Quotes & Sayings About Athletes

Male athletes don't get dropped when they father kids. — Candace Parker

We also notice that Paul was focused. He had a clear goal, and he would not veer to the right or to the left from it. We can't help but wonder how many emails Paul would have skipped over, or how current he would have been with the news of the day, or even how vigorously he would be rooting for his favorite sports teams or athletes. Our ability to have information quickly is both a blessing and a curse. Our ability to function in a fast-paced society sometimes encourages us to focus on nothing of lasting value, just running from one temporal thing to the next. Just — James MacDonald

Like most athletes, I like to go home and relax. I try not to bring the game home with me. I might play some video games that are, let's just say, for mature audiences only. And I might get some flak for this, but I like to watch 'Seinfeld.' Sometimes, laughter is the best medicine. — Nick Ferguson

Even though the Olympics take place during Ramadan, some Muslim athletes said they will not fast during games. Then, after sampling the British food, they said, on second thought, fasting sounds good. — Conan O'Brien

The road of life is strewn with the bodies of promising people. People who show promise, yet lack the confidence to act. People who make promises they are unable to keep. People who promise to do tomorrow what they could do today. Promising young stars, athletes, entrepreneurs who wait for promises to come true. Promise without a goal and a plan is like a barren cow. You know what she could do if she could do it, but she can't. Turn your promise into a plan. Make no promise for tomorrow if you are able to keep it today. And if someone calls you promising, know that you are not doing enough today. — Iyanla Vanzant

What drove me to become the world's greatest bodybuilder is no different from what drives other athletes to become great tennis players or boxers or jockeys. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

I would see her floating away from me, celestial and solitary, in an ethereal chairlift, up and up, to a glittering summit where laughing athletes stripped to the waist were waiting for her, for her. — Vladimir Nabokov

All things old become new again. In my youth the athletes had crew cuts and the hippies had long hair. Now the athletes have long hair and the hippies are bald. — Harley King

I have read many studies out of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and they demonstrated that Vitamin E, Co-Q-10, and Fish Oil could protect the immune system of athletes and prevent disease. — Bill Toomey

I think we have tremendous media covering the sport of boxing, even if boxing is a little bit lost in popularity with MMA sports. And I think that with the show 'Lights Out' it's going to get more attention to the sport, and it's going to put more attention to the problems that athletes in general have. — Wladimir Klitschko

As a little kid, not only is my dad Jo-Jo White, but M. L. Carr is involved in the family, Red Auerbach is my godfather, and my stepmother was an Olympic-caliber sprinter. Athletes were all around. I happened to be a natural athlete. If I wasn't, it might have been hell. But I never got any pressure from my mom and dad to be an athlete. — Brian J. White

Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes. — Milton Friedman

A lot of things are out of my control, and that's all the other athletes. I can be the best I can ever be, and if there's someone better, they'll win the race. I'm aware of that. — Mark De Jonge

Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models. — Barack Obama

The reality is that my style of drumming is largely an athletic undertaking, and it does not pain me to realize that, like all athletes, there comes a time to ... take yourself out of the game. — Neil Peart

There are all these athletes out there cheating. I am clean and pure. — Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Athletes don't have much use for poking around in their childhoods, because, introspection doesn't get you anywhere in a race. — Lance Armstrong

There are athletes and celebrities that are out there and they Twitter and they constantly try to drum up press because they're narcissists. — Geoff Stults

Every day is Make a Difference Day.
1. Try a Little Tenderness.
2. A Change of Heart Changes Everything.
3. Choose Integrity as your True North and you will never get lost. (Professional athletes wise up.) — Steve William Laible

In boxing, where most of the guys are from lower-class backgrounds and have darker skin than most of the fans, one might fear that the athletes are being exploited. But that narrative doesn't hold up very well in the world of MMA, where 99 percent of fighters are amateurs who will never earn a dime. They aren't seeking fame and fortune. For the most part, these guys are fighting because they want to and because it gives them an opportunity to strive for something big in their lives. It gives them a chance to become their best selves. — Jonathan Gottschall

Extraordinary people are the Green Berets and the Navy Seals and the Olympic athletes - these are the ones who can face these extraordinary physical challenges and be triumphant. — Jonathan Demme

My guess is many top athletes, distance runners included, use performance-enhancing drugs, enough so that the problem must be tackled. — Bill Rodgers

I'm not sure that an athlete is prepared to be a role model. He has a lot of attention paid to him that he shouldn't have, and then the athletes tend to think of themselves as better than they are. — Bobby Knight

I'm a huge wrestling fan. Wrestlers have so many great qualities that athletes need to have. — Bob Stoops

It is the liveliest time in life, the happiest of the irresponsible times in life. Mothers echo its happiness - nothing is like a mother who has a son home from college, except another mother with a son home from college. Bloom does actually come upon these mothers; it is a visible thing; and they run like girls, walk like athletes, laugh like sycophants. Yet they give up their sons to the daughters of other mothers, and find it proud rapture enough to be allowed to sit and watch. — Booth Tarkington

Later in life, when I'm retired and have a family of my own and will be able to send my kids to college, that's when I'll start spending. Way too many athletes go broke these days, and I like saving my money so that I can ensure my family and friends currently and after me will never have to endure some of the things I did when I was a kid. — Victor Ortiz

Highly competitive athletes like Ginny Gilder have a gift for tolerating pain and ignoring adversity. They accept these things as the price they pay for greatness. These habits of mind and body serve us well in many aspects of our lives, but not in all aspects of our lives. Course Correction is about taking time to heal and exploring the joy that lies beyond adversity. — Tori Murden

I have spoken with many former athletes, and they tell me the best time they had was in sports. I listen to them and use their experience in my career. — Sergei Bubka

The problem with many athletes is they take themselves seriously and their sport lightly. — Michael Waltrip

I have long been one of those tedious people who rails against the coronation of 'student-athletes.' I have heard the argument that big-time athletics bring in loads of money to universities. I don't believe the money goes anywhere other than back into the sports teams, but that's another story. — Susan Orlean

I always liked serve-and-volley players and big athletes. — Richard Krajicek

The combination of stride rate (the number of strides per unit of time) and stride length (the distance covered in a single stride) primarily determines linear speed. So, athletes can improve linear speed by increasing stride rate while maintaining stride length, increasing stride length while maintaining stride rate, or doing a combination of both. — NSCA: National Strength And Conditioning Association

We want to make sure our athletes have a future once their athletics careers are over. — Alberto Juantorena

Champions are not the ones who always win races - champions are the ones who get out there and try. And try harder the next time. And even harder the next time. 'Champion' is a state of mind. They are devoted. They compete to best themselves as much if not more than they compete to best others. Champions are not just athletes. — Simon Sinek

The beauty of all these years of singing the anthem is that I got a chance to meet athletes that I love, and there was a mutual respect. — Jeffrey Osborne

When we reach the point where the women athletes are getting their pick of dates just as easily as the men athletes, then we've really and truly arrived. Parity at last! — Billie Jean King

In cross-country skiing, athletes propel themselves over distances of ten and twenty miles - a physical challenge that places intense demands on the ability of their red blood cells to deliver oxygen to their muscles. — Malcolm Gladwell

Female athletes are stereotyped by the general population
and usually as homosexuals. — Billie Jean King

I personally believe that professional athletes should give back to their communities in any way possible. We are in a position to make a difference. — Carson Palmer

The American people don't believe politicians. They don't believe business leaders or Hollywood celebrities or athletes or other supposed role models. And they certainly don't believe the news media. — John Yarmuth

Best coaches never tell their athletes that they are wrong.They rather focus on creating awareness. — Abhishek Ratna

I kind of rode this weird line between athlete and artist. It was a little different because most of the athletes were total jocks, and most of the artists dressed in black and were kind of considered a little on the fringe. But I hung out with both crowds in my high school. — Terry Crews

The type of athletes we draft still need types of versatility on the defense side of the ball, run the offense. You should still be concerned on the offense side of the ball. — Isaiah Thomas

What motivates Olympic athletes to train for years for one event - in some cases, for just seconds of actual competition? It's the same thing that kept my friend Pete nosing around old bookstores for years. It's the same thing that makes a person venture out of a comfortable job to start a new business. We see it in the artist who spends day after day in a studio chipping away at a block of stone. Look closely and you'll find it in the shopper who passes up the good deal in search of the best deal. It's one of the things that makes us most human. We consciously pursue what we value. It's not simply a matter of being driven by biology or genetics or environmental conditioning to satisfy instinctive cravings. Rather, we perceive something, prize it at a certain value, then pursue it according to that assigned value because we were created that way. This ability to perceive, prize, and pursue is part of our essential humanness, and it's the essence of ambition. — Dave Harvey

In reality, we can prove that the incidents of drug, alcohol abuse and violence have dropped dramatically among professional athletes - but the problem is it would be impossible to convince than fans, because of what they read on the AP wire. — Leigh Steinberg

I hate to say anything that may hurt UCLA, but I can't be quiet when I see what the NCAA is doing to Jerry Tarkanian only because he has a reputation for giving a second chance to many black athletes other coaches have branded as troublemakers. The NCAA is working night and day trying to get Jerry, but no one from the NCAA ever questioned me during my four years at UCLA! — Bill Walton

Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes. — Gale Sayers

If you talk to most athletes, the place you're most comfortable is your playing field. I'm not so comfortable at a podium or talking about events. — Bobby Orr

Toward the end of Carmel's life, the perception of super talls shifted dramatically, thanks largely to televised NBA games, By 1975, pretty much everyone had seen super tall people on TV, in the context of being celebrated in front of sold-out basketball arenas. This new frame of reference could not have been more positive. By 1995 Shaquille O'Neal was known as The Man of Steel, not the Traveling Human Giant. The idea of super tall people as freaks was replaced by the idea of super tall people as amazing athletes. — Arianne Cohen

Let me explain: Like two great athletes who don't play on the same team but meet up on the world stage, blacks and women have always convened at the Oppressed Olympics and given each other a friendly head nod, similar to how when I'm in line at the grocery store and I notice the person in the next checkout line is also buying lemonade. — Phoebe Robinson

The boys think they can all be athletes, and the girls think they can all be singers. That's the way to fame and success ... as a group blacks must give up their illusions. — Kristin Hunter

All good athletes make mistakes; the great ones learn to make that mistake only once. — Raul Lopez

My favorite thing about being linked to Oakley is getting to hang with the cool people, the cool athletes - like the X-Games guys. Those guys play sports where they can really hurt themselves, and, well, I just play golf. I'm like the wimpy guy over here. — Bubba Watson

Seven out of 10 black faces you see on television are athletes. The black athlete carries the image of the black community. He carries the cross, in a way, until blacks make inroads in other dimensions. — Arthur Ashe

By continually increasing the difficulty of the sport, we are discouraging younger athletes from starting and continuing in the sport. But most importantly, we are losing the beauty of our sport. We do not want gymnastics to lose what makes it so great - its artistic beauty. — Svetlana Boginskaya

I try to help my athletes visualize their full potential, and then get out of the way as they achieve it. — Pat Roberts

From the perspective of the radicals, the habitus basis of human existence is, as a whole, no more than a spiritually worthless puppet theatre into which a free ego-soul must be implanted after the fact, and through the greatest effort. If this fails, one experiences an effect in most people that is familiar from many athletes and models: they make a promising visual impression - but if one knocks, no one is at home. According to these doctrines, the adept can only rid themselves of their baggage by subjecting their life to a rigorous practice regime by which they can de-automize their behaviour in all important dimensions. At the same time, they must re-automatize their newly acquired behaviour so that what they want to be or represent becomes second nature. — Peter Sloterdijk

Unlike other athletes, Frisbee people won't let it go. My theory is that this is because there's a huge overlap between people who are good at Frisbee and people who do Teach for America. The same instinct to make at-risk kids learn, which I admire so much, becomes deadly when turned on friends trying to relax on a Sunday afternoon in the park. — Mindy Kaling

Athletes, he believed, were simple, straightforward people, cruel and brutal if you like, but never petty. They knocked you down and hurt you, and then went on their way rejoicing. — E. M. Forster

This is very simple in the world of chicks: some are hoochies, some are not, and some should never try to be. It's no different from the idea of sports. Now, I can go on my little rowing machine for four times a week, twenty-two minutes a time, and I can feel as if I flirt with the sporting world. Similar to the idea that a woman can put on something cuter for her man, for those moments, and flirt with garments that a hoochie woman might be pushing. But never for one moment should you get confused. My little rowing machine and I cannot consider ourselves athletes. Wearing the same garment does not a hoochie woman make. So if you are a true hoochie woman, may garments below the navel always be in your future. If you are not, then please don't throw away your cotton zippy jacket. — Tori Amos

All in all it's a pretty great day for major league sports. At long last they've decided that gay people are fit to be included in their elite club-one that's already allowed in adulterers, wife-swappers, gamblers, cheaters, rapists, racists and slaughterers of man. Those who've abused spouses, drugs, alcohol, family members and animals. Congratulations, gay athletes. Are you sure you want to hang out with these people? — Jon Stewart

I want to do what I can to give the next generation of athletes added advantages in the game. — Abby Wambach

I'd like to see the high schools put in a rule that limits recruitable athletes from playing on teams outside a 100-mile radius from their home or school. — Dean Smith

Dance is certainly a sport, and they are phenomenal athletes, and they're also artists. — Neve Campbell

Gay people are born into, and belong to, every society in the world. They are all ages, all races, all faiths. They are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes. And whether we know it or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Being gay is not a Western invention. It is a human reality. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

All athletes need three things: commitment, discipline and hard work. Without that it's hard to keep running. — Haile Gebrselassie

Whether we like it or not, we are high-profile athletes. We're role models. Kids come up to me all the time to talk and it makes me remember when I was a kid and I got to meet Jerry Rice and how much that meant to me. And how we've got to set a good example. — Jonathan Vilma

Most athletes with lower back pain or hamstring strains have poor hip or lumbo-pelvic mechanics and as a result must extend or flex the lumbar spine to make up for movement unavailable through the hip. — Michael Boyle

It is essential that we put an end to steroid abuse and set a better example for aspiring young athletes to follow, so that some day, when they make it in the All Star Game, it will be because of their own natural talents, and not because of a performance enhancing product. — Jim Sensenbrenner

It's really impossible for athletes to grow up. On the one hand, you're still a child, still playing a game. But on the other hand, you're a superhuman hero that everyone dreams of being. No wonder we have such a hard time understanding who we are. — Billie Jean King

Blondes are like left-handed athletes, they all get a second look even if they don't deserve one. — Frank Deford

When I was a teenager, I was an umpire for a competitive league for 8- to 9-year-olds. I was really bad at it because I didn't know all the rules, and all these kids were better athletes than me. I made a bad call, and this dad snapped on me. Then he dumped his trash from his cooler, and I had to kick him out of the stands. — Adam DeVine

All people, regardless of whether they're athletes or not, should treat people the way they want to be treated. — Walter Payton

The night before I compete, I like to have steak. Meat is especially important for female athletes because it provides them with the nutrients they need to perform at their best. — Sasha Cohen

'Suena' is what the essence of the Olympics are about. There are the best athletes in the world up on one stage. The love and admiration and respect for each other is amazing to see. — Jencarlos Canela

Hundreds of ballplayers have performed well after Tommy John surgery, in which an elbow ligament is replaced by material from elsewhere on the body. More and more, athletes will perform with a bit of this or a bit of that in a joint or muscle. — George Vecsey

I'm in the perfect position. It's a sports position and a political position where I can help better the lives of athletes around the world. — Angela Ruggiero

It is surprising how many professional athletes, along with their families and friends, are gaga over movie and music stars, and the reverse is true with entertainers and sports stars. — Cheech Marin

I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they'd be, what position they'd play and so on. — Lou Holtz

When you watch Olympic athletes in competition, does your self-esteem plummet? Of course not. On the contrary, you feel wonder and admiration; you're inspired that such exceptional individuals exist. So why can't we feels the same way about beauty? — Ted Chiang

Women are like the Olympic athletes of grudges. — Liane Moriarty

If schools celebrated student scientists the same way they celebrate student athletes, more students would be encouraged to pursue the subject. Instead, science is considered nerdy because schools help students to paint it that way. — Alexandra Robbins

Athletes know kids look up to them, and it's important for athletes to be responsible. — Deion Sanders

At the Cardiff World Cup I really would like to make the final. The favorites are still Peter, Daniele or Vavra, but I will try to do my best in order to be closest as possible to these athletes. — Benjamin Boukpeti

By a sizable margin, walking, especially when the athletes landed first with their heels, was the most economical way for human beings to move. — Gretchen Reynolds

We professional athletes are very lucky. Unlike most mortals, we are given the privilege of dying twice - once when we retire and again when death takes us. — John McNally

There is nothing wrong with athletes coming back from retirement. — George Vecsey

Lance Armstrong has joined the legion of the lost, the great athletes who were barred or exiled for sins admitted or charged or suspected. — George Vecsey

The sports space is so full of opinion that you aren't hearing from the athletes just speaking for themselves. We are such a Twitter-oriented society with radio talk shows, TV talk shows and social media - what you are missing is the authentic, unfiltered aspect of who these people are. — Hannah Storm

A lot of athletes use sports psychologists. — Andy Murray

I never thought that shoes would be the reason that you recruit players, but it's a factor. I think we need to get the shoe companies out of the lives of the athletes. I think we need to get it back to where parents and coaches have more of a say than peripheral people, but that's easier said than done. — Rick Pitino

Success isn't winning every time. A lot of different factors go into every race, and you can't control all of them. Success means doing as excellent a job as you can on that particular day. The people I admire most aren't necessarily the most wonderful athletes. I admire the ones who keep coming back and doing it, time after time. — Aimee Mullins

On television, I have watched countless athletes from different countries, sports and Olympics stand proudly at the top of the podium and shed tears. They symbolized the Olympics for me because Olympic medals represent all of the hard work and sacrifices made by the athletes as well as the people who helped them reach the top of their sports. — Hannah Kearney

A fan is always an outsider. Most sportswriters are not, by this definition, fans. They capitalize on access to athletes. They spoke to Kobe last night, and Kobe says his finger is going to be fine. They spent three days fly-fishing with Brett Favre in March, and Brett says he's definitely coming back for another season. — Malcolm Gladwell

Only a handful of professional football athletes have had a signature shoe, unlike in basketball where there have been a number of guys. — Keyshawn Johnson

If there were camera phones back in the day, the biggest athletes in the world would have had a lot of explaining to do. — Kobe Bryant

Turning the workplace into a playing field can turn our subordinates into "athletes" dedicated to performing at the limit of their capabilities - the key to making our team consistent winners. — Andrew S. Grove

On today's athletes: I wish I could turn back the clock a little bit so I'd have a chance to cut it up with those guys. — Eric Heiden

There are things about some professional athletes that I cannot stand-the pretense, the egos, the pomposity, the greed. — Ted Simmons

We must endure, Alyosha. That was the only thing she could say in response to my accounts of the ugliness and dreariness of life, of the suffering of the people - of everything against which I protested so vehemently. I was not made for endurance, and if occasionally I exhibited this virtue of cattle, wood, and stone, I did so only to test myself, to try my strength and my stability. Sometimes young people, in the foolishness of immaturity, or in envy of the strength of their elders, strive, even successfully, to lift weights that overtax their bones and muscles; in their vanity they attempt to cross themselves with two-pood weights, like mature athletes. I too did this, in the literal and figurative sense, physically and spiritually, and only good fortune kept me from injuring myself fatally or crippling myself for life.
For nothing cripples a person so dreadfully as endurance, as a humble submission to the forces of circumstance. — Maxim Gorky