Kids And Sports Quotes & Sayings

There they were, the movers and shakers of Benjamin Franklin Hight - the sports stars, the cheerleaders, the good, the great, the gorgeous - bent over their pizzas.
Trish sensed my angst and said, "My mother says girls like Lisa Shooty get the ultimate curse known to man."
"What's that?"
"Too much too soon."
I looked at poor, cursed Lisa who had been sprayed with sex appeal at birth. She had gleaming teeth and long, raven-black curls. She threw back her head and laughed with diamond-studded joy.
"When do you think the curse takes effect?" I asked.
"Not in our lifetime," Trish answered. — Joan Bauer

Our country's growing obsession with organized sports isn't just hurting our children, but also our communities. As play is siphoned off to gyms and fields, fewer kids are playing in our streets, parks, and playgrounds. — Darell Hammond

Making movies was more a reaction to not being chosen for sports. Other kids were out there playing at whatever; I was off making something blow up and filming it, or making a mould of my sister's head using alginating plaster. — J.J. Abrams

I'm trying to teach my children not to cry. That's the big thing. No crying. Because I think we can all agree that crying is, for the most part, for sissies. If my team loses, I'm going to cry. And I'm going to want my kids to see me crying. Not because I think sports are so important, but because I bet so much money on the game that we'll probably lose the house if my team doesn't win. That's something to cry about. — Michael Ian Black

My dad is the reason I actually started watching wrestling. My dad was never big into sports; we were all big into sports as kids, and he'd go to our Little League games or whatever and not really know what was going on, because he didn't know about sports, but he knew about wrestling. — John Cena

At the high school level, the coaches get these kids in revenue-driven sports and take them away from baseball. There's so much pressure on these kids to even play spring football. We need to get the African-American players back in the game, which I think would make it not only a better game, but more exciting and entertaining for everyone. — Pat Gillick

Athletes are born winners, there not born loosers, and the sooner you understand this, the faster you can take on a winning attitude and become sucessful in life. — Charles R. Sledge Jr.

I still get a lot of letters from kids and parents who face different challenges and disabilities. I share some of the lessons that I learned through sports and baseball, which makes me feel good. It's incredible to have an impact that way. — Jim Abbott

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

When you're 18, when you're at college, sports can be your life. You can watch every baseball game, every college basketball game, every football game. Once you have a family and kids, you can't do that anymore. — Drew Magary

I really enjoy playing 'Tiger Woods' on the Wii, and you can set the levels to easy, medium, or hard, so I think it's definitely a good way for kids to learn the motion of a golf swing if they want to get into the sport. It makes it more fun for them as well. — Rory McIlroy

I think that kids aren't even exploring the option of sports anymore, and they don't even know what they could do. — Allyson Felix

The sport to which I owe so much has undergone profound changes, but it's still baseball. Kids still imitate their heroes on playgrounds. Fans still ruin expensive suits going after foul balls that cost five dollars. Hitting streaks still make the network news and hot dogs still taste better at the ballpark than at home. — Duke Snider

People understand contests. You take a bunch of kids throwing rocks at random and people look askance, but if you go and hold a rock-throwing contest - people understand that. — Don Murray

When I was a kid I used to hate getting picked for team sports. It would be the fit and sporty guys over there. And me and the fat kids over here. Those kids were fat! One girl had to be cut out a hula hoop. — Alan Carr

I am so grateful to everybody that supports the Sheckler Foundation, and gives us the ability to continue to help kids and injured action sports athletes. — Ryan Sheckler

We need to look at our nannying, mollycoddled, politically correct culture in my view, which stops kids from going out and playing competitive sport. I also think we need to look at the shear fatness of the regulations which control people who want to help kids play sport. — Boris Johnson

I think we need to be a bit more proactive. Let's not just talk about availability of sports, let's make the facilities more accessible to kids and make them want to come along. — Hope Powell

My goal, for almost my entire career, has been to promote ski racing not just in America, but across the world. I think it's an amazing sport. I am happy to be an ambassador for the next Olympics and I will do my best to honour the Olympics spirit and to hopefully encourage kids to participate in sports, especially in Asia and Korea and I am looking forward to an amazing Olympics. — Lindsey Vonn

My kids used to do things to aggravate me, too. I'd take them to a game, and they'd want to come home with a different player. — Bob Uecker

When I'm not writing or working on books as a publisher, I'm doing things that make me happy. One is skiing with my kids and husband. I love sports. — Andrea Davis Pinkney

Involvement in my kids' sports teams is something I have made time for over the years. I've also been able to coach all three of them in baseball and basketball, something that has strengthened our bonds and given me indescribable joy. I wouldn't trade it for anything. — Thomas Perez

Kids don't know the language of figure skating. If you ask them to do a compulsory figure, they don't know how to, and that's so important for the edge quality. I think that's why the older skaters are still as popular as they are - because they have that quality that people are missing in this generation. — Brian Boitano

As a child, I could beat most kids in sprints, but overall, wrestling was the most natural sport for me. In fact, I was a pretty good high school wrestler. I was unusually quick and strong. — Henry Paulson

My kids have played sports all their life, and one thing I've tried to teach them when you lose, you try to be a gentleman about it. — Vern Buchanan

In the culture of America, in a free culture, you get what you celebrate. And in this culture, we have two obsessions, become a group that becomes a group that celebrates sports heroes and entertainment heroes. There's no room left for kids to see even a little bit of the opportunities to really, really get excited about becoming an inventor, an engineer, or a scientist, a problem solver. — Dean Kamen

I used to be an angry, lonely prick. Then I met a guy with four amazing kids and more issues than the Sports Illustrated back catalog and boom - happiness."
"Boom, happiness?"
"Okay, boom. Boom. More booms. A mushroom cloud. Then happiness. — Tere Michaels

I just mean ... damn ... this might sound a bit crazy, but sometimes you can't help wondering if we don't take all this a bit too seriously. If we aren't putting too much pressure on the juniors. They're not really much more than ... kids."

...

"That depends what we want from the kids. And what the kids want from hockey. — Fredrik Backman

If the players aren't getting paid, there's something terribly, terribly wrong, and that's true only in the United States. Everywhere else, where money is involved with sport, the players get paid. But these poor kids in college, they're doing it for free, and that's just disgraceful. — Frank Deford

Do we not see the influence we have when we say we believe in one thing, but our children see us living something else? Do we not realize how little we encourage our children to actually decide what they believe, declare what they believe, and then live by it? Whether it's religion, politics, sports, or societal norms. It is not our place to tell our kids what to think. It is our place to teach our kids to think correctly. If we do this, we need have no fear of what they will decide for themselves and how strongly they'll stand behind it. A man will follow his own convictions to his death, but he'll only follow another man's convictions until he steps in manure. — Dan Pearce

The question then was not what other countries were doing, but why. Why did these countries have this consensus around rigor? In the education superpowers, every child knew the importance of an education. These countries had experienced national failure in recent memory; they knew what an existential crisis felt like. In many U.S. schools, however, the priorities were muddled beyond recognition. Sports were central to American students' lives and school cultures in a way in which they were not in most education superpowers. Exchange students agreed almost universally on this point. Nine out of ten international students I surveyed said that U.S. kids placed a higher priority on sports, and six out of ten American exchange students agreed with them. Even in middle school, other researchers had found, American students spent double the amount of time playing sports as Koreans. — Amanda Ripley

There are kids who get on a BMX bike when they're eight years old and they go, 'Whoa, this is incredible,' and grow up to do extreme sports. It's the same for me with acting. — Joaquin Phoenix

It's been six months, Nancy.'
'What's your hurry? It took me a year to get used to living with Carl. I mean, what do men do anyway? They work, eat, drink, and play games. Sex for them is in the sports and recreation category. You can't live with a man and not be lonely.'
'You think so?'
'Absolutely. Besides, once you have kids, it all changes anyway. Everything seems to make sense then. — Andre Dubus III

That's such bullshit, Mythology repeated by parents because it lets them force their kids into sports and push them too hard by pretending that in the end it will pay off with the holy scholarship. You know how many kids get a free ride? Hardly any. Like, maybe fourteen.' -Finn (165) — Laurie Halse Anderson

I had no interest in sports so I didn't make friends in that traditional way where kids are in public school and they go and they join clubs, and play sports. So I kind of had to find my own way to make friends and get attention and so I just was the class clown. — Zach Braff

I liked baseball and sports and Garbage Pail Kids and comic books. I know what it's like to really adore something. — Todd Lowe

Everything for me started with my love of the sport. In society we're losing the fun with kids and pushing success on them too hard. Success comes from fun. — Shawn Johnson

As a student of the game, it is a dream come true to align myself with a brand that has a rich history in sports. Like most kids, I grew up idolizing Michael Jordan and continue to work relentlessly to reach his iconic status on the court. I'm truly motivated to take my career to the next level as a member of Team Jordan, — Maya Moore

The question is, 'how bad at sports were you as a kid?' I grew up near where they film Jersey Shore. If you weren't tan, muscular, and book-averse, you were a dork and a nerd and a geek and stuff. I remember being into Gary Larsen, Stephen Wright, Peter Sellers ... — Demetri Martin

The only reason these kids keep score in these games is for the parents and coaches satisfaction. Who cares? They're 10 years old. — Peter Jacobsen

I didn't know anybody in show business, and I never thought it was the path I'd go down. I was hoping it was sports, like so many kids. — D. B. Sweeney

With the Special Ops Warrior Foundation's help, we put 266 kids through college last year. And that's what keeps me going. I'll be honest, I don't like running. I don't like biking. I don't like swimming. I do it to raise money. But, now that I'm in this sport, I want to see how far I can push myself. What makes me tick is that pain you feel when you do these ultramarathons. I love knowing that everyone's suffering because I know I can suffer just a little bit more. I can take a lot of pain. — David Goggins

I started a youth center in Houston. The kids would come in and want to learn to box; they wanted to tear up the world, beat up the world. And I'd try to show them they didn't need anger. They didn't need all that killing instinct they'd read about. You can be a human being and pursue boxing as a sport. — George Foreman

Going in is really more of an acknowledgment that kids in poverty, in their situations, can get out of it, and it doesn't always come from sports. — Marshall Faulk

I would love to fall in love and get married and have beautiful children. I mean that's one of the goals in life, I think, to have, and it's a beautiful thing. My sister has kids and all my friends have kids. They show me their, you know their report cards. And I can show them my sports car. — Tiesto

Look, just because I'm an angry, repressed, Irish-Catholic feminist doesn't mean I hate everything. I only hate youth, beauty, the human body, nature, technological change, popular culture, and democracy. Oh, and I forgot to mention sex. And sports. And Andy Warhol. But other than that, I'm cool with whatever the kids are into. Really! — Mary Gordon

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. — Gordie Howe

I have three kids, and I'm a coach for a lot of their sports, so I'm around them a lot, but I see friends of mine with older kids and they don't really interact so much, other than giving them a place to live. — Mike O'Malley

I'm not married, and I don't have any kids, so sometimes I envy that end of things when I see a family vacation or people at the beach with their kids or at sporting events with their kids; you wonder, 'Is that a part of your life that you want to go into?' — Kevin Connolly

Middle grade fiction, to me, is really about emergence of self. It's about expressing the idea that the world is going to start affecting you more, and your parents' influence is going to wane. Middle grade is when a lot of kids discover their passions - art, music, sports, what have you. — Greg Van Eekhout

Here were these college kids beating the Soviets and going on to the Olympic Gold Medal. To me, that's the greatest upset of all time in any sport that I can think of. — Jim McKay

In Gym, the kids on my team learned not to pass me the ball and to step quickly in front of me if the other team tried to take advantage of my weakness. I happily stayed out of their way. — Stephenie Meyer

The essence of physical education in Naperville 203 is teaching fitness instead of sports. The underlying philosophy is that if physical education class can be used to instruct kids how to monitor and maintain their own health and fitness, then the lessons they learn will serve them for life. And probably a longer and happier life at that. What's being taught, really is a lifestyle. The students are developing healthy habits, skills, and a sense of fun, along with a knowledge of how their bodies work. Naperville's gym teachers are opening up new vistas for their students by exposing them to such a wide range of activities that they can't help but find something they enjoy. They're getting kids hooked on moving instead of sitting in front of the television. — John J. Ratey

I think sports for kids is the greatest thing in the world because it teaches you how to share, about winning and losing and pressure. But I don't think you should force your kid to become a professional athlete. — Wayne Gretzky

Every day as a kid, I went to the boxing gym. I knew boxing before I knew anything else. And I was once told if you show your child how to do something and you constantly push them, then eventually they'll become masters. They'll become a master of their craft. So that's probably what happened with me and the sport of boxing. — Floyd Mayweather Jr.

I think video games are a huge part of our society now. Having kids play baseball video games helps them understand and love the game. It could actually push them to get out there and play the game for real. That's great for the sport. — Justin Verlander

Sports and entertainment are the only places where inner-city kids see themselves being able to succeed. Their intellectual development is something they don't relate to. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

You know how sports teach kids teamwork and how to be strong and brave and confident? Improv was my sport. I learned how to not waffle and how to hold a conversation, how to take risks and actually be excited to fail. — Emma Stone

My priority is to turn people - especially kids - on to sports and being active so they don't even have to think about it being good for their health. If people participate for the fun of it, and believe me - it is fun, then fitness programs will be much more successful. — Alan Thicke

I wasn't into sports when I was younger. I was one of those kids who always tried to get a note from the doctor to say I had a cold so I didn't have to go play hockey in bad weather and be miserable. — Eliza Doolittle

When I was little, I guess I was just an ordinary kid. But then things changed when I was in junior high. You know, kids that become geeks become one because of something. Like, they aren't good at sports, or girls don't like them. I, too, for some reason, got into things like science fiction and, well, especially science fiction as an escape. — Takashi Murakami

Which brings us to a little book that may provide a clue to the cure. My wife got it as a gift from a friend. It is titled Porn for Women. It's a picture book of hunks, photographed in all their chiseled, muscle-bound, testosterone-marinated, PG-rated glory. Lots of naked chests and low-cut jeans, complete with tousled hair and beckoning eyes. And they are ALL doing housework. There's a picture of a well-cut Adonis, and he's loading the washing machine. The caption reads: "As soon as I finish the laundry, I'll do the grocery shopping. And I'll take the kids with me so you can relax." There's another hunk, the cover guy, vacuuming the floor. A particularly athletic-looking man peers up from the sports section and declares, "Ooh, look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we'll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair". Porn for Women. Available at a marriage near you. — Anonymous

Sports are the ultimate secular religion. Instead of being worried about whether your kids will be okay or how your job is going, you have your team, and you can focus all of your angst and your hopes and dreams on your team. I am in no way saying it always relieves any of this! — Alex Gibney

In Los Angeles, parenting is a competitive sport. From Beverly Hills baby boutiques to kids' yoga classes, L.A. fuses high style, industrial-strength materialism, and parental outsourcing into our own unique version of child-rearing. — Shawn Amos

As parents, we need to send our kids back to 'old-fashioned' outdoor summer camps, which have been on the decline as the demand for sports and academics-based camps has risen. We need to fight budget cuts to public parks programs and resist closures of public swimming pools and playgrounds. — Darell Hammond

Like so many other office workers of the world, I will obey my master, the clock, and will obediently nod to my co-workers and make small talk about sports, kids and weather - all things I'm not genuinely interested in. — Rob Payne

Despite the amazing diversity we're blessed with in this country, schools are still in large part segregated because of economic disparity. Sports are one of the few areas where kids are really given the opportunity to interact with those of different races and religions. — Steve Kerr

A lot of people think that you have to specialize in one sport from an early age in order to turn pro. Most of my teammates played a lot of different sports when we were kids. I liked to golf, water ski and play baseball. That helped me develop other aspects of my game and made me WANT to be on the ice even more once hockey season started. — Pat LaFontaine

I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived. — Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I have a bumper sticker that Bowen created that says Regardless of my kids grades, they have an 'A' in my book'. Without play the child that still lives in all of us will always be incomplete. And not only physically, but creatively, intellectually, and spiritually as well. — George A. Sheehan

The goal for the Laureus Sport For Good Foundation is to give kids an opportunity to be involved in sports and hopefully learn some lessons along the way. We want to put them in a safe environment, help them if they need it and maybe they will get a scholarship to a school because of the skills that they learn. Sport is just a starting point. — Martina Navratilova

Sport is an important part of the development of kids, and hence, it should be made a part of their curriculum. — Gagan Narang

That's exactly the reason I'm leaving RCR because you've got those punk-ass kids coming up. They've got no respect for what they do in this sport and they've had everything fed to them with a spoon. — Kevin Harvick

We had the schools we wanted, in a way. Parents did not tend to show up at schools demanding that their kids be assigned more challenging reading or that their kindergarteners learn math while they still loved numbers. They did show up to complain about bad grades, however. And they came in droves, with video cameras and lawn chairs and full hearts, to watch their children play sports. — Amanda Ripley

I'd like to try to inspire the youth, that's obviously where our future is and the kids are the ones you can mould and you can give them ideas and opportunities and I'd like to try to inspire all the young kids because I had a dream when I was young, that was to play for Australia. — Steve Waugh

The doors had a peephole, and periodically an Iranian guard would look through and choose who he would let in. It was a bit like waiting to be picked for a sports team at school. You stand there trying to look as useful as possible to the two kids lucky enough to have been chosen as captains. If they were picking you for footy you tried to look as tough as possible. For basketball, you tried to look as tall as possible. For cricket, as long-suffering and patient as possible. That day, every time the guard looked through the peephole, I tried to look as un-Great Satan-like as I could. — Peter Moore

I happened to be in a position in Superior where I could play three sports, and when I came to Minnesota, I had the understanding they would allow me to play three sports. Kids now don't have the same amount of time. You have coaches that think baseball is 10 months a year. Hockey is 11 or 12 months a year. — Bud Grant

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

The transition from sports into acting was something I got blindsided by. I had a full scholarship to law school. I had a different life planned. I started a business, and I was all ready to go. I suddenly got in a local movie, just to say to my kids one day, "Yeah, your old man was in a movie," and I caught the bug. — Marc Blucas

I have a 16 year-old son, so I'm now a soccer mom. I stand on the sidelines and I hear the things parents are saying, so I want them to understand what it is their kids are feeling in any sports environment. — Brandi Chastain

The idea that so many kids eat rubbish and sit on computers all day long appals me and getting them into sport is a major way of getting them off computers and leading healthier lives. — Kirsty Gallacher

Nothing about us is right. We're the wrongest kids you've ever seen. Our faces are wrong with zits, we have the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, and I think we might be ugly. Our families are wrong because none of us are rich, our bodies are wrong because we suck at sports, and there's something really wrong with all of our personalities, because nobody likes us, not even the teachers. Teachers make fun of us too, and think we don't notice. — Adrienne Maria Vrettos

Just getting young kids excited about hockey, then they'll want to skate, they'll want to start joining junior leagues, they'll want to play in high school, etc., so we're trying to expand at all levels. That's good for the sport, and it's good for the Ducks long term. — Henry Samueli

Team sports are very important for shaping personalities. It's important that kids understand the mentality behind playing team sports and playing for one another and playing with friends. — Brian O'Driscoll

It's very warm there, so we were outdoors all the time. The local people had programs for us year-round, where as kids we had the opportunity to play football, basketball, baseball, track and field - we just went from one sport to the next, year-round. — Rafer Johnson

I know when I have kids, when I'm older, I'm going to encourage them to play sports because I think it teaches you a lot. It teaches you discipline, teamwork, and that there's really no 'I' in team. — Gregg Sulkin

I want to support kids that not a lot of people believe in. Give them an opportunity to do good in school, play sports and get scholarships. — Tim Tebow

On Sundays, I'm up at five and in the office by six. After the show, around midday, I flip the switch, and it's all family. Our kids play sports, so we're running around. — David Gregory

When I was a kid, I wanted to make my parents happy. I'd always say to them, "What do you want me to do? Do sports? Be rich? Be funny?" My mother would say, "Whatever we want from you, you already gave us - we wanted you to be alive, and you made it." — Etgar Keret

We're taking sports too far and starting kids too early. — Darell Hammond

My parents put me in the water very early, and also had me skiing at a very early age. They put me on skis when I was one and a half. I was fortunate to have parents who understood the importance of exposing their kids to different sports, different cultures and different activities in order to discover what we liked and what we didn't like. They didn't push us, they just gave us many things to choose from. — Benoit Lecomte

Developing better people should be the number one goal for any coach when dealing with kids. In trying to develop better people, we are going to develop more and better pros. — Bobby Orr

Kids can have great passion and great ability but if you have the facilities for your particular sport that can give you the inspiration to become a sportsman. — David Beckham

I had good skills, but my lack of size and speed kept me a little behind the best kids in the other sports. Golf offered a more level field. I would have rather played other sports, but golf picked me. — Zach Johnson

Football was really my least favorite sport and the last sport that I ended up picking up as a kid. My dad started me off with baseball, which most kids did at that time. I really enjoyed basketball. That was my favorite sport. — Tony Dungy

Soccer's appeal lay in its opposition to the other popular sports. For children of the sixties, there was something abhorrent about enrolling kids in American football, a game where violence wasn't just incidental but inherent. They didn't want to teach the acceptability of violence, let alone subject their precious children to the risk of physical maiming. Baseball, where each batter must stand center stage four or five times a game, entailed too many stressful, potentially ego-deflating encounters. Basketball, before Larry Bird's prime, still had the taint of the ghetto.
But soccer represented something very different. It was a tabula rasa, a sport onto which a generation of parents could project their values. Quickly, soccer came to represent the fundamental tenets of yuppie parenting, the spirit of Sesame Street and Dr. Benjamin Spock. — Franklin Foer

Parents are told to turn off the TV and restrict video game time, but we hear little about what the kids should do physically during their non-electronic time. The usual suggestion is organized sports. But consider this: The obesity epidemic coincides with the greatest increase in organized children's sports in history. — Richard Louv

Wouldn't you like to make sure all those millions you give to Uncle Sam went to schools and hospitals instead of nuclear warheads?'
As a matter of fact, he would. Playgrounds for big kids, preschool programs to little ones, and mandatory LASIK surgery for NFL refs. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Absolutely the worst thing about this job is the travel and being away from family. I have a wife and three wonderful children, the kids are all active in sports and it's very difficult to up and leave and miss them growing up. — Roy Clark

We're going to have more kids playing, and we're going to have a better chance of finding those players Minor sports in a community is for fun and recreation. For everyone. — Bobby Orr