Best Sports Quotes & Sayings

A true friend sees the good in everything, and brings out the best in the worst of things. — Sasha Azevedo

I think at its best, sport does bring us together. — Frank Deford

I know that when I have had whatever run-ins I have had throughout my career, I have had them because I have done the things that I feel like I need to do to be the best, and that is why I am in this sport, that is what drives me. — Brad Keselowski

The best kids are going to become the best. But the best thing about it is that you're going to learn lessons in playing those sports about winning and losing and teamwork and teammates and arguments and everything else that are going to affect you positively for the rest of your life. — Carl Lewis

The best thing about getting older is knowing history. The longer you live, the longer you have been in a sport, the more you know, and the more you know where things started. — John Madden

When I got injured, I think I was starting to sense that there was more to the world than just sports. This dream of playing professional soccer probably wasn't the best track for me. — Eric Swalwell

What mattered to me most when I was batting was feeling comfortable. As long as I felt comfortable, it didn't matter where I was playing or who I was playing against. If you make technical adjustments to cope with different conditions, there's a risk of making yourself feel uncomfortable and of thinking too much about your technique. I've always felt that I've batted best when my mind has been at the bowler's end of pitch, not at my end. There's no time to think about both ends at the same time. So in general it always seemed to me that If I was comfortable with my gear, it would allow my mind to be at the opposite end and I had a better chance of playing well. — Sachin Tendulkar

I am not looking for perfection. I look for the best in me. — Martina Navratilova

John McEnroe ... was arguably the best serve-and-volley man of all time, but then McEnroe was an exception to pretty much every predictive norm there was. At his peak (say 1980 to 1984), he was the greatest tennis player who ever lived-the most talented, the most beautiful, the most tormented: a genius. For me, watching McEnroe don a blue polyester blazer and do stiff lame truistic color commentary for TV is like watching Faulkner do a Gap ad. — David Foster Wallace

I don't consider myself a particularly young chess player. I have been playing in the best tournaments in the world since I was 16 years old. In other sports, if you have been playing for seven years, you are not a young prodigy any more. You're one of the pros. — Magnus Carlsen

You are trying not only to reach your potential but to move beyond it. If you are not in the best shape you can be, these things simply become more difficult to achieve. — Rick Pitino

But boys who like the tough sports - boys who are virtually nursed on that potion of hustle, slam, and grunt - they're the ones with the best chance in life. — Julia Glass

The thing I learned when I was playing was that your best way of winning was to make it difficult for the other team to score in the last three innings. — Tony La Russa

The first principle of planning is timing. Like comedy and sports and sex, timing is everything when it comes to activism, and for the same reasons. People are fickle, easily distracted, and largely irrational. Hit them when they're paying attention to something else and all the best planning will be lost, but strike when the hour is right and you are guaranteed to win. — Srdja Popovic

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

Whether you want to be the best at your job, or at sports, just do your best. Give it everything you have. — Nick Newell

Definitely, injuries are tough, and they happen to every athlete in every sport. The best athletes put it behind them and keep pushing forward. I haven't really had a choice; I've had so many injuries. And the love of BMX, I haven't wanted to stop no matter what. — Tory Nyhaug

I think the way to become the best is to just have fun. — Shaun White

You've got to realize that in any competition there is always a winner and loser. When it turns out that you're the loser on a given day, you can be a graceful loser, but it doesn't mean that you're a loser in the sense that you're willing to accept losses readily. Concede that on that day you weren't the best and that you were beaten in competition. But that should make you more dedicated and hard working. It's wrong to accept defeat as a loser. Be graceful about losing, but don't accept it. — Nolan Ryan

The best and fastest way to learn a sport is to watch and imitate a champion. — Jean-Claude Killy

In sports, you simply aren't considered a real champion until you have defended your title successfully. Winning it once can be a fluke; winning it twice proves you are the best. — Althea Gibson

It's unbelievable I'm swimming so fast. I went in with no expectations. I just went out hoping to get a personal best. I went out there with a smile, just to have fun and see what would happen. — Jade Edmistone

You could be the world's best garbage man, the world's best model; it don't matter what you do if you're the best. — Muhammad Ali

We have the misconception that competitiveness means winning at all costs, but that's not what competition is. Competition is just doing your best and not giving up. We all face a moment in a race or in a competition in which we want to give up. We can either give in and not keep pushing, or we can charge forward and work through it. — Lisa Rainsberger

Once one recognizes the value of having difficult obstacles to overcome, it is a simple matter to see the true benefit that can be gained from competitive sports. In tennis who is it that provides a person with the obstacles he needs in order to experience his highest limits? His opponent, of course! Then is your opponent a friend or an enemy? He is a friend to the extent that he does his best to make things difficult for you. Only by playing the role of your enemy does he become your true friend. Only by competing with you does he in fact cooperate! No one wants to stand around on the court waiting for the big wave. In this use of competition it is the duty of your opponent to create the greatest possible difficulties for you, just as it is yours to try to create obstacles for him. Only by doing this do you give each other the opportunity to find out to what heights each can rise. — Zach Kleiman

De La Salle hung on for the 28-21 victory. Afterward, Ladouceur stood before his exhausted team. It was by far the biggest victory in school history at the time, but the coach noticed that several of his players wore masks of disappointment.

"It's OK to feel disappointed if you didn't play your absolute best," he told them. "That's what we're all about. — Neil Hayes

to have a physical body and to work with it and to work with the forces of nature to mold it into the highest expression of joy, and to keep it always by using it to learn how to overcome disease, impairment and as today's cutting edge, non-funded, objective, purposeful science says, one day, even death? What if short-term excitement and intensity created by the overblown desire to win at all cost could be replaced by a more durable excitement in an intensity springing from the heart of the physical athletic experience itself? It would soon be discovered that sports and physical activities reformed and refurbished with integrity, not buy-offs are the best possible path to personal enlightenment and social transformation for this new millennium. — Don Tolman

I think it's really important for this great state of baseball to reach out to people of all walks of life to make sure that the sport is inclusive. The best way to do it is to convince little kids how to
the beauty of playing baseball. — George W. Bush

The best thing about sports is the sense of community and shared emotion it can create. — Bob Costas

In sport you always think the strongest guy should be going for it and getting the best results. The thing is, cycling also has a very important team aspect, which I don't think that a lot of people fully grasp. — Chris Froome

I have an addictive personality. Sport is my drug of choice these days. It's one of the best drugs there is. It keeps you fit and healthy, even if, in the case of ironman, it pushes your body to the limit. The word "addiction" comes with negative connotations, but it doesn't have to be a damaging impulse. It's all about channeling your craving into something positive. — Chrissie Wellington

I want to do my best to make the people happy. I play with my heart for the sport. — Pele

I horse ride. I find it is the best way to maintain my fitness and stay physical. I have to practise anyway for my equestrian front. I do dressage and schooling too. I also do physical training where I work on my neck and upper body strength. Racing is a high endurance sport and you are in the car for a long time so this area is crucial. — Liz Halliday

I was very sporty at school, and sport was probably the thing I was best at, but my real passion was for fashion. — Kirsty Gallacher

You did not tell me what you are doing athletically just now but I do hope that if your arm comes along next spring you can get it in good shape to try out for the pitching spot on the varsity. However, if you don't make it then I suggest you take up golf which after all is the best game of all of them. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

It is important to us to understand and discuss a "vision" with both leagues and then sponsor the league that best matches our views and direction on growing the sport. To do that, there must be a tie back to our grass roots efforts. In short, our marketing plan for new players has to ultimately point to a league and its players. — John Robinson

I grew up as a sports fan, and I know that a hall of fame is very different than an award for being the best of the year. It's a nod to the longevity of our accomplishment. — Chuck D

I didn't know it yet, but he would become one of our high school's super-athletes. There were hints of athletic (and, presumably, sexual) prowess there. For one, boys as ridiculously Abercrombie- esque good-looking as he was are always sports stars throughout high school. It is a rule, a self- fulfilling prophecy. It seems as if, sometime during elementary school, coaches make note of the little boys with the most classic bone structure and the best height projections and kidnap them, training them under cover of night. Not all of them will make it in college ball (that's what people call it, right?) because by the time they're all seniors, many of them will have been riding more on the sportsman-like nature of their faces than their actual abilities. But until that day, coaches will keep putting them on the field in the most prominent and visually appealing positions because they just kind of look like that's where they should be. At least I'm pretty sure that is what's going on. — Katie Heaney

Here's what I just realized: A world in which sport at its best is not seen as some kind of art is a world that doesn't deserve any art. — Tom Bissell

Victories are a byproduct of a larger vision. It begins with a question:

How much do we owe one another?

Each coach's and player's individual answer is one of the building blocks of The Streak. De La Salle separates itself from the competition because everyone from the head coach to the least accomplished player on the roster is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to be their absolute best. — Neil Hayes

Our sports [softball] is a game of failure already so my dad always says to parents who he is a pitching coach and he's been my pitching coach since I was 11 years old is if they can be the best kid on the team, let them experience that and then obviously the challenge has to come later on but you don't get that opportunity very often and confidence is such a huge part of this game and in life in general. — Jennie Finch

Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world. — Babe Ruth

Perform the best you can for when you find that you perform your best, there is still so much more in volleyball to do better, harder, faster, and smarter. It is just like when you go for a long journey. You go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you can see farther. — John Kessel

A vote for Japan is a vote for the future of rugby. We will do our best to make rugby a global sport. — Yoshiro Mori

One shouldn't be afraid to lose; this is sport. One day you win; another day you lose. Of course, everyone wants to be the best. This is normal. This is what sport is about. This is why I love it. — Oksana Baiul

There is no harm in dreaming of becoming the world's best player. It is all about trying to be the best. I will keep working hard to achieve it but it is within my capabilities. — Cristiano Ronaldo

There are some times when sports rises to the level of news and when sports broadcasters acquit themselves as well as the best news broadcasters do, they aren't there to dramatize. They're there as journalists. — Bob Costas

There are few positions in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered. These difficulties are, however, our best instructors, as our mistakes often form our best experience. — Edwin Paxton Hood

In terms of merit, sports has mathematical statistics. That's how you know who the best player is. — Norm MacDonald

A sports expert is the guy who writes the best alibis for being wrong — Jimmy Cannon

I'm sick of the media making female sports athletes into supermodels, when they're clearly sixes at best. — Daniel Tosh

I learned a long time ago from when I did 'Seinfeld' never to take anything seriously, and to be part of the joke is the best way to show what a good sport I was. — Marlee Matlin

Scott Medlock is the 'Top Gun' of sports artists. He truly is the best of the best. — Jim Hill

Going into that race I was going for the world record, just quietly, but I wasn't feeling at my best all week so it was hard to determine what would happen. I could not believe it, I went into shock, I'm still in shock. — Leisel Jones

When we played against Dan Marino, the best defense was to keep him on the sideline. By keeping him on the sideline, you made him frustrated. You made him anxious. When he came on the field, he felt like he had to score every time. I think that is where Peyton Manning is. — Boomer Esiason

Skiing is the next best thing to having wings. — Oprah Winfrey

The truth is that I've never cared anything about sports. In PE, I do my best to get hit with the dodgeball on the first throw so I can sit out and read instead of play. I'd rather eat a hot dog at a baseball game than play baseball. I'd rather paint a soccer ball than kick one. I don't mind running, but only if I'm running towards something wonderful. i don't see the point in running away from anything, ever. -Felicity Pickle — Natalie Lloyd

I'm honored and excited to be chosen to lead MLSE, a world-class sports and entertainment organization with the major league teams, premier facilities and employee team that rank with the very best across North America and internationally. — Tim Leiweke

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

You know it's going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black. — Charles Barkley

My best game plan is to sit on the bench and call out specific instructions like 'C'mon Boog,' 'Get a hold of one, Frank,' or 'Let's go, Brooks.' — Earl Weaver

There's nothing masculine about being competitive. There's nothing masculine about trying to be the best at everything you do, nor is there anything wrong with it. I don't know why a female athlete has to defend her femininity just because she chooses to play sports. — Rebecca Lobo

Be hard but fair. Shoot straight. Never cheat, in sports or at work. Show up to your job early and do the best you can at it. Kill anyone that tries to blackmail you, ever. Refuse anyone who gives you an ultimatum, they're never worth it. Leave a fair tip when you eat somewhere, and take your hat off in someone's home. And always, always, keep your word. — Russell Zimmerman

It's easy to enjoy your job and enjoy other people when things are going good. When you're faced with adversity is when the character of men is measured. There's a Mennonite proverb, 'Man, like a tree, is measured best when cut down.' — Dan Quisenberry

Design truly is a contact sport. It demands that we bring all of our senses to the task, and that we apply the very best of our thinking, our feeling and our doing to the challenge that we have at hand. — Tom Wujec

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

Why do we place such a disproportionate emphasis on sporting achievement? Why doesn't success in other fields receive similar attention ... Maybe it's because in a country that prides itself on being egalitarian, sport is intellectually and socio-economically an equal playing field. In fact, the more humble your background, the better, the underdog-turned champion is a narrative that resonates powerfully. We're far less interested in the stories of our best doctors, writers, lawyers, engineers, teachers or social workers. Their triumphs do not capture our collective imaginations. — Mia Freedman

He hadn't developed into the accomplished running quarterback many had predicted he would become over the course of the season.

But he had come to personify this team. He was raw and untested when the season began, but he played his two best games in the two biggest games on the schedule. He wasn't the player anybody expected him to be, but he got the job done-at times spectacularly. — Neil Hayes

I train myself mentally with visualization. The morning of a tournament, before I put my feet on the floor, I visualize myself making perfect runs with emphasis on technique, all the way through to what my personal best is in practice ... The more you work with this type of visualization, especially when you do it on a day-to-day basis, you'll actually begin to feel your muscles contracting at the appropriate times. — Camille Duvall

The best thing about Sachin Tendulkar is that he's completely rooted, down to earth, and a thorough gentleman. He's probably the best thing to have happened to Indian cricket and maybe Indian sport as a whole. — Sania Mirza

There's an economy in sports that I always think is a useful metaphor for acting. You have an objective. You're trying to win, and of course, you want to do well. You want to use good techniques so you enforce it, but also you don't do things you don't have to do. It's very economical, and I think that in acting the most economical way through a scene is always the best. It's active. There is the sense of the fight and you want to win. — Greta Gerwig

The best of the sport is to doe the deede, and say nothing. — George Herbert

I've been fighting for more than 24 years and as I continue my ascendant career I want to be true to myself. I want to try to be the best role model I can be for kids who might look into boxing as a sport and a professional career. I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be a proud, gay man. — Orlando Cruz

A questionnaire! Such an obvious solution. A purpose-built, scientifically valid instrument incorporating current best practice to filter out the time wasters, the disorganised, the ice-cream discriminators, the visual-harassment complainers, the crystal gazers, the horoscope readers, the fashion obsessives, the religious fanatics, the vegans, the sports watchers, the creationists, the smokers, the scientifically illiterate, the homeopaths, leaving, ideally, the perfect partner, or realistically, a manageable shortlist of candidates. — Graeme Simsion

Competition works best in sports, but humans get addicted to stuff. — Criss Jami

A lot of football success is in the mind. you must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are. — Bill Shankly

I was never a pretty girl, so I wasn't the one to get the boy. I used to cast myself as a good sport. Sometimes I wonder if I do that too much with roles I play, because if I'm absolutely truthful, I quite like being the best friend, or the supporting role, and actually I ought to gear-change and make myself the leading role. — Celia Imrie

I pray not for victory, but to do my best. — Amos Alonzo Stagg

Nadal's the best player in history on [clay], and he is one of the best-ever players that played this game. — Novak Djokovic

It's easy to forget when you're an elite athlete that everyone else gets nervous as well. Even the best people in the world, at whatever they do, they're still nervous — Leisel Jones

First of all, in any sport where you can measure distance, height speed and all of that, you see how athletes have changed their sport and made it better. I believe, with every generation, the sport has improved. Certainly, in the men's game, that has been the case. I think that I played Pete [Sampras] at his best, I played Roger [Federer] at his best.. I believe wholeheartedly that Roger and [Rafael] Nadal have pushed the game much further than myself or Pete ever did. Their options on the tennis court are considerably more than ours. — Andre Agassi

The day of parochialism in sports is over. The world is too small for what people like to call 'the good old days.' Fans want the best, wherever they come from. — Mario Andretti

Victory is in having done your best. If you've done your best, you've won. — Bill Bowerman

He's one of the best power forwards of all-time. I take my hands off to him. — Scottie Pippen

Most of us have had that experience - at around puberty - of realising that, despite whatever efforts we put into our chosen sports, we will become at best competent. — Will Self

[Lizzie Bennington to a reporter who has asked for her opinion about Jack Archer's celebrated thighs.] When you come back from a set down and bring the match to a final set tiebreak and are a point away from winning the match, only to have what looks like an extremely fit player call a time out because of a cramp and then watch that player sit back and casually converse and laugh while you do your best to keep your mental focus and your body moving so you don't grow cold and cramp yourself, I hardly think you'd concern yourself with his burgeoning manhood, let alone his thighs! — A.G. Starling

Either you were the best of the best or you were nothing, and somehow that didn't seem right. — Tim Green

It's always something that's going to be a part of me. It's the reason why I work so hard each and every day. It's the reason I come to work dedicated to become the best that I can be. Nothing's going to come easy in life, and I've learned a lot of lessons, some the hard way, and I think just the things that I've been through have helped mold me into the person I am and what (is in) my future and that's continuing to do things the right way. — Michael Vick

As a player, remember that the bench is not a prison, but an extension of the first group. Concentrate on the quality of your play when you do get into the game. If you play 20 minutes, play the best 20 you can possibly play. — Stan Albeck

(About importance of focusing on one sport at a time) I've never tried to do that, we have more of a holistic approach. We want to become better decathletes and better competitors. I think for us that means just toeing the line at whatever it is we're doing that day and being confident in preparing as best as we can. Later in the year, late in the season when we have all of the thousands of reps under our belt, we can try to maybe focus on one or two things and leave some stuff off one week. Really, we like to keep everything inside the routine and part of the process. — Trey Hardee

Absurdly, I haven't yet got around to saying that football is a wonderful sport, but of course it is. Goals have a rarity value that points and runs and sets do not, and so there will always be that thrill, the thrill of seeing someone do something that can only be done three or four times in a whole game if you are lucky, not at all if you are not. And I love the pace of it, its lack of formula; and I love the way that small men can destroy big men ... in a way that they can't in other contact sports, and the way that t he best team does not necessarily win. And there's the athleticism ... , and the way that strength and intelligence have to combine. It allows players to look beautiful and balletic in a way that some sports do not: a perfectly-timed diving header, or a perfectly-struck volley, allow the body to achieve a poise and grace that some sportsmen can never exhibit. — Nick Hornby

In all of my life, when I was playing sports, I always put 100 percent. I have always given the best. — Garfield Sobers

It's the best thing to happen to a sport, that you have a superstar. In football there is always something to write about the Beckhams, same as people want to write about Rooney or Hooney or whatever his bloody name is. — Bernie Ecclestone

Has it got any sports in it?" "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles." "Sounds okay," I said, and I kind of closed my eyes. "I'll do my best to stay awake . . . but I'm awful sleepy, Daddy . . . ." Who can know when his world — William Goldman

I skated like it's a sport, went for everthing and just gave it my best shot. It turned out freat. I had nothing to lose. You might be the best in your heart, but not in other people's sight. — Michelle Kwan

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

Many people say I'm the best women's soccer player in the world. I don't think so. And because of that, someday I just might be. — Mia Hamm

I might sound like a crazy person, but that's the way I pump myself up. You know how some people are just like 'I have to talk about it'? Sometimes I'll call my husband and we'll talk about it, sometimes I have to talk to myself in the mirror. So I start talking to myself: 'You got this. Don't think of this as Sports Illustrated, just think about this as the best swimsuit campaign you've done in your life. And just kill it and own it and don't put that pressure on yourself.' — Ashley Graham

I don't want to give anyone an edge in my mind. Every time I walk out on the court, I have to feel I'm the best so I can compete well. A lot of times, my chief rival is just me. — Venus Williams

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