Noll Quotes & Sayings

I can't tell you how much you gain, how much progress you can make, by working together as a team, by helping one another. You get much more done that way. If there's anything the Steelers of the '70s epitomized, I think it was that teamwork. — Chuck Noll

Thus, it is taking more American churches to field one missionary than churches in other parts of the world. For example, whereas there is one crosscultural missionary supported by every 0.7 evangelical churches in Singapore, by 2.1 churches in Hong Kong, 2.4 in Albania, 2.5 in Sri Lanka, 2.6 in Mongolia, 4.2 in South Korea, 4.9 in Myanmar, and 5.3 in Senegal, in the United States the ratio is 7.6 churches to one missionary.[6] The proper conclusion from this flurry of numbers would seem to be that, while the United States contains a whole lot of evangelical churches, those churches are not now as proportionately active in crosscultural missionary activity as many churches in the non-Western world. Evangelical dynamism in these other churches has replaced, or is replacing, the evangelical dynamism of American churches as the leading edge of world Christian expansion. That expansion seems to be tracking the earlier pattern of American adjustments to Christianity-after-Christendom. — Mark A. Noll

Dogmatic kind of biblical literalism that gained increasing strength among evangelicals toward the end of the nineteenth century was reduced space for academic debate, intellectual experimentation, and nuanced discrimination between shades of opinion. — Mark A. Noll

Good things come to those who hustle — Chuck Noll

The English Puritans who migrated to Plymouth, Boston, New Haven, and other North American sites did so in order to continue the efforts to purify self, church, and society that were being frustrated in the mother country. Of many striking features of the Puritans, one of the most remarkable was their zeal in developing a Christian mind.45 — Mark A. Noll

It's not pleasant when you lose your whole football team. — Chuck Noll

I've always avoided publicity. I've never been good copy at any stage of my life. I don't strive for it, because I don't think it's important whether I'm good copy or not. The two can go together, if that's your personality, but every person on this earth is unique. — Chuck Noll

The crisis created by an inability to distinguish the Bible on race from the Bible on slavery meant that when the Civil War was over and slavery was abolished, systemic racism continued unchecked as the great moral anomaly in a supposedly Christian America. — Mark A. Noll

In i86o the income of the nation's churches and religious voluntary societies came quite close to matching the total receipts of the federal government. Today the ratio of annual federal income to annual religion-related giving is about twenty-five to one. — Mark A. Noll

Americans claimed to be following a higher law, even when this higher law only turned out to be a personal preference. — Mark A. Noll

Let me come in when you are weeping, friend, and let me take your hand. I, who have known a sorrow such as yours, can understand. — Grace Noll Crowell

I'm probably the only guy in the country who can say he's worked under Chuck Noll and Don Shula. — Joe Greene

You can never say all the tricks have been done. Someone always shows you something you didn't know. Every year you think, 'Gee, I didn't think you could do that'. — Landon Curt Noll

Most evangelicals also acknowledge that in the Scriptures God stands revealed plainly as the author of nature, as the sustainer of human institutions (family, work, and government), and as the source of harmony, creativity, and beauty. Yet it has been precisely these Bible-believers par excellence who have neglected sober analysis of nature, human society, and the arts. The — Mark A. Noll

You can't make a great play until you first do it in practice. — Chuck Noll

To put it most simply, the evangelical ethos is activistic, populist, pragmatic, and utilitarian. It allows little space for broader or deeper intellectual effort because it is dominated by the urgencies of the moment. — Mark A. Noll

The thrill isn't in the winning, it's in the doing. — Chuck Noll

Some coaches pray for wisdom. I pray for 260-pound tackles. They'll give me plenty of wisdom. — Chuck Noll

People turned around and came back to watch. An enormous crowd formed. Ampol Oil took films. When we left Australia, we also left our boards for the Aussies. Those films were shown all over the country to different clubs. The films and our boards became the basis for the modern surfboard movement in Australia. — Greg Noll

Leaving the game plan is a sign of panic, and panic is not in our game plan. — Chuck Noll

In order to WIN the game, you must first not LOSE it. — Chuck Noll

The great truth of the Incarnation is that the Son of God became flesh and dwelt among us. In this foundational truth we may emphasize the nature of the Son of Man himself, or we may emphasize his taking on flesh and dwelling among us. The condemning scandal for evangelicals is that they have neglected this second emphasis and all that it implies about the possibility of thinking about this realm of flesh. Their redeeming scandal is that they have not yet forgotten the first. — Mark A. Noll

One of the things you learn in football is that you're only as good as your last outing. I don't like to reflect on what we've done in the past. I'm not a very good storyteller, for one thing. I'd disappoint you. When it's time, I'll talk about the good old days. But it's a sign of old age, reveling in the past. — Chuck Noll

On every team, there is a core group that sets the tone for everyone else. If the tone is positive, you have half the battle won. If it is negative, you are beaten before you ever walk on the field. — Chuck Noll

Coach Noll had always told me, Being stubborn is a virtue when you're right; it's only a character flaw when you're wrong. — Tony Dungy

But in their defense of the supernatural, fundamentalists and their evangelical heirs resemble some cancer patients. In facing a drastic disease, they are willing to undertake a drastic remedy. The treatment of fundamentalism may be said to have succeeded; the patient survived. But at least for the life of the mind, what survived was a patient horribly disfigured by the cure itself. — Mark A. Noll

Cultivating the mind was absolutely essential, Luther held, because people needed to understand both the word of Scripture and the nature of the world in which the word would take root. — Mark A. Noll

As shown in the splendid recent biography by Harry Stout, Whitefield's style - popular preaching aimed at emotional response - has continued to shape American evangelicalism long after Whitefield's specific theology (he was a Calvinist), his denominational origins (he was an Anglican), and his rank (he was a clergyman) are long since forgotten.65 — Mark A. Noll

If you want to win, do the ordinary things better than anyone else does them day in and day out. — Chuck Noll

The author finds any freaking, and remarkably objective, way to estimate religion's influence on American society before the Civil War. The population closely aligned with evangelical sympathies was three or four times the size of the voting population in 1860 — Mark A. Noll

Watch the film, not the stopwatch. — Chuck Noll

Everyone's job is important, but no one is indispensable. — Chuck Noll

Losing has nothing to do with geography. — Chuck Noll

In appealing for Christian scholarship, the point is not primarily academic respectability, and certainly not the mindless pursuit of publication for its own sake that bedevils the modern university. The point is rather that the comprehensive reality of Christianity itself demands specifically Christian consideration of the world we inhabit, whether that consideration is of social theory, the history of science, other historical changes, the body, the arts, literature, or more. — Mark A. Noll

With some guys, drugs became a way of life. They went through tremendous personality changes, or they died. Drugs didn't do them any good. In the same way, at certain times in my life, alcohol didn't do me any good. A lot of kids today seem to be taking themselves, their health and their education more seriously, and that's good. — Greg Noll

I tried to look around to see what I wanted to do. Football was something I knew the most about. — Chuck Noll

Suddenly both parties have become theologians, the one side quoting the Pentateuch to justify slavery, the other side quoting the gospel to condemn it: ... the people of the thirty-three United States, who are eminently and essentially political, cannot discuss a political matter without quoting the old and New Testa- ments!97 — Mark A. Noll

I'm really not a celebrity; I'm just a teacher. — Chuck Noll

Proof-texting did not cause great damage so long as the culture as a whole held to general Christian values, but when those general Christian values began to weaken, the weakness in evangelical theologizing - even more, in thinking like a Christian about the world in general - became all too evident. — Mark A. Noll

Thompson's message was straightforward: if God through divine revelation so clearly sanctioned slavery, and even the trade in "strangers," how could genuine Christians attack modern slavery, or even the slave trade, as an evil? — Mark A. Noll

Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else. — Chuck Noll

God, make me brave for life: oh, braver than this. Let me straighten after pain, As a tree straightens after the rain, Shining and lovely again. God, make me brave for life; much braver than this. As the blown grass lifts, let me rise From sorrow with quiet eyes, Knowing Thy way is wise. God, make me brave, life brings Such blinding things. Help me to keep my sight; Help me to see aright That out of dark comes light. — Grace Noll Crowell

An older, Puritan approach to Scripture tended to prevail in the American South, where the Bible was regarded as a set of definite, positive laws — Mark A. Noll

But for the sake of simplicity we can speak about four dimensions: the way that evangelicals (1) adopted republican theories of politics, (2) took as their own democratic theories of society, (3) embraced liberal views of the economy (all discussed in this chapter), and (4) domesticated the Enlightenment for Christian purposes (examined in somewhat greater detail in the next chapter). — Mark A. Noll

The key to a winning season is focusing on one opponent at a time. Winning one week at a time. Never look back and never look ahead. — Chuck Noll

The Keswick, "higher-life" movement ... also contributed to a reduction of interest in biblical theology and deeper scholarship. No Christian in his right mind will desire anything other than true holiness and righteousness in the church of God. But Keswick had isolated one doctrine, holiness, and altered it by the false simplicity contained in the slogan, "Give up, let go and let God." If you want to be holy and righteous, we are told, the intellect is dangerous and it is thought generally unlikely that a good theologian is likely to be a holy person ... You asked me to diagnose the reasons for the present weakness and I am doing it ... If you teach that sanctification consists of "letting go" and letting the Holy Spirit do all the work, then don't blame me if you have no scholars!171 — Mark A. Noll

Mamas, don't let your sons grow up to be Cowboys ... or Oilers. — Chuck Noll

The day will bring some lovely thing. — Grace Noll Crowell

Almost I feel the pulsebeat of the ages,
Now swift, now slow, beneath my fingertips.
The heartthrobs of the prophets and the sages
Beat through these bindings; and my quick hand slips
Old books from dusty shelves, in eager seeking
For truths the flaming tongues of the ancients tell;
For the words of wisdom that they still are speaking
As clearly as an echoing silver bell.
Here is the melody that lies forever
At the deep heart of living; here we keep
The accurate recorded discs that never
Can be quite silenced, though their makers sleep
The still deep sleep, so long as a seeker finds
The indelible imprint of their moving minds. — Grace Noll Crowell

Early America does not deserve to be considered uniquely, distinctly or even predominantly Christian ... There is no lost Golden Age to which American Christians may return. — Mark Noll

Champions do ordinary things better than everyone else. — Chuck Noll

Home may be near, Home may be far - But it is anywhere love And a few plain household treasures are. — Grace Noll Crowell

It took me longer to get through this site, than to get outside at Waimea. — Greg Noll

A good defense was steadfast and strong and straightforward, dominating in a physical and merciless way. Offense could be messy and tricky, full of mistakes that made the ball tumble to and fro, taking the coach's stomach for a ride along with it. For Noll, like Brown before him, football's greatness appeared in the finest details, the inches won in the trenches, not the bundles of yards gained by the fleetest feet or the strongest arms. But mostly, to play great defense was practical, and there is logic and beauty in pragmatism. Logic was Noll's muse. — Chad Millman

Noll tried to register Gaussian Quadratic with the US Copyright Office at the Library of Congress, another body perplexed by the works on display. His request was originally denied "since a machine had generated the work."10 He explained that a human being had written the program that, through a mix of randomness and order, generated the work. The Library of Congress again declined: randomness was unacceptable. Noll finally argued that although the numbers produced by the program appeared random, "the algorithm generating them was perfectly mathematical and not random at all," and the work was finally patented. — Zabet Patterson

Republicanism was easier to evolve than to define. — Mark A. Noll

The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind. — Mark A. Noll

An important contribution to a much-neglected but very important subject. No other author has set out to do what Davenport accomplishes, which is a systematic study of how key representatives of America's rising tide of religion attempted a theoretical understanding of, and practical response to, America's rising tide of commerce. — Mark Noll

After becoming established as a surfboard manufacturer and surf film producer whose films were shown on TV, all of a sudden all the teachers and counselors who wanted nothing to do with my ass during school were wanting to kiss it. They'd be interviewed by a newspaper of magazine and their tone would change. 'Oh yes, I knew Greg Noll. He was in my class. Fine, upstanding young man.' What bullshit. — Greg Noll

Since the dawn of time, warring combatants have regularly reached for what support they could find to nerve their own side for battle. — Mark A. Noll

The tight link that Protestants perceive between Scripture and salvation explains the great energy they have poured into studying, distributing, and translating the Scriptures, as well as producing the never-ending deluge of printed material explaining, mediating, parsing, debating, exploring, and riffing on the Bible. — Mark A. Noll

When I was a young coach, there were people like Chuck Noll, Chuck Knox and Tom Landry who were there for me. — Bill Parcells

Never make a major decision based solely on money. — Chuck Noll

The point of Christian scholarship is not recognition by standards established in the wider culture. The point is to praise God with the mind. Such efforts will lead to the kind of intellectual integrity that sometimes receives recognition. But for the Christian that recognition is only a fairly inconsequential by-product. The real point is valuing what God has made, believing that the creation is as "good" as he said it was, and exploring the fullest dimensions of what it meant for the Son of God to "become flesh and dwell among us." Ultimately, intellectual work of this sort is its own reward, because it is focused on the only One whose recognition is important, the One before whom all hearts are open. — Mark A. Noll

I didn't want to be like a punch-drunk fighter, going around and reliving the big moment ... — Greg Noll

It wasn't the footman she was afraid of - it was those he was parroting. Alfie was the sort of dim-noll who never had his own thoughts but borrowed other people's. — Ellen Renner

We grew up quickly, surrounded by guys eighteen and older, in their prime. They lived to surf, drink, raise hell and score heavily with women. I saw these guys going up and down the coast on surf trips, drinking and bagging girls, and all I could think of was 'What a neat life!' — Greg Noll

The single most important thing we had in the Steelers of the '70s was the ability to work together. — Chuck Noll

I used to tell the players that professional football is a part-time profession. I used to tell them it gets you ready for your life's work. — Chuck Noll

Smith, for example, claimed that if Americans defended slavery on the basis of the Old Testament, they should also defend practices like polygamy and the complete annihilation of defeated armies that are also prescribed in the Old Testament — Mark A. Noll

In sum, the ability of what had once been a socially responsible, moderately intellectual, Arminian evangelical Methodism and a socially responsible, reasonably comprehensive, Calvinistic Presbyterianism to make any kind of a sharp Christian impact on Christian thought, society, politics, or spirituality was fatally compromised by what Barry Mack has very precisely labelled 'the tragic failure of Church Union. — Mark A. Noll

Chuck Noll is building one hell of a football team up in Pittsburgh. — Vince Lombardi

As you gain experience, you mature as an individual, and along with that comes the confidence that you have the ability to solve problems. — Chuck Noll

Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here . . . we have to sin. . . . It is enough that by the riches of God's glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. So you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly - you too are a mighty sinner. — Mark A. Noll

The light of Christ illuminates the laboratory, his speech is the fount of communication, he makes possible the study of humans in all their interactions, he is the source of all life, he provides the wherewithal for every achievement of human civilization, he is the telos of all that is beautiful. He is, among his many other titles, the Christ of the academic road. — Mark Noll

Before you can win a game, you have to not lose it. — Chuck Noll

I learned from Chuck Noll in Pittsburgh that speed and explosiveness on defense is the way to build a team. Both are difficult for your opponent to assimilate in practice and then in games it is even harder to match. — Tony Dungy

How can I find the shining word, the glowing phrase that tells all that your love has meant to me, all that your friendship spells? There is no word, no phrase for you on whom I so depend. All I can say to you is this, God bless you precious friend. — Grace Noll Crowell

It was no coincidence that the biblical defense of slavery remained strongest in the United States, a place where democratic, antitraditional, and individualistic religion was also strongest. — Mark A. Noll

The Gospel of John tells us that the Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of glorious grace and truth, was also the Word through whom all things- all phenomena in nature, all capacities for fruitful interaction, all the kinds of beauty- were made. To honor that Word as he deserves to be honored,evangelicals must know both Christ and what he has made. — Mark A. Noll

A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning. — Chuck Noll

I was brought up in a Christian environment where, because God had to be given pre-eminence, nothing else was allowed to be important. I have broken through to the position that because God exists, everything has significance.360 — Mark A. Noll

Pittsburgh was a great team. Coach Noll, Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, L.C. Greenwood and all those guys did a great job. That's the team that kept us from winning two Super Bowls. It was a great rivalry. — Earl Campbell

Whatever else be lost among the years, Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing: Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears, Let us hold close one day, remembering Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men. Let us get back our childlike faith again. — Grace Noll Crowell

The story of theology in the Civil War was a story of how a deeply entrenched intellectual synthesis divided against itself, even as its proponents were reassuring combatants on either side that each enjoyed a unique standing before God and each exercised a unique role as the true bearer of the nation's Christian civilization. — Mark A. Noll

Evangelicals do not, characteristically, look to the intellectual life as an arena in which to glorify God because, at least in America, our history has been pragmatic, populist, charismatic, and technological more than intellectual. — Mark A. Noll

R.C. Sproul has written that "we live in what may be the most anti-intellectual period in the history of Western civilization." As far as my fundamentalist upbringing goes, Noll says that for the kind of thinking that embraces society, the arts, the human person, and nature - "for that kind of thinking the habits of mind fundamentalism encouraged can only be called disaster. — John Piper

Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing ... — Grace Noll Crowell

The Book that made the nation was destroying the nation; the nation that had taken to the Book was rescued not by the Book but by the force of arms. — Mark A. Noll

Evangelicals have been distinctive in featuring the crisis conversion. But what is essential to Christianity is the whole life committed to God, from the beginning of faith until death. — Mark A. Noll

I'd love to say something heroic. I'd love to say we made history. But basically it was a bunch of guys parked around the Bay there, and somebody grabbed a board and went surfing, and it looked so good the rest of us guys said, 'Hey, we got to get in on this.' — Greg Noll

To see in the past that very godly people were able to maintain bizarre interpretations of Scripture should be a caution for us all. — Mark A. Noll

The critics are always right. The only way you shut them up is by winning. — Chuck Noll

My biggest fear isn't being a failure as an author but being a failure at being me. — Christina Noll

If intellectual life involves a certain amount of self-awareness about alternative interpretations or a certain amount of tentativeness in exploring the connection between evidence and conclusions, it was hard to find any encouragement for the intellectual life in the self-assured dogmatism of fundamentalism. — Mark A. Noll

Pressure is what you feel when you don't know what's going on. — Chuck Noll