Tom Landry Quotes & Sayings

When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn. — Tom Landry

A winner never stops trying. — Tom Landry

A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be. — Tom Landry

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

Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it's so incredible, it's unbelievable. — Tom Landry

I don't believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared so it knows it will have the necessary confidence when it steps on a field and be prepared to play a good game. — Tom Landry

Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence, seeing how you react. If you're in control, they're in control. — Tom Landry

I like the South because it is so much warmer on the sidelines than it is up North. — Tom Landry

There is only a half step difference between the champions and those who finish on the bottom. And much of that half step is mental. — Tom Landry

Even after you've just won the Super Bowl
especially after you've just won the Super Bowl
there's always next year. If Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing, then the only thing is nothing
emptiness, the nightmare of life without ultimate meaning. — Tom Landry

I'd rather have a second-best decision diligently pursued than a first-best decision lackadaisically pursued. — Tom Landry

If I had to pick my greatest strength as a football coach, I say it would be innovation. — Tom Landry

Football is to Texas what religion is to a priest. — Tom Landry

I just didn't want to leave the Cowboys when they were down. I at least wanted them to get into a respectable position before anyone else took over. — Tom Landry

A vital team characteristic is the ability to overcome adversity. Any team acquires experience and endurance as it learns to fight back. This in turn builds the kind of character which seldom crumbles at a time of crisis or testing. — Tom Landry

There are coaches to whom winning or losing means something close to life or death. If they lose, then their life has somehow been diminished. I'm not that way, and it keeps me steady. — Tom Landry

The job of a football coach is to make men do what they don't want to do, in order to achieve what they've always wanted to be. — Tom Landry

To live a disciplined life, and to accept the result of that discipline as the will of God - that is the mark of a man. — Tom Landry

I wouldn't think I would coach again, because it would just be hard not being in the Cowboys' blue. — Tom Landry

The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence. — Tom Landry

Coaching is making men do what they don't want, so they can become what they want to be — Tom Landry

Perhaps the toughest call for a coach is weighing what is best for an individual against what is best for the team. Keeping a player on the roster just because I liked him personally, or even because of his great contributions to the team in the past, when I felt some one else could do more for the team would be a disservice to the team's goals. — Tom Landry

When a big play occurs for our team, I'm concentrating on how the defense is reacting to it. Most of the time, I don't see the great catch or the long run. What I'm looking at is how the other team defended it. — Tom Landry

Really, coaching is simplicity. It's getting players to play better than they think that they can. — Tom Landry

In my opinion, character is the most important determinant of a person's success, achievement and ability to handle adversity. — Tom Landry

Take away winning, and you take away everything that is strong about America. — Tom Landry

Confidence comes from knowing what you're doing. If you are prepared for something, you usually do it. If not, you usually fall flat on your face. — Tom Landry

I've come to the conclusion that players want to be treated alike. — Tom Landry

First become a winner in life. Then it's easier to become a winner on the field. — Tom Landry

A champion is simply someone who did not give up when he wanted to. — Tom Landry

People say you have to know when to retire, which is a dumb thing to say. If you want to go out on top, yeah, it becomes important when you quit. But I wasn't afraid of that. And I wasn't worried about getting fired. I knew the risk. To me, it's not an ego thing. I enjoy coaching. I enjoy helping people achieve something. — Tom Landry

The more successful you become, the longer the yardstick people use to measure you by. — Tom Landry

Character is the ability of a person to see a positive end of things. This is the hope that a man of character has. — Tom Landry

There's a misconception about teamwork. Teamwork is the ability to have different thoughts about things; it's the ability to argue and stand up and say loud and strong what you feel. But in the end, it's also the ability to adjust to what is the best for the team. — Tom Landry

The secret to winning is constant, consistent management. — Tom Landry

Being the best at whatever talent you have, that's what stimulates life. — Tom Landry

I know that life is really finding the right relationship between yourself and God. — Tom Landry

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan. — Tom Landry

Right after the game, say as little as possible. — Tom Landry

A team that has character doesn't need stimulation. — Tom Landry

My hats did give me an identity. In fact, if I had a dollar for every time someone has seen me bareheaded and said, 'I almost didn't recognize you without a hat on', I could have bought the Cowboys myself. — Tom Landry