Quotes & Sayings About Sports Success

No matter how you total success in the coaching profession it all comes down to a single factor - talent. There may be a hundred great coaches of whom you have never heard in basketball, football, or any sport who will probably never receive the acclaim they deserve simply because they have not been blessed with the talent. Although not every coach can win consistently with talent, no coach can win without it. — John Wooden

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

Whatever is going on inside your head has everything to do with how well you end up performing. — D.C. Gonzalez

The truth is, what Americans enjoy about football is much of what makes the sport dangerous. However, I believe there must be a way to find the art of success and vitality in football, without the driving the level of impact that causes serious risk of head trauma, paralysis and other life-changing injuries. — Naveen Jain

Your productivity will double with increase physical activity. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: 1) A blind willingness to believe anything you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and other "official spokesmen" for the team-owners who provide the free booze ... and: 2) A Roget's Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph.
Even a sports editor, for instance, might notice something wrong with a lead that said: "The precision-jack-hammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jack-thrust after another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint-precision passes into the flat and numerous hammer-jack stomps around both ends ... — Hunter S. Thompson

I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. I don't want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism; and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master. — Theodore Roosevelt

The burn is my girlfriend, failure is my ex. I'm married to the track and engaged to success. — Andre Bramble

Academics often discount the value of top-rated sports programs in helping to develop a campus life and in contributing to the overall success of a college or university. Like it or not, the sports programs a college or university has are the front page of that university. — James E. Rogers

If at first you don't succeed, you can always become an ultramarathoner. — Bruce Fordyce

Why should we not shep naches from the accomplishments of our machines? This vicarious joy or success sounds somewhat odd, but it shouldn't be. We get excited when our sports team wins a game; why should it disturb or disappoint us when our creations turn out to be more accomplished than ourselves? — China Mieville

Every athletic career, no matter how modest or lofty, is a journey. — Dan Millman

It's difficult for people to come to the understanding that only a small minority of the people ever really get the word about life, about living abundantly and successfully. Success in the important departments of life seldom comes naturally, no more naturally than success at anything-a musical instrument, sports, fly-fishing, tennis, golf, business, marriage, parenthood, landscape gardening. But somehow people wait passively for success to come to them, living as other people are living in the unspoken, tacit assumption that other people know how to live successfully. — Earl Nightingale

Failure is the foundation of success: success is the lurking place of failure. — Laozi

Concentration is the key to success in anything in life. You need concentration to carry on a conversation, to raise children, to stay positive, to be able to communicate effectively, to succeed academically, to meditate, to succeed in business, to become good at sports, to achieve the goals you set for yourself, and the list can go on and on. — Gudjon Bergmann

In my book success and winning are not always the same thing. To me, success is playing - or working - to the best of your ability. — Joe Torre

It is so important for young girls to be fit. I think sports is the key to success, because the challenges you face in sports prepare you for the rest of your life. — Gail Devers

It's hard to go out and practice every single day, and you get really tired. But you have to believe in yourself. — Summer Sanders

Success is doing what it takes in spite of one's fear. — Johnny Rutherford

Success is where preparation and opportunity meet. — Bobby Unser

Running isn't a sport for pretty boys ... It's about the sweat in your hair and the blisters on your feet. Its the frozen spit on your chin and the nausea in your gut. It's about throbbing calves and cramps at midnight that are strong enough to wake the dead. It's about getting out the door and running when the rest of the world is only dreaming about having the passion that you need to live each and every day with. It's about being on a lonely road and running like a champion even when there's not a single soul in sight to cheer you on. Running is all about having the desire to train and persevere until every fiber in your legs, mind, and heart is turned to steel. And when you've finally forged hard enough, you will have become the best runner you can be. And that's all that you can ask for. — Paul Maurer

Success has many fathers; failures have none. — Philip Caldwell

Though no participator in the joy of more vehement sport, I have a pleasure that I cannot reconcile to my abstract notions of the tenderness due to dumb creatures in the tranquil cruelty of angling. I can only palliate the wanton destructiveness of my amusement by trying to assure myself that my pleasure does not spring from the success of the treachery I practise toward a poor little fish, but rather from that innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to the utmost. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Sporting success doesn't happen by accident. It takes hard work and determination on the part of the individual athletes. And it also takes investment in facilities and training support. — Nicola Sturgeon

You all know and lived the 'secrets' to De La Salle's success-love, brotherhood, sacrifice, discipline, heart, courage, passion, honesty. These are not just 'catch words' we throw around to impress others or justify our existence. We know what these mean because we created it and lived it. Understand that with that knowledge there is no turning back for us-ignorance is not an option. It is your future duty, no matter where you end up, to create the environment you have created here by bringing your best selves to the table. — Neil Hayes

My entire life, I've never been able to understand the concept of not being happy or excited when others were successful or had something good happen to them. It quite honestly is a concept that I cannot grasp. — Dan Pearce

Female success stories from sporting events like the Olympic Games have played a role in shifting the Indian perception to see the female athlete as a hero and a role model for young Indian girls. — Richard Attias

Self-centered people try to keep their lives unruffled and undisturbed, safe and secure. Our temptation is to give our time and effort to the goals of this world. Then, when we are successful in the world's eyes, we seek to bring God into our world by honoring Him with our success. We may say, "Now that I have succeeded in business [or sports, or politics, or with my family, or even Christian ministry], I want to give God the glory for it!" God is not interested in receiving secondhand glory from our activity. God receives glory from His activity through our lives. The world will entice you to adopt its goals and to invest in temporal things. Resist the temptation to pursue your own goals, asking God to bless them. Rather, deny yourself and join the activity of God as He reveals it to you. — Henry T. Blackaby

True champions are team players. — Alan Cohen

Success comprises in itself the seeds of its own decline and sport is not spared by this law. — Pierre De Coubertin

It has always been my thought that the most important single ingredient to success in athletics or life is discipline. I have many times felt that this word is the most ill-defined in all of our language. My definition isas follows: 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it it that way all the time. — Bobby Knight

I may lose but i'll never quit — Parul Tyagi

Being gifted intellectually is only a small part of the equation of success. Concentrate on the factors you have control over: persistence, self-discipline, confidence. Far more failures are due to lack of will than lack of ability. — Terry Bradshaw

The Lakers were able to maintain a certain level of talent and success, and so were the Celtics. It became part of people's sports lore. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

You expect success, you respect failure. — Greg Norman

The hardest part of your journey to success will be telling people your crazy dreams and ideas. But I've found as soon as you say your dreams aloud, many people will come to your side and help guide your journey in the right direction. During my 30 year journey with my disease I have discovered that you will always be surrounded by help, support and light if you stay positive in spite of hardships. — Karni Liddell

I'm playing; I'm here. I'm going to fight until they tell me they don't want me anymore. — Steve Nash

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

Sports movies had brainwashed me into the belief that when the chips are down the most, that is when success is the most inevitable. — Mindy Kaling

To be successful in sports or business, you really have to live the lifestyle. Success is about lifestyle. Just because I was training and working hard, that didn't make me champion or a good fighter. My lifestyle made me a good fighter. In my mind and my daily life, I was the heavy weight champ when I was 15 or 14. I lived the life of the heavyweight champion, and that's who I became. And that is so much more than just training. So, when the time presented itself, that's who I already was. I was ready. I was already there. — Mike Tyson

Success is a project that's always under construction. — Pat Summitt

The American College of Sports Medicine found that the productivity of people after exercise was an average of 65 percent higher than those who did not exercise. If I have something that's really bothering me, so much that it almost hurts my head to try to sort it out, I always find the solution in a puddle of sweat! Intense exercise is like taking a magic pill that gives you the ability to solve problems like a superhero. — Chalene Johnson

It takes patience to become the best runner you can be. Top athletes realize that running is a long-term sport. It is set up for people who value delayed gratification and who like hard-earned success. — Anthony Famiglietti

Any team sport, there are certain team targets and those targets should always be in the forefront. — Sachin Tendulkar

Do right-handed people live longer than lefties?

Then again, there are some things about lefties that can't be explained so easily. For whatever reason, whether it's the pressures of living in a world designed for righties, or all the talk of having shorter life spans, lefties have higher rates of depression, drug abuse, allergies, and schizophrenia. But lefties also have an advantage in sports like fencing, tennis and baseball, not to mention greater academic success and higher IQs. Five of America's last eleven presidents were lefties, even though they make up only 10 percent of the American population." (I believe Obama is a leftie as well, making that 6 of the last 12 presidents). — Anahad O'Connor

Positioning yourself and effective branding should not be left to sports and movie stars. Your need a personal coach, manager or mentor otherwise your expertise, skills or talent will not go far. You might have what it takes but sometimes you lack strategy and some finer elements. — Archibald Marwizi

I do not believe that there is any secret or single formula for success, but there are common threads of thought and action that characterize the successful people that I have been fortunate enough to know and observe. I do know, from my own experience, that our chance of succeeding is much greater when we organize and take charge of our lives. When we are willing to make decisions, we aggressively pursue those things in life that are important to us. — Merlin Olsen

The best activities for your health are pumping and humping. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Mountaineering is a complex and unique way of life, interweaving elements of sport, art and mysticism. Success or failure depends on the ebb and flow of immense inspiration. Detecting a single rule governing this energy is difficult - it arises and vanishes like the urge to dance and remains as mysterious as the phenomenon of life itself. — Wojciech Kurtyka

Everyone has to try to give back as much as possible because I think in all sports it helps kids to have role models or people to look up to. Someone like Jess Ennis, I know a lot of young girls have started to get into athletics stuff because of her, because of her success. — Andy Murray

Whatever sport you're looking at, it's usually the team that makes the least mistakes that has the most success. — Joe Torre

The price of success: hard work, patience, and a few sacrifices. — Edward Bok

What are the critical success factors of your job? What must you be absolutely, positively excellent at doing to be successful? — Brian Tracy

Years of concentration solely on work and individual success meant that in his retirement [Lyndon Johnson] could find no solace in family, in recreation, in sports or in hobbies. It was almost as if the hole in his heart was so large that even the love of a family, without work, could not fill it. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

All success in sports and athletics, from the Zen point of view, comes from the mind. No matter what kind of shape your body is in, there is disharmony in the being. — Frederick Lenz

Kay Cannon was a woman I'd known from the Chicago improv world. A beautiful, strong midwestern gal who had played lots of sports and run track in college, Kay had submitted a good writing sample, but I was more impressed by her athlete's approach to the world. She has a can-do attitude, a willingness to learn through practice, and she was comfortable being coached. Her success at the show is a testament to why all parents should make their daughters pursue team sports instead of pageants. Not that Kay couldn't win a beauty pageant - she could, as long as for the talent competition she could sing a karaoke version of 'Redneck Woman' while shooting a Nerf rifle. — Tina Fey

We learn early on that, in order to be a winner, you have to believe in yourself. You have to have the confidence to make things happen. And you have to have personal pride. — Alan Cohen

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 think you've got to pay the price for anything that's worthwhile, and success is paying the price. You've got to pay the price to win, you've got to pay the price to stay on top, and you 've got to pay the price to get there. — Vince Lombardi

For a while I was on the cover of every Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, which was regarded as the pinnacle of success in America. — Elle Macpherson

Putting 100 percent into your life, your work, or sport, doesn't give you the right to expect success at whatever you are trying to do - it just provides the opportunity. — Graham Lowe

You don't really see a muscle as a part of you, in a way. You see it as a thing. You look at it as a thing and you say well this thing has to be built a little longer, the bicep has to be longer; or the tricep has to be thicker here in the elbow area. And you look at it and it doesn't even seem to belong to you. Like a sculpture. Then after looking at it a sculptor goes in with his thing and works a little bit, and you do maybe then some extra forced reps to get this lower part out. You form it. Just like a sculpture. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Sporting events like the Olympics have developed and maintained a clear message of promoting gender equality as an essential criterion in the success of any international event. — Richard Attias

Exercise and sports are greatly affected by what goes into the mind, and the mind is greatly affected by sports and exercise as well. This is true among exercisers at all levels, despite their different goals. A major element in mental training is visualization ... Visualizing a positive outcome can create a pattern of success, as long as you set realistic and specific goals. — Grete Waitz

If at first you don't succeed, you're obviously not me. — Madonna Ciccone

I needed to do my current job well, keep preparing, and wait on God's timing. I needed to trust His leadership rather than try to force an outcome I wanted. — Tony Dungy

Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period. — Lou Holtz

Success isn't winning every time. A lot of different factors go into every race, and you can't control all of them. Success means doing as excellent a job as you can on that particular day. The people I admire most aren't necessarily the most wonderful athletes. I admire the ones who keep coming back and doing it, time after time. — Aimee Mullins

A great sports car that goes from 0-60 in 3.9 seconds is just a fact. To the wrong audience, it's irrelevant. But to the right audience, it's a passion. — David Brier

There are many people, particularly in sports, who think that success and excellence are the same thing. They are not the same thing. Excellence is something that is lasting and dependable and largely within a person's control. In contrast, success is perishable and is often outside our control. If you strive for excellence, you will probably be successful eventually. People who put excellence in the first place have the patience to end up with success. An additional burden for the victim of the success mentality is that he is threatened by the success of others and he resents real excellence. In contrast, the person that is fascinated by quality is excited when he sees it in others. — Joe Paterno

If you gone come in second, you're just the first loser! — Tiger Woods

Success and excellence are not the same. Excellence grows within a person, is largely within that person's control, and its meaning lasts. Success is measured externally, by comparison to others, is often outside our control, and is perishable. — Joe Paterno

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

Working in network news is not a solitary pursuit; it is the ultimate 'team sport,' in which success is derived from the collective performances of remarkable people united in purpose and dedication. — Steve Capus

If you are afraid of failure, you don't deserve success. — Nastia Liukin

In the contest between talent and hard work as to which is the more important element of success, there's no comparison. A mediocre talent with lots of hard work will go further than a stellar talent who coasts. — David Joyner

Politics, life, and business are not spectator sports. You have to get involved to get ahead. Most importantly, when you reach that level of success, keep the door open and the ladder down for others to follow. — Ron Brown

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

When I was 15, I had lucky underwear. When that failed, I had a lucky hairdo, then a lucky race number, even lucky race days. After 15 years, I've found the secret to success is hard work. — Margaret Groos

And yet, winning is like a welcome drink going down your throat, like a beautiful embrace. It is brilliant while it lasts but it isn't forever. The high eventually melts away and the journey of life begins afresh. The truly remarkable among us visit these highs periodically; winning then becomes a journey, a graph where each point is crucial but is in reality merely part of a larger curve. — Harsha Bhogle

While the (America's) Cup is yachting's Holy Grail, it has also come to represent the ultimate test in 'the game of life.' Just as in life, success demands commitment and commitment demands a positive winning attitude. I told all the guys who came into our Cup campaign that if they were going to make the grade they needed three essential ingredients: attitude, attitude and attitude. I wanted commitment to the commitment. When they finally made the crew, some of them joked that they ought to be committed for their commitment to the commitment. — Dennis Conner

But in fairness also to the idea of continuing success, you also have to exploit opportunities. — Bob Cousy

Success is all a matter of perspective. It depends on where you start from, and where you want to end up. — Pat Summitt

Retaining 'Monday Night Football' simply did not make smart financial sense for ABC. We could not reconcile the fees against the revenue. We love football at ABC. It's been a love affair for 36 years. It will go down in the history of sports television, being created on ABC and with this magnificent run. But at this point, given the success we're having with our entertainment product and the financials, we deemed that this was the proper move for us. We're not looking back . — George Bodenheimer

One of the supreme paradoxes of baseball, and all sports, is that the harder you try to throw a pitch or hit a ball or accomplish something, the smaller your chances are for success. You get the best results not when you apply superhuman effort but when you let the game flow organically and allow yourself to be fully present. You'll often hear scouts say of a great prospect, "The game comes slow to him." It mean the prospect is skilled and poised enough to let the game unfold in its own time, paying no attention to the angst or urgency or doubt, funnelling all awareness to the athletic task at hand. — R.A. Dickey

I once read a question that somone used to begin their self-assessment: who do you most admire and why? If you are an american and have a TV in your house, you'd probably be tempted to list some sports figure, actor, singer, artist, successful businessman, or influential leader. We have been led to equate greatness with success, talent, power and recognition. Would we include on our list a single mom or dad who has faithfully served their family, the person who volunteers at the soup kitchen or homeless shelter, the guy who shovels snow for the elderly couple down the street or the soldier serving somewhere around the globe? — Donna Mull

The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be only sustainable competitive advantage. — Arie De Geus

A champion always prepares to win. — D.C. Gonzalez

Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses. — Bill Bradley

Sport is a seductive metaphor (life as a game in which we gain victory through hard work, discipline, and visualizing success). but the older metaphor of farming (life as hard labor that is subject to weather and quirks of blind fate and may return no reward whatsoever and don't be surprised) is still in our blood. — Garrison Keillor

I've watched my dad move our family from extreme poverty to extreme wealth and then everywhere in between. Never once did I see or hear him be anything but a cheerleader for the accomplishments of others. It didn't matter if he was down or up in life, he wanted everybody around him to succeed. I've even watched him praise the very people that have tried to destroy him over the years and then very publicly wish them success and happiness. He taught me the enthusiasm that should always come at the success of others. He constantly taught me that when others succeed, it gives us all more opportunity to succeed. He taught me that when there is conflict, minor or major, you can almost always walk away at the end with a handshake. — Dan Pearce

The glory of sport comes from dedication, determination and desire. Achieving success and personal glory in athletics has less to do with wins and losses than it does with learning how to prepare yourself so that at the end of the day, whether on the track or in the office, you know that there was nothing more you could have done to reach your ultimate goal. — Jackie Joyner-Kersee

In the long run, you hit only what you aim at. — Henry David Thoreau

Whereas China has set about systematically striving for Olympic success since it re-entered global competition after years of isolation, India has remained complacent about its lack of sporting prowess. — Shashi Tharoor

There must be a bad chromosome somewhere in man that urges him to wound that which he can't conquer, deface that which is more beautiful, misunderstand and befoul the work of another. — Bill Murray

It was very quiet at the hotel, as if there had been a death in the family. When you have quit the Tour, nobody really knows what to say or do. ( ... ) Everything I'd previously achieved meant nothing; all I was now was a pro rider who couldn't finish the Tour de France. — David Millar

No exercise brings into play all the muscles of the body in a more thorough manner, and none is more interesting than wrestling. He will find no other exercise more valuable in the cultivation of faculties which will help him to success in agility, strength, determination, coolness, and quick exercise of judgement. — Hugh Leonard

It was no accident that I made 'Hoop Dreams' because it concerned a sport that I loved and hoped would be my dream, however far-fetched that turned out to be. Because of the success of that film, Hollywood pigeonholed me as a sports biopic guy, which led to 'Prefontaine' and two cable sports films. — Steve James

I don't think you're going to be a success in anything if you think about losing, whether it's in sports or in politics. — Edward Kennedy

Success shouldn't be measured by how much you have but by how much you give back. — Danny Villanueva