Sports Players Quotes & Sayings

In football, every play, play after play, there's that physicality. Football players only play once a week, so they must really need to rest. That does kind of tell you how physical the sport is. But in hockey, you have the boards. I just couldn't say which is more physical. — Sidney Crosby

There is no reason why one should believe you should leave out politicians in cricket or any sport for that matter. There are ways and means in which government can assist in the management and development of players. — Roosevelt Skerrit

I tell the players that they can't relive any day in their lives and that they can't relive the minutes of a game, so they should make a great effort, a Mount Everest type effort, to live up to their potential. Success is a communal type thing, and if we win, then everyone can be considered successful and we can move uptown together. — Al McGuire

The glory of sport is witnessing a well-coached team perform as a single unit, striving for a common goal and ultimately bringing distinction to the jersey the players represent. — Dick Vitale

Karch inspired his partners, his opponents and the world of volleyball players to be better than they were, to be great ... In the end, who could do more for a sport than that? — Mike Dodd

Baseball is a public trust. Players turn over, owners turn over and certain commissioners turn over. But baseball goes on. — Peter Ueberroth

All you have to do is play better than the other guy and things go well. If you don't play better than the other players then somebody takes your place. Now a lot of guys, in this day and time with the transient nature of the sport, as soon as the competition gets too good, they want out. — Bill Parcells

At Barca, players were banned from driving their sports cars to training. — Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Violence pervaded their entertainment as well. Tuchman describes two of the popular sports of the time: Players with hands tied behind them competed to kill a cat nailed to a post by battering it to death with their heads, at the risk of cheeks ripped open or eyes scratched out by the frantic animal's claws ... — Steven Pinker

I sometimes rented a car and drove from event to event in Europe; a road trip was a great escape from the day-to-day anxieties of playing, and it kept me from getting too lost in the tournament fun house with its courtesy cars, caterers, locker room attendants, and such - all amenities that create a firewall between players and what you might call the 'real' world - you know, where you may have to read a map, ask a question in a foreign tongue, find a restaurant and read the menu posted in the window to make sure you're not about to walk into a joint that serves only exotic reptile meat. — Patrick McEnroe

An acrobatic dunk will make it onto Sports Center. A simple, unspectacular bounce pass in the rhythm of the offense will not. System basketball has been replaced by players who want to be the system. — Phil Jackson

Tennis is at an amazing time when you've got two of the best players ever to play the game. You can argue the two very best playing in the same generation. It's a rivalry I think that we've never seen in our sport. — Andre Agassi

If you're thinking something good about your players, say it; don't save it for later. — Vic Braden

My favorite sport is football. I'm a die hard Steelers fan. Favorite players were Hines Ward and Greg Lloyd. — Anthony Jeselnik

Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story. — Casey Stengel

When you look at other sports, like golf, the players earn a lot more money without running around. — Thierry Henry

Finally, if you will permit me, I'd like to make a comment which in my mind, is indicative, perhaps, of the greater significance of football and sports emphasis in general in this country, and that is, I thank God I was warring on the gridirons of the Midwest and not on the battlefields of Europe. I can speak confidently and positively that the players of this country would much more, much rather, struggle and fight to win the Heisman award than the Croix de guerre. — Nile Kinnick

Both my parents were amateur badminton players. My father is a scientist and wanted me to be a doctor. But my mom was very aggressive and loved badminton. She pushed me right from the age of nine to take up the sport. — Saina Nehwal

EA SPORTS has a strong partnership with adidas and through this relationship they approached adidas about using some of their top players from around the world. — Claudio Reyna

First impressions matter more in basketball than in any other sport, and they can be savored only in person. Players can't hide behind pads or helmets, so we can stare at them, evaluate every move they make: running, jumping, walking, even ogling the cheerleaders. We can see every ripple and tattoo. If they're lazy, we can tell. — Bill Simmons

Professional tennis has become an extremely physical and unbelievably competitive sport. Injuries are the bane of tennis players, and it goes with the territory. — Sania Mirza

Competition is key to developing players. The only practice environment in which you truly develop a player is a competitive arena. — Anson Dorrance

I feel like football players are overworked and underpaid compared to any other sports. — Terrell Owens

I think the ability to motivate might be interpreted as the ability to lead, or to show people their goals or, perhaps more important, what their potential is - as a person as well as a player. You've got to show players that being part of a team will carry over to the experience of becoming part of society. — Bobby Knight

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

The whole idea of image is so confused. On the one hand, Madison Avenue is worried about the image of the players in a tennis tour. On the other hand, sports events are often sponsored by the makers of junk food, beer, and cigarettes. What's the message when an athlete who works at keeping her body fit is sponsored by a sugar-filled snack that does more harm than good? — Martina Navratilova

What's the difference between a three-week-old puppy and a sportswriter? In six weeks, the puppy stops whining. — Mike Ditka

Coaching is something that takes place only when learning does. No matter what you are doing in your practices, if your players are not learning something significant, you're really not coaching. If a player fails in a game, the coach may have failed in practice. — John Kessel

The NBA is the strongest professional sports league in the world. The league and the game is bigger than any one person, Michael Jordan included, and they always will be. I hope that today players, especially our young players, continue to recognize that simple fact. Nothing is more important than the game itself and the fans who support it. — Michael Jordan

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

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

As the National Football League and other pro sports increasingly reckon with the early dementia, mental health issues, suicides and even criminal behavior of former players, the risk of what's known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), is becoming clear. — Jeffrey Kluger

You see, in sports you have so many things that aren't expected. There's so much uncertainty. So when players find themselves in a situation where management has a great deal of integrity and they can depend on my word or anybody else's word in the organization, they feel secure. And if the players feel secure, they don't want to leave here. And if they don't want to leave here, they're going to do everything they can on the court to stay here. — Red Auerbach

When you're up against adversity, when your shots aren't falling, when guys are hanging on you, pushing you, fouling you, and you're not getting calls, that's when discipline matters. Instead of flying off the handle or blaming your teammates, the officials, or the opposition, players have to keep calm and act decisively to change the tide. Playing the blame game is a sure sign that a team has not jelled and is taking the wrong path — Walt Frazier

In the end, the great leveler in any sport is performance on the field or on the court. Kids don't care what language players speak or if they eat tacos, rice, or sauerkraut. They don't care if they're white, black, or brown. — Cheech Marin

A weak, insecure nation needs sporting heroes, players larger than life on the cricketing field, who can transcend the limitations of their country and team. — Shashi Tharoor

We penalize and suspend players for making contact with the head while checking, in an effort to reduce head injuries, yet we still allow fighting. We're stuck in the middle and need to decide what kind of sport do we want to be. Either anything goes and we accept the consequences, or take the next step and eliminate fighting. — Steve Yzerman

We've got to have a radical rethink of the way the sport is funded to help the young players develop. — John Higgins

I believe in greater self-sufficiency. International sport is tough, no doubt, but there shouldn't be too many crutches. In most cases sports psychologists are crutches, and they tend to soften rather than harden the players. — Glenn Turner

The two major things that changed the makeup of all professional sports are money generated by television and courts that players went to in order to win their freedom as free agents. — Will McDonough

He's going to be around a long, long time, if his body holds up. That's always a concern with a lot of players because of how much they play. A lot of guys can't handle it. But it looks like he can. — Jack Nicklaus

You must allow your players to become the athletes they can be. Don't make them into anything just to become the kind of winners fans, friends and others think they must be. — John Kessel

My greatest influences in my sport have been two former number one English lady darts players, Deta Hedman and Mandy Solomons. Deta helped me at international events and both helped me to cope with the big occasion which gave me the confidence I needed to become a champion. — Trina Gulliver

It's not my job to motivate players. They bring extraordinary motivation to our program. It's my job not to de-motivate them. — Lou Holtz

Never underestimate your players; they can do it with enough game-like practice. Coaches must put more emphasis in practice and in life on making student-athletes aware of what they could or can do, rather than what they couldn't or presently can't do. The focus must be on solutions, not problems; what is wanted, not what is feared. — John Kessel

I'm not buddy-buddy with the players. If they need a buddy, let them buy a dog. — Whitey Herzog

We have to move the meter in sports in Africa, especially basketball. With the growth of the NBA globally, we have to figure out more ways to develop facilities, coaching, leagues, and youth development in Africa. The talent is incredible. Especially physically. How do we get the youth to start playing at an early age just like in soccer? The future is bright. We now have an NBA office in Africa, we have legends and Hall of Famers, we have African assistant coaches, front office members, and some prominent African players over the last 10 years. So we must plan well for the next 10. — Masai Ujiri

My husband is so confident that when he watches sports on television, he thinks that if he concentrates he can help his team. If the team is in trouble, he coaches the players from our living room, and if they're really in trouble, I have to get off the phone in case they call him. — Rita Rudner

It's the attitude of the players, not their skills, that is the biggest factor in determining whether you win or lose. — Harry Sinden

Sport strips away personality, letting the white bone of character shine through. Sport gives players an opportunity to know and test themselves. The great difference between sport and art is that sport, like a sonnet, forces beauty within its own system. Art, on the other hand, cyclically destroys boundaries and breaks free. — Rita Mae Brown

Good players win volleyball games for you, not tall players. — John Kessel

We have a lot of players in their first year. Some of them are also in their last year. — Bill Walsh

Leadership can be defined in one word - honesty. You must be honest with the players and honest with yourself. — Earl Weaver

The best players in any high-stakes field - business, entertainment, law, surgery, as well as sport - recognize that pressure occurs at the moments when meaningful accomplishment is possible. In fact, that is the reason why performers perform: for the opportunity to tackle challenges head on, to do something significant, to demonstrate what their hard work and talent can produce. — John Eliot

Play more than one sport in high school. If you play, say, football and basketball, you can learn to be physical and you can take those physical aspects of both sports and become better in both sports. Basketball players use some of the same skills football players do and vice versa. — Antonio Gates

Players win games, teams win championships. — Bill Taylor

I think LPGA players for a long time were afraid to say what's on their minds. But we're doing all the right things and there's nothing wrong with having some great personalities and rivalries and some friction. I think that's really good for the sport. — Cristie Kerr

I long for the days when athletes were revered. I want to see the romance return to sports, to see people enjoy the game purely for the game and the players. — Mike Piazza

Basketball, more than any other sport, is a team game ... about the thousands of small, unselfish acts, the sacrifices on the part of the players that result in team building. — Dean Smith

What she revealed was not sexy lingerie, but a supportive piece of athletic equipment. After the consolation match that preceded the championship game, both Brazilian and Norwegian players removed their jerseys and exchanged them on the floor of the Rose Bowl. Chastain had previously removed her jersey after regulation to air it out. While training in Florida, the players frequently doffed their shirts after practice in the smothering heat, and they sometimes gave interviews in their sports bras, which were items of utility, not titillation. Chastain 'has brought instant attention to a piece of clothing that is humble and practical, not a traditional bra of shine and lace and cleavage, but a sturdy compression garment,' wrote Ann Gerhart of the Washington Post. 'The sports bra is the cloth symbol of Title IX's success. — Jere Longman

I don't try to get players emotionally up for a game; it creates too many peaks and valleys ... I strive for even keel; they will get up for the big games. — Denny Crum

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

Some of the most inspiring moments in sports have come from players with physical defects. Tom Dempsey, born without toes on his right foot, kicked a 63-yard field goal in 1970, using a straighter, wider shoe. — George Vecsey

In my regular life, I am very involved in commissions for cities and sometimes countries. And I think of public art as a team sport. The outcome is only possible with the interaction of all the players. — Janet Echelman

There are guys who play lacrosse, and there are lacrosse players. — Brendan Mundorf

In the NFL you get one first-round draft pick if you're lucky. You couldn't really outwork anybody else. In college I could recruit ten players with first-round talent every year. — Nick Saban

According to Sports Illustrated, an amazing 78 percent of NFL players find themselves bankrupt or financially stressed within two years of retirement. And 60 percent of NBA players are broke within five years of walking off the court. — Andy Stanley

You don't like to see hookers going down on players like that. — Murray Mexted

I think, in general, the sports I've enjoyed covering the most have been the offbeat ones. The more popular, mainstream, the less I like them because they're more, they're more structured and the players don't have much interesting to say because they're interviewed all the time. — Mitch Albom

I don't think that - you know, I'm sure that there's guys that are doing it, because I'm sure in every sport there's players who want to get the edge. But I think that it's been blown overly - way more than guys are using it in our game. — Rafael Palmeiro

I want to be remembered as part of the group of the greatest players ever. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Drugs are very much a part of professional sports today, but when you think about it, golf is the only sport where the players aren't penalized for being on grass. — Bob Hope

I think sometimes when it comes to sports, and especially relationships between players and coaches, that people lose track, lose a sense of reality. — Ricky Williams

That concerns me. You're either getting better or you're getting worse. I don't think you stay the same in sports. If we want to achieve something special in the game, then these players have to recognize that they're responsible every day for getting better. — Russ Rose

Let's face it. There is no setup in Pakistan to train and groom young players at the grassroots level in different sports. Those of us who did make a name for ourselves and became champions did it with our own initiative - there was no academy to back us till we reached a certain level on our own. — Jahangir Khan

The one thing that has gotten worse for sports media is access. We hardly get to see, talk to and most of all get to know the players and coaches anymore. — J. A. Adande

It is my goal to win every time I play. But on the other hand, I also seek a balance of compassion and respect for the other players. I understand that everyone goes through difficult times, either mentally or physically, to cope with their life, to live the sport. — Novak Djokovic

You can be harsh on your players and still coach, but it is easier when you are kind to them. — John Kessel

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

Life is full of all sorts of setbacks and twists and turns and disappointments. The character of this team will be how well you will come back from this letdown, this defeat. You could still be a great team and you can still accomplish great things as football players but it's going to take a real resolve to do it." -Coach Ladouceur — Neil Hayes

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

It has changed, quite a lot. It is very different now, there are quicker men, they are taller, stronger, have great stamina. The balls have also become faster. Tennis has now become a power sport. There is more depth in the game, as well, there are many more players than there used to be. The entire character of the game has changed. — Bjorn Borg

I am here to give my players the little push they need, just like they needed long ago, when first learning the art of the swing. All you needed then was a little push, and quickly you were pumping away, flying higher and higher, without any more help from the 'coach.' — John Kessel

I find that rock climbing is the finest, most healthiest sport in the whole world. It is much healthier than most; look at baseball, where 10 000 sit on their ass to watch a handful of players — John Salathe

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

True champions are team players. — Alan Cohen

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

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

He already knew he could coach. All you had to do was look at each of your players and ask yourself: What story does this guy wish someone would tell him about himself? And then you told the guy that story. — Chad Harbach

He has the players too happy. — Red Auerbach

When I looked into the story of Soviet hockey and its players, I realized that it has nothing to do with hockey. It was a larger story using hockey as a window into the story of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian people, with friendships and betrayals, paranoia and oppression, and the meaning of sports to people and nations around the world, and how sports was used as a political tool. — Gabe Polsky

I love football. I love the aesthetics of football. I love the athleticism of football. I love the movement of the players, the antics of the coaches. I love the dynamism of the fans. I love their passion for their badge and the colour of their team and their country. I love the noise and the buzz and the electricity in the stadium. I love the songs. I love the way the ball moves and then it flows and the way a teams fortune rises and falls through a game and through a season. But what I love about football is that it brings people together across religious divides, geographic divides, political divides. I love the fact that for ninety minutes in a rectangular piece of grass, people can forget hopefully, whatever might be going on in their life, and rejoice in this communal celebration of humanity. The biggest diverse, invasive or pervasive culture that human kinds knows is football and I love the fact that at the altar of football human kind can come worship and celebrate. — Andy Harper

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

All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity. — Gordie Howe

Tennis players are very fortunate that unlike some disciplines of sport, in mega-sporting events like the Grand Slams, they have a huge platform to showcase their talents on the world stage once every few months. — Sania Mirza

Like all sports fans, tennis junkies are not satisfied with simply following the current crop of players and admiring their accomplishments. They seemingly always need to compare players of different eras and designate one of them as the greatest player of all time. — Dave McPherson

Sport can be used for messaging, for example, making the connections between shin guards or a helmet that protects you, and protection in terms of HIV and AIDS. There has also been a very active program in Africa called 'Kick Polio out of Africa,' where soccer players have spoken out in terms of polio. There is also going to be a swim for malaria. — Carol Bellamy

The families of many athletes - incensed at the sports leagues and hoping to make games safer overall - are increasingly making the brains of players who die prematurely and suspiciously available for study. Some athletes are even making the bequest themselves. — Jeffrey Kluger

Chess as a sport requires a lot of mental stamina, and this is what that makes it different from a physical sport. Chess players have a unique ability of taking in a lot of information and remembering relevant bits. So, memory and mental stamina are the key attributes. — Viswanathan Anand

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