged, and challenge the comfortable”


854. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’”– Muhammad Ali


855. “In the end, the game comes down to one thing: man against man. May the best man win.” ― Sam Huff


856. “Sometimes stars don’t have big games and it’s tough to win. That’s one thing that with our team we always say no matter what, we can go out there and get a win.” – Draymond Green, basketball player.


857. “The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” – Steve Young


858. “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself – your own highest standards – and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.” – Arthur Ashe


859. “The strength of the team is in each individual member…the strength of each member is the team.”


860. “To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.” – Tony Dorsett


861. “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” - Yogi Berra


862. “If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.” - Ben Hogan


863. “The attitude with which we approach the situation can determine our success or failure.”


864. “It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.” – Evander Holyfield


865. “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” – Joe Namath


866. “The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.”


867. “If something stands between you and your success, move it. Never be denied.” —Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson


868. One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. –Kareem Abdul-Jabaar


869. “Sport is singularly able to give us peak experience where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential.” — George A. Sheehan


870. A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever. –Mary Lou Retten


871. “Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That’s what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.” —Bethany Hamilton


872. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.”― Mike Singletary


873. “When I go out there, I have no pity on my brother. I am out there to win.” – Joe Frazier


874. “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.” – Vitas Gerulaitis


875. “What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle, and giving 110 percent all the time.” – Don Zimmer


876. “Great players show up to big games.” – Brad Marchand, Ice hockey player.


877. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan


878. “You need to face your fears head on. Don’t avoid them or say that you’re not scared. Acknowledge it and be honest about it. It’s normal to get nervous about a big game or to get nervous about an important event in your life.” – Matt Cullen, Ice hockey center.


879. “Some people say I have attitude – maybe I do…but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there. ” – Venus Williams


880. “The best and fastest way to learn a sport is to watch and imitate a champion.” — Jean-Claude Killy


881. I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan


882. “Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done the best way it can be done, and do it that way every time.” – Bob Knight


883. If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done. –Thomas Jefferson


884. “It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” —Paul “Bear” Bryant


885. “I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.” –Emmitt Smith


886. “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” – Michael Jordan


887. “A good leader is always learning. The great leaders start learning young and continue until their last breath.”


888. “I used everything as a positive to make me a better person and a better player. I have no regrets. Everytime I had to play a big game, I played a big game. I used some of the skepticism as a positive and motivation.” – Chris Osgood, hockey goaltender.


889. Never say never because limits, like fears, are often just illusions. –Michael Jordan


890. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali


891. “Don’t let people tell you that you can’t do something.” – Laurie Hernandez


892. “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.” – Muhammad Ali


893. “Creating gold from dross is alchemy; making lemonade when you’re given lemons is leadership; making lemonade when you don’t have any lemons is great leadership.”


894. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” - Muhammad Ali


895. “It’s going to be a journey. It’s not a sprint to get in shape.” —Kerri Walsh Jennings


896. “Love is playing every game as if it’s your last.” ― Michael Jordan


897. “If you want to be the best, you have to do the things that other people aren’t willing to do.”


898. “You can’t win the big game until you win it.” – Carson Palmer, football player.


899. “Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.” — Liane Cardes


900. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky


901. “The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight."


902. “The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.” – Les Brown


903. “The four most powerful words are: I believe in you.”


904. “Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points, they almost always win.”


905. “A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.”

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