Quotes & Sayings About Playing Sports

When you join the NFL, you start from scratch. As long as I've been playing - which has been since I was eight years old - the game becomes harder at every level. Little league, high school, college - they're different stages you have to go through, and professional sport is completely different again. — Reggie Bush

We live in a world where sports have the potential to bridge the gap between racism, sexism and discrimination. The 2012 Olympic Games was a great start but hopefully what these games taught us is that if women are given an opportunity on an equal playing field the possibilities for women are endless. — Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Work hard - beat out half the team. Be committed, play fair as a team player - Beat out another quarter of the team. The last quarter is your desire and beliefs, and where you are playing. — John Kessel

Whether it was hunting, fishing, or playing sports, my children were going to grow up outside. They weren't going to be sitting on the couch inside. At least they didn't grow up to be nerds. — Phil Robertson

The great thing about playing team sport is you win and lose together, and the pain is never as bad when you share it. — Brian O'Driscoll

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

I like playing sport. I'm a bit of a design enthusiast, and like spending time with my girlfriend and mates. — Nick D'Aloisio

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

Sport is a wonderful metaphor for life. Of all the sports that I played - skiing, baseball, fishing - there is no greater example than golf, because you're playing against yourself and nature. — Robert Redford

I can't divorce myself from my childhood. I try to write as much fiction as I possibly can, but there are so many things that are touchstones of my childhood like being on the swim team and playing soccer and the particularities of sports season and environments that make their way into my books. — Jeff Kinney

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 didn't really get into boys until my junior year of high school, when I had my first boyfriend. But for the most part I was always playing sports, so I was too busy for them! — Jennie Finch

Everybody deserves a shot at playing sports. It shouldn't matter in the least if that person is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Building community through healthy and inclusive activities should be one of the main focuses behind athletics, and that isn't possible if you exclude LGBT individuals, especially our youth. — Mardy Fish

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

To me, doing the Olympics in 1992 in Barcelona for NBC, just seeing the Dream Team take the floor, was a thrill for me. I don't think there was another team in any sport with that high level of athletes playing together. — Marv Albert

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

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

I grew up playing field hockey and lacrosse - prep school sport - and I was terrible at them. — Julie Bowen

Playing professional sports, it's important to eat healthy and take care of your body. In the offseason, rest is really important to me. — Troy Polamalu

There isn't quite a feeling you get from playing video games that you get when you're playing sports, which is like a sense of euphoria. You just get the satisfaction of doing something active and feeling good after. — Patrick Chan

Why certainly I'd like to have that fellow who hits a home run every time at bat, who strikes out every opposing batter when he's pitching, who throws strikes to any base or the plate when he's playing outfield and who's always thinking about two innings ahead just what he'll do to baffle the other team. Any manager would want a guy like that playing for him. The only trouble is to get him to put down his cup of beer and come down out of the stands and do those things. — Danny Murtaugh

Playing for Billy Martin is like being married to him. Right now, we're all sleeping on the couch. — Matt Keough

I perhaps could have been somewhat better. One of the interesting things about playing competitive sports as a child is that you confront your own limitations rather starkly at a certain point. — David Foster Wallace

My son has taken liking for sports and is most of the time playing cricket and football. It is so much fun being with them, as I'm enjoying every phase of motherhood. — Karisma Kapoor

I always step back and look at - you know, look at my background in playing team sports my whole life and taking that approach into Congress. It's not about me going, and you know, feeding my ego going to Congress. — Jon Runyan

Playing other sports - and believe me, I played every sport I could - made me a better hockey player. — Tie Domi

Playing the game was the easy part. The real work was in the preparation. — Alex Rodriguez

Passion is kind of an important word for me, whether it's playing sports or whether it's just living or whatever you're going to do. In my opinion you should be passionate about it or else, why do it? — Pat Tillman

I have a passion for playing tennis and enjoy the workload and struggles of performing in this amazing global sport. — Sania Mirza

You don't need to play every ball on back foot. Some balls in life deserve to be played on front foot. Every ball needs good judgement to extend the limit. — Amit Ray

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere; and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing; and little children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville- great Casey has struck out. — Ernest Lawrence

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

Where I grew up, acting wasn't really accessible. I was just playing sports. But, I did watch a lot of TV. I watched a lot of Clint Eastwood movies on TV and had this fantasy of being like him when I grew up. — Bailey Chase

Infield practice is more mystic ritual than preparation, encouraging the big-leaguer, no less than the duffer in the stands, to believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that playing ball is a snap. — Roger Angell

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

I grew up a little girl in the Soviet Union playing at a small sports club. Tennis gave me my life. — Anna Kournikova

You know, I never looked down the road and said, 'Hey look, one day, the Hall of Fame.' It's always about playing each and every game 100 percent and I thank my teammates for getting me into the Hall because football is a team sport, not an individual sport. — Jerry Rice

I've always thought that my exposure to competitive sports helped me a great deal in the operating room. It teaches you endurance, and it teaches you how to cope with defeat, and with complications of all sort. I think I'm a well-coordinated person, more than average, and I think that came through my interest in sports, and athletics ... Playing basketball You have to make decisions promptly, and that's true in the operating room as well. — Denton Cooley

The World Cup only comes around once every four years and is the absolute pinnacle of our sport. It is something we dream about as players. It is a reason why many of us started playing this game. I know myself, my teammates will be focused on what's ahead and what's at stake. — Jozy Altidore

A lot of players go into a restaurant and ask for a special table. I go and stand in line with the working people. It's very easy to get spoiled playing professional sports. — Johnny Damon

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

I've always been really active. I grew up playing sports, so I'm always shooting hoops or throwing the football with my friends. I'm super-active in that sense. — Taylor Lautner

Most of the cricketers are doing side businesses apart from playing the sport, so why should I be left behind. I feel there is a lot of money in making films, and since Punjabi cinema is doing good, this is a lucrative option for me. — Harbhajan Singh

I need to work with great directors and actors, people who are better than me, so that I am challenged. It is like playing sports - surfing, basketball, it doesn't matter what it is, if you play with people who are better than you, then you get better too. It is the same thing with acting. — Paul Walker

I don't plan on writing biographies of great sports stars who are still playing ball. But I did write one on Jackie Robinson, who was playing ball in the 20th century. — David A. Adler

Winning isn't everything, but playing and competing and striving and going through things can be a lot of fun and really important. As long as you're doing it in a way that's healthy, sports can be an incredible opportunity. — Andrew Shue

I am very obsessed with ballet now because it is a very difficult sport and a beautiful one because it is not about money. It's not like playing football or tennis - dance has no sponsors, it's just for the beauty. Maybe it is the only last pure sport. — Carine Roitfeld

First off, do everything they can to give their kids the opportunities to play sports; asthma is not a deterrent to playing sports. — Dominique Wilkins

Talking about and analyzing sports isn't the same as playing sports. — Christopher Michael Cillizza

If I weren't playing baseball, I would be a radio or sports broadcaster. In college at South Carolina I did some stuff with the radio station and really liked it. — Brian Roberts

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

I like playing many other sports, such as basketball. — Guan Tianlang

Having inched closer and accomplished some of my major goals in the sport of golf, no pun intended, why not work as hard as I can to attain those goals if I'm already feeling like I'm playing well and getting more and more comfortable. — Jordan Spieth

Little boys are still playing the game [baseball], more little girls are playing, and it is still the world's most interesting game, a duel, a chess match, a foot race, a gymnastics exhibition, that rare opportunity for individuals to be recognized within a group effort. — Robert Lipsyte

I like playing sport, and I like doing physical stuff. I like hiking and I like climbing and I like playing sport. I do a lot. But I don't like the term 'exercising.' I feel like with sport, you're playing games. But with exercise, you're literally just trying to stop yourself from dying too young. It's weird. — James McAvoy

I'm pretty quiet. But I love to play sports. I like playing all sports. I'll act goofy at times around my wife and my son, around my own family. I like to have fun in general. — Steve Blake

Growing up, I played about every sport imaginable except soccer and hockey. I've always had a passion for basketball. I remember actually playing basketball when I was two or three years old. The time I knew that I could really take my game to the next level. — Dwight Howard

We're not playing solitaire out here. — Bill Parcells

When I was in school, sport was given utmost importance. I think it's fantastic for character building, for team playing, and I think it's a great profile for a nation. One in every six people on Earth is an Indian, and I look forward to the day when we can compete with the heavyweights of the sporting world and do well in the medal tally. — Abhishek Bachchan

I started off dancing and playing sports, and I joined the drama stuff, the theatre stuff in middle school because my friends were involved, and it was kind of the cool thing to do. — Kara Lindsay

Playing athletics, playing a lot of different sports, going to drama school ... I was one of those kids who wanted to do everything, so I ended up being pretty average at everything. — Matt Bomer

Learning is available at the library for free; under a tree with a dog-eared paperback; at a job with a boss who gives you responsibility and mentorship; while traveling; while leading a cause, movement, or charity; while writing a novel or composing a poem or crafting a song; while interning, apprenticing, or volunteering; while playing a sport or immersing yourself in a language; while starting a business; and now, while watching a TED talk or taking a Khan Academy class ... — Michael Ellsberg

The players are too serious. They don't have any fun any more. They come to camp with a financial adviser and they read the stock market page before the sports pages. They concern themselves with statistics rather than simply playing the game and enjoying it for what it is. — Rocky Bridges

I love playing sport. — Damian Lewis

It's funny, you can get over the win pretty quick and get ready for the next opponent. When you lose, it just eats at you ... What could we have done? What should I have done? All those things. Just part of playing professional sports and sports in general. — Tony Romo

I've always made weird sounds with my mouth. I've always been fascinated by the sound design, what you can do with your mouth. I was the kid dancing around in third grade on the basketball court. While everyone would be playing sports, I would be jumping around. — Charlie Puth

It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level ... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling ... things that require stamina, not finesse. — Neil Peart

Guitar playing, as currently understood, has more to do with sports than it does to do with music. It's an Olympic challenge type of situation. The challenges are in the realm of speed, redundancy, choreography, and grooming ... clouds of educated gnat-notes. — Frank Zappa

I was so tired of playing tennis, so tired of traveling, of hotels, everything related to this sport. — Thomas Muster

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

What I say about actors is you always want to find an actor you can play ball with. You throw the ball at them and you want them to throw it back. Your ball playing is a lot better when you play with good ballplayers, like any sport. Every actor I know feels the same way. — Robert Knepper

My greatest memories as a kid were playing sports with my dad and watching sports with my dad. — Mark Teixeira

I grew up playing sports, football, basketball, baseball, everything, and acting was such a different environment and different world for me. — Cam Gigandet

I was playing sports all the time, growing up. And then, somewhere around 10th or 11th grade, I kind of lost interest in that and just started reading a lot. I didn't know what to read. I didn't have much direction outside of school. — John Brandon

As a kid, I was always a tomboy, playing sport and doing martial arts. And I'm pretty opinionated - I've never been told that I'm a weak person. — Caity Lotz

I get an adrenaline rush from "playing with the big boys." I consider myself a tomboy and was an athlete in high school, so I like to "talk shop" anyway. But it's fun to actually get paid to cover the NFL with all these incredible former players and sports anchors. — Megan Alexander

I think we have got to start again and go right back to first principles. The argument I shall advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution. If there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? ... Is he manuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings? — Richard Dawkins

Who needs sports stardom when you can shoot fireballs from your fingertips? — Ethan Gilsdorf

I like physical exercise. I actually like sports in general. I really like snowboarding and playing soccer, too. — Valentino Rossi

Singing a song, playing sports - anything that entertains, that takes people away from their own problems, is good. — Stan Lee

My biggest pet peeve are just girls who go to sports bars who have no intention on caring what teams are playing, like they're looking for just a night out. That drives me more crazy than anything else. Like, don't pretend to be a sports fan. — Jerry Ferrara

As an actor, acting is like playing a sport. You do this thing that's intangible, and while it's happening, it's great. But then when it's done, there's really no tangible product. Someone else is capturing it and turning it into something tangible. — Chris Evans

I grew up playing sports, but now I feel like I can't, because if I get injured, I'll impair whatever film I'm working on. — Ellen Page

I was fortunate to start the sport at a young age. I was 6 years old when my dad started teaching me. We started playing tournaments together when I was 11, in the lower ranking of beach volleyball in California. We weren't playing against kids; we played against grown men, so immediately, I had to raise my game to compete. — Karch Kiraly

The lacrosse game took place in the optimistically dubbed SuperDome, an air-inflated sports facility made from some sort of pliable material. Thomas was playing in an indoor league for the winter season. Ryan had come along too. He half watched his brother, half played catch in the corner with a couple of other kids. Ryan also kept looking over at his father. He did that a lot now, looked for his father, as though Adam might suddenly vanish into thin air. Adam got it, of course. He tried to reassure him, but what could he really say? — Harlan Coben

Where is it written in the Constitution that because a guy played football, he has the automatic right to sit in that booth? How hard is football? If I've spent thirty-five years as a sportswriter, you think I don't know you get six for a touchdown? You think I don't know that? You think I don't know you get three for a field goal? C'mon, c'mon. And I can actually speak English okay, so that would be a difference between me and a guy who spent his whole life playing football. Now, not all of them are like that, but it's that thinking that says, "We have divine right of booth." No, you don't. No you don't. — Tony Kornheiser

I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation, — Jason Collins

When you are 10, and you are with friends making music or playing sports or doing whatever, I would say, enjoy that and try to keep that as the model for as long as you can. — Ryan Lewis

Playing sport has become very important today, since it can encourage young people to develop important values such as loyalty, perseverance, friendship, sharing and solidarity. — Pope John Paul I

Creating deluxe cuisine is like playing a sport. Always competitive. Always challenging. And if you slow down a bit, you can no longer return to the top level. — Joel Robuchon

Whenever an art form loses its fire, when it gets weakened by intellectual inbreeding and first principles fade into stale tradition, a radical fringe eventually appears to blow it up and rebuild from the rubble. Young Gun ultrarunners were like Lost Generation writers in the '20s, Beat poets in the '50s, and rock musicians in the '60s: they were poor and ignored and free from all expectations and inhibitions. They were body artists, playing with the palette of human endurance. — Christopher McDougall

I went to Dartmouth College, graduated, and had the opportunity to play two professional sports - I played for the New England Patriots in the NFL and professional lacrosse for the Boston Blazers. I had an injury, so I had to stop so I could heal. But when I was playing football, I wasn't making a lot of money; I wasn't a superstar. — Brian J. White

Surfing is all about living in the moment. When you walk out on the Sydney Cricket Ground to play cricket you're intensely aware of the history of the sport; you're playing on this historic ground surrounded by pictures of the legends. With surfing, you just dive into the water and paddle out and catch waves. — Nick Carroll

I love to exercise because I grew up always playing sports - almost everyday. It's big part of my identity, a time when I can connect with my body, and block out the rest of the world for a while. — Erin Heatherton

I've been a professional for I think 13, 14 years. It's not easy hitting balls every day and staying really motivated throughout the whole period. It's normal [that] you're going to have ups and downs. But I found my way again. And I love the sport. I love competing. I love battling. I love being out there and playing in front of crowds. This is what I've been doing since I was a child. There's nothing else that I want to do. — Jelena Jankovic

Rock and roll is a contact sport. I enjoy playing the tunes that really get the people going. — Richie Sambora

Certainly we're not satisfied with just winning games. We've been playing some pretty good hockey, but we think we can play much better. — Mario Lemieux

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

Probably no one here knows I coached a football team - a service team - playing against Georgetown. I think it was in the fall of 1924 Lou Little was your coach, and he beat us. But it was a very happy circumstance, because it brought me the friendship of another man, Lou Little, who to this day remains my very warm associate and friend. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I like playing frisbee. It is the only sport where you can throw something at a person and it's okay. — Demetri Martin