900 Motivational Game Day Quotes: Sports Teams (2023)
1. “Success doesn’t care which road you take to get to its doorstep.”
2. Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play. –Mike Singletary
3. “The only one who can tell you ‘you can’t win’ is you and you don’t have to listen.”—Jessica Ennis-Hill
4. Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't. –Jerry Rice
5. “A baseball game is twice as much fun if you’re seeing it on the company’s time.” ― William Feather
6. You've got to be confident when you're competing. You've got to be a beast. –Gabby Douglas
7. “Yeah, it’s nice to look up to people, but the more you try to be somebody else, the less you are of yourself.”
8. “It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.” - Evander Holyfield
9. “We have this thing in our mind of I gotta feel perfect, calm and confident and THEN I’ll perform well. Mate, if that’s the case you’re going to perform well a very, very small portion of the time.”
10. “To win those big games you’re going to have to complete some third-down passes, you’re going to have to be able to get some explosive games in the passing game.” – Tony Dungy, Football coach.
11. “What makes the difference between a great player and just a normal player is dedication, work, commitment.” — Thierry Henry
12. “You’re never a loser until you quit trying.” – Mike Ditka
13. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” — Vince Lombardi
14. The body achieves what the mind believes. –Unknown
15. Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. –Lou Holtz
16. “You are NOT your thoughts.”
17. “The ability to conquer one’s self is no doubt the most precious of all things that sports bestows.” — Olga Korbut
18. You never lose until you quit trying. –Mike Ditka
19. “The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.” – John Madden
20. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” —Vince Lombardi
21. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING
22. “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” – Jack Dempsey
23. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.” – Mike Singletary
24. “Nothing else will show your true character than how you lose.” – Ken Gleed
25. “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
26. “Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.” – John Wooden
27. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson
28. “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.”
29. “The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better.” – Tony Dungy
30. “I would have thought that the knowledge that you are going to be leapt upon by half-a-dozen congratulatory, but sweaty team-mates would be inducement not to score a goal.” – Arthur Marshall
31. “If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.” – Jack Lemmon
32. “Today, you have 100% of your life left.” – Tom Landry
33. “Our brain craves reducing uncertainty. Uncertainty is the hardest human emotion.”
34. “It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.” – Carl Lewis
35. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING
36. “I would never do anything outside of the rules of play.” – Tom Brady
37. “If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.” – Mark Spitz
38. The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. –Denis Waitley
39. “[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”
40. “I am the greatest. I said that before I knew I was.” Muhammad Ali
41. Adversity is an opportunity for heroism. –Marv Levy
42. “You should never stay at the same level. Always push yourself to the next.” —Marnelli Dimzon
43. “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.” – Lou Brock
44. “Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”
45. “I always tell kids, you have two eyes and one mouth. Keep two open and one closed. You never learn anything if you’re the one talking.”
46. “There’s no better feeling than stepping out on the field and stunning them all by doing what none of them thought you could do.”
47. I don’t count my situps. I only start counting once it starts hurting. –Muhammad Ali
48. “I’m not 23 anymore. But the defensive ends and linebackers chasing me are. If I had to chose between youth and experience, I’d take experience every time.” — Peyton Manning
49. “I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.” – Bruce Jenner
50. “There is no ‘I’ in team” – unknown
51. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” —Michael Jordan
52. “Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.” –John Madden
53. “To give any less than your best is to sacrifice a gift.” — Steve Prefontaine
54. “Be clear in your own mind as to what you stand for. And then stand up for it.”
55. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”
56. “If you want trophies, they don’t get given to you, you have to earn them, you have to play well in big games.” – Jamie Carragher, soccer player.
57. “I’ve had to learn to fight all my life – got to learn to keep smiling. If you smile things will work out.” – Serena Williams
58. “The integrity and self-esteem gained from winning the battle against extremity are the richest treasures in my life.” — Diana Nyad
59. “Good enough … isn’t”
60. “A champion is someone who does not settle for that day’s practice, that day’s competition, that day’s performance. They are always striving to be better. They don’t live in the past.” – Briana Scurry
61. “There is an old saying about the strength of the wolf is the pack, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. On a football team, it’s not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.”
62. “Everybody is going to be excited to play in a Super Bowl. When you still enjoy the preparation and the work part of it, I think you ought to be still doing that. I think as soon as I stop enjoying it, if I can’t produce, if I can’t help a team, that’s when I will stop playing.” — Peyton Manning
63. “The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.” —Ernie Banks
64. “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” – Vince Lombardi
65. I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all. –Simone Biles
66. “You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.” —Herb Brooks
67. “After all the cheers have died down, and the stadium is empty after the headlines have been written, and after you are back in the quiet of your room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser, and after all the pomp and fanfare have faded, the enduring thing that is left is the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.”
68. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.” – Satchel Paige
69. “The big games against big opponents, those are the best games to play in.” – Oscar, soccer player.
70. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
71. “Set realistic goals, keep re-evaluating, and be consistent.” – Venus Williams
72. “Your biggest opponent isn’t the other guy. It’s human nature.” – Bobby Knight
73. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” — Marv Levy
74. “Adversity causes some to break; others to break records.” – William Ward
75. “To me, football is so much about mental toughness. It’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win, and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.”
76. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'”
77. When you hit failure, your workout has just begun. –Ronnie Coleman
78. “There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” - Derek Jeter
79. “Victory is in having done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won.” – Bill Bowerman
80. “Before a big game, I’m pretty consistent with my routine. I try to do the same thing every single day on a game day because that’s just how I lock in.” – LeBron James, basketball player.
81. “You don’t just want to beat a team. You want to leave a lasting impression in their minds so they never want to see your face again.” ― Mia Hamm
82. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” - George Halas
83. “To be prepared is half the victory.” – Miguel Cervantes
84. “No matter the circumstances that you may be going through, just push through it.” —Ray Lewis
85. “When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less.” — Paul Brown
86. “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
87. “My routine prior to a big game is the same for any other match. Eat, sleep, chat with teammates during the day.” – Gerard Pique, soccer player.
88. “Somebody gives you an opportunity, say yes to it. So what if you fail? you won’t know if you fail or succeed unless you try.” —Ann Meyers
89. “You must have confidence in your competence.” – Elijah Cummings
90. “I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge and I’ve never been one to shy away from talking a big game.” – Aljamain Sterling, MMA.
91. You control your own wins and losses. –Maria Sharapova
92. Victory is in having done your best. If you've done your best, you've won. –Billy Bowerman
93. “The best motivation always comes from within.” – Michael Johnson
94. Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you do repeatedly. –Shaquille O'Neal
95. “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” – Jim Valvano
96. “I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.” —Bruce Jenner
97. “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong
98. “If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you’ll never change the outcome.” – Michael Jordan
99. “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”
100. “I’ve been a Colt for almost all of my adult life, but I guess in life, and in sports, we all know nothing lasts forever. Times change, circumstances change, and that’s the reality of playing in the NFL.” — Peyton Manning
101. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.”— Vince Lombardi
102. “You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, but you gotta suit up for them all.” —J. Askenberg
103. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” – John Wooden
104. “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” – Muhammad Ali
105. “You never know if you can actually do something against all odds until you actually do it.” – Abby Wambach
106. “Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss.”
107. “Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.” – Pat Riley
108. “The most valuable player is the one who makes the most players valuable.” –Peyton Manning
109. “If you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion.”
110. “We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”
111. “Set your goals high, and don't stop till you get there.”
112. “Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It’s our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.”
113. “I don’t count my situps. I only start counting once it starts hurting.” — Muhammad Ali
114. Every time I step on the field, I’m going to give my whole heart, regardless of the score. –Tim Tebow
115. “A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.” —Mary Lou Retton
116. “To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them.”– Picabo Street
117. True champions aren't always the ones that win, but the ones with the most guts. –Mia Hamm
118. “An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.” —Emil Zatopek
119. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” - Wayne Gretzky
120. I believe in the impossible because no one else does. –Florence Griffith Joyner
121. “I don’t want to be the next Michael Jordan, I only want to be Kobe Bryant.” —Kobe Bryant
122. “I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.” — Tom Landry
123. Greatness isn't born, it's grown. –Malcolm Gladwell
124. “You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.” –Joe Paterno. SOUTHERN LIVING
125. “No matter the circumstances you may be going through, just push through it.” –Ray Lewis
126. “I am no genius; I just worked hard like my other teammates, and I believe all my teammates can win the title as they work hard, too.” – Lin Dan
127. “You’re playing a game, whether it’s Little League or Game 7 of the World Series. It’s impossible to do well unless you’re having a good time. People talk about pressure. Yeah, there’s pressure. But I just look at it as fun.” —Derek Jeter
128. “Overpower. Overtake. Overcome.” —Serena Williams
129. “I always try to start out with some type of goal. Then I work backward and think of what I need to do to get there and give myself smaller goals that are more immediate.” —Kristi Yamaguchi
130. “I’ve got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.” – Larry Bird
131. “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” — Will Rogers
132. “Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.” — George F. Will
133. “Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.” –John Madden. SOUTHERN LIVING
134. “Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character.” – Vince Lombardi
135. “For me, winning isn’t something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream.” — Emmitt Smith
136. It's hard to beat a person who never gives up. –Babe Ruth
137. “An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.”– Emil Zatopek
138. “If you watch a game, it’s fun; if you play it, it’s recreation; if you work at it, it’s golf.” ― Evan Esar
139. “Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything that comes in second.” – Paul Bryant
140. “I’ve always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn’t have a chance to win.” – Arnold Palmer
141. “I’ve never left the field saying, ‘I could’ve done more to get ready,’ and that gives me peace of mind.” — Peyton Manning
142. “If you only ever give 90% in training then you will only ever give 90% when it matters.”
143. “You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place.” – James Lane Allen
144. “Driven by the moral imperative of paying the price to be great.”
145. “It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort.” – Jillian Michaels
146. “Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.”
147. “If he is to become a ball player, he must learn the rules of the game. And, contrary to popular thinking, children appreciate rules.” ― Billy Graham
148. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.”
149. “Some wish for it. Champions work for it.”
150. “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” – Michael Jordan
151. Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown." –Ross Perot
152. “To do things you’ve never done before, you have to do things you’ve never done before.” –Sean Payton
153. “You can’t win unless you learn how to lose.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
154. “We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.”
155. “The hardest skill to acquire in this sport is the one where you compete all out, give it all you have, and you are still getting beat no matter what you do. When you have the killer instinct to fight through that, it is very special.” —Eddie Reese
156. “Erase the word ‘failure’ from your vocabulary. No case is ever truly closed, and no challenge is ever over.” – Mary Lou Retton
157. “I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down, and I will not let myself down.”
158. All coaching is, taking a player where he can't take himself. –Bill McCartney
159. “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, basketball coach.
160. “We have seen some of the greatest athletes fall because they have tried to take shortcuts.”
161. Being uncomfortable is the life blood of toughness. –Bo Hanson
162. Great results never came from comfort zones. –Unknown
163. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” – Bo Jackson
164. “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
165. Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome. –Arthur Ashe
166. Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. –Satchel Paige
167. “There are certain basic qualities and characteristics you’ve got to have. Number one: you’ve got to have a will to win.” – Bob Richards
168. “Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.” – Phil Jackson
169. “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.”
170. “I shot millions and millions of shots, just wanted the ball and felt good every time I released the ball, especially in those last seconds of big games.” – Toni Kukoc, basketball player.
171. “To me, it was never about what I accomplished on the football field; it was about the way I played the game.”
172. “Sport, at its best, at its most human, is able to inspire an innocence and joy that is unique to each of us.” — Richard J. Corman
173. “Self-talk is overrated. Don’t think about doing it … just do it”
174. “Fall means football”
175. “Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”
176. Overpower. Overtake. Overcome. –Serena Williams
177. “Team guts always beats individual greatness.” – Robert Zuppke
178. “You’re never a loser until you quit trying.” - Mike Ditka
179. “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
180. “Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.”
181. If you train hard, you'll not only be hard, but you'll be hard to beat. –Herschel Walker
182. “Leadership, like coaching, is fighting for the hearts and souls of men and getting them to believe in you.” —Eddie Robinson
183. “Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.”
184. “There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation brick by brick.”
185. “Never underestimate the heart of a champion!” – Doc Rivers
186. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” – George S. Halas
187. “If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.”
188. The only way to prove that you're good at a sport is to lose. –Ernie Banks
189. “The secret of winning football games is working more as a team, less as individuals. I play not my 11 best, but my best 11.” – Knute Rockne
190. “You can’t let success diminish the desire to be a winner. There’s room for improvement in every sportsman.” — Lionel Messi
191. “Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.” – William A. Ward
192. “Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.” –Mike Ditka
193. “Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.”
194. “Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.” — William James
195. “After the first day of practice, there’s not one guy who’s playing at 100 percent or who feels great. Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day – it all just hurts.”
196. “It’s not wanting to win that makes you a winner; it’s refusing to fail.” — Peyton Manning
197. “True disputants are like true sportsmen: their whole delight is in the pursuit.” — Alexander Pope
198. “Life is about choices. You ask the questions and you listen to the answers. Then you listen to your heart.” — Peyton Manning
199. “The only competition that matters is the one that takes place within yourself.” – Pete Carroll
200. The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done. –Arnold Palmer
201. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi
202. “The greatest team you’ve never heard of has together missed out on 13 proms, 74 birthdays, 21 Thanksgivings and 989 boyfriends. And they don’t regret it. They know why they give up these things. They know that game changing slide tackles and goals and championships and having a second family and doing it all for each other are the rewards. They know to put team above all else.” -USWNT
203. “I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.”
204. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success.” – Babe Ruth
205. “Most talented players don’t always succeed. Some don’t even make the team. It’s more what’s inside.”– Brett Favre
206. “When you see a good move, look for a better one.” – Emanuel Lasker
207. Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential. –Winston Churchill
208. “I just knew if it could be done, it had to be done, and I did it.” —Gertrude Ederle
209. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” –Bo Jackson
210. “My attitude is that if you push me towards a weakness, I will turn that weakness into a strength.”
211. “You know, there’s a rule in sports, ‘Don’t do anything great if you can’t handle the congratulations.’”
212. “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.” —Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
213. “I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else.”
214. Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle. –Wilma Rudolph
215. Don't wait for opportunity. Create it. –Unknown
216. “A man who has no imagination has no wings.”
217. “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” -Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING
218. Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. –William Arthur Ward
219. “Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.”– Ted Williams
220. “Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.”
221. “Win. Lose. But never defeated.”
222. “Do tell yourself, “I am going to stand and fight again,” with the knowledge that often when things are at their worst, you’re closer than you can imagine to success.”
223. Dead last finish is greater than did not finish, which trumps did not start. –Unknown
224. “Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.”– Dan Gable
225. “Life is about choices. You ask the questions, and you listen to the answers. Then you listen to your heart.”
226. “We make too much of winning. The mere fact of winning doesn’t make you great.” — Wilt Chamberlain
227. “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” —Andrew Carnegie
228. “Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.” – Jimmy Valvano
229. “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” - Dean Karnazes
230. “Our mind is way more powerful than really anything else. If you can utilize that the right way, it’s inevitably going to help your game on the course.” – Rory McIlroy, golfer.
231. A coach will impact more people in one year than the average person will in an entire lifetime. –Billy Graham
232. “If at first you don’t succeed, you are running about average.” – M.H. Alderson
233. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” —Marv Levy
234. “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a determination.”
235. “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” – Yogi Berra
236. “Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.”
237. “Let me tell you something kid; everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either because they’re too scared, or they don’t recognize it when it spits on their shoes.” -The Sandlot
238. “Sweat + Spirit = Success”
239. “In big games they don’t panic, they continue to focus and continue to fight hard.” – Ned Yost, Baseball manager.
240. If you can't outplay them, outwork them. –Ben Hogan
241. “The enemy of the best is the good. If you’re always settling with what’s good, you’ll never be the best.”
242. “I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.”
243. “Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.” – Wilma Rudolph
244. “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.” - Andre Agassi
245. “The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” —Steve Young
246. “Good players inspire themselves. Great players inspire others.”
247. “Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.” – Arnold Palmer
248. “If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.” Hershel Walker
249. “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” – Fred Devito
250. “There is only one way to succeed in anything…and that is to give it everything.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING
251. “Number one is just to gain a passion for running. To love the morning, to love the trail, to love the pace on the track. And if some kid gets really good at it, that’s cool too.” — Pat Tyson
252. “If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.” – Lou Holtz
253. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” –Vince Lombardi
254. “Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.” –Mike Ditka. SOUTHERN LIVING
255. Success isn't owned, it's leased. And rent is due every day. –J.J. Watt
256. “Remember, once you set a goal, it’s all about how hard you’re willing to work, how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it.” –J.J. Watt. SOUTHERN LIVING
257. “Success isn’t owned, it’s leased. And rent is due every day.“ – J.J. Watt
258. “The past doesn’t matter. Take today.” —Becky Sauerbrunn
259. “People say to me all the time, ‘You have no fear.’ I tell them, ‘No, that’s not true. I’m scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I’m a courageous person because I’m a scared person.”
260. I really think a champion is defined not by their wins, but how they recover when they fall. –Serena Williams
261. “After you have a big game, you can’t just say, ‘That’s it, I’ve arrived,’ by any means. I’m always pushing it to be better. You always want to be better than you are, no matter what.” – Blake Griffin, Basketball player.
262. “If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.” – Ronnie Lott
263. “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” - Jack Dempsey
264. “Failure is part of success, an integral part. Everybody gets knocked down. Knowing it will happen and what you must do when it does is the first step back.”
265. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” —Matt Biondi
266. “One thing about championship teams is that they’re resilient. No matter what is thrown at them, no matter how deep the hole, they find a way to bounce back and overcome adversity.”
267. “If you’re not gonna go all the way, why go at all?” – Joe Namath
268. “There may be people that have more talent than you, but theres no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” – Derek Jeter
269. “I was forced to learn a lot about psychology as a player, and as a captain to get the best out of others. There’s still a lot of scepticism about it in sport and the workplace, but dealing with fluctuations of form, and pressure, and being away from home is more important than your cover drive.”
270. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” –Bo Jackson. SOUTHERN LIVING
271. “The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.”– Joe Paterno
272. Champions have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. –Muhammad Ali
273. “I’ll always be Number 1 to myself.” — Moses Malone
274. “No judgment of your practice, just practice.”
275. “I’m playing; I’m here. I’m going to fight until they tell me they don’t want me anymore.” —Steve Nash
276. “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.”
277. “When you don’t give up, you cannot fail.” – Adrian Peterson
278. “Difficulties in life are intended to make us better, not bitter.” – Dan Reeves
279. “Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load the wagon.”
280. “Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision.”
281. “Multitasking is seriously overrated. Try to do one task at a time and learn to do it with more purpose. “
282. “Before you can win the fight, you’ve got to be in the fight.”
283. “You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.” – Satchel Paige
284. “If you come in second, you’re just the first loser!” — Tiger Woods
285. “Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death.”
286. “Success is dependent upon effort.” – unknown
287. “Winning is a habit leadership is calmly maintaining that habit against all odds.” – Amit Ray
288. “Winners act like winners before they’re winners…The culture precedes positive results. It doesn’t get tacked on as an afterthought on your way to the victory stand. Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they’re winners.”
289. Don't be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed. –LeBron James
290. “Many times, I had to dig deep and perform. All of that adversity helped me and drove me to want to be the best.” —Hayley Wickenheiser
291. “You have to remember that the hard days are what make you stronger. The bad days make you realize what a good day is. If you never had any bad days, you would never have that sense of accomplishment!” —Aly Raisman
292. “I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.” —Tom Landry
293. “The five S’s of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit; but the greatest of these is spirit.” — Ken Doherty
294. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I cannot accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan
295. “Being nervous is not something you should be ashamed of. Nervous means you care, you really want to do well.” —Paula Creamer
296. Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. –William James
297. “It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.” — Seneca the Younger
298. “Once you give them the power to tell you you’re great, you’ve also given them the power to tell you you’re unworthy. Once you start caring about people’s opinions of you, you give up control.” —Ronda Rousey
299. “How much ever you keep saying about it being just like any other normal game, it is a bit different. What we try is to keep that slight difference nominal, and try to play like we would against any other international team.” – MS Dhoni, cricket player.
300. “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
301. “If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough.” – Mario Andretti
302. “A champion is simply someone who did not give up when they wanted to.” – Tom Landry
303. “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”– Wayne Gretzky
304. “If you wait for others to initiate change, you automatically become a follower.”
305. “Anyone can support a team that is winning — it takes no courage. But to stand behind a team, to defend a team when it is down and really needs you, that takes a lot of courage.” – Bart Starr
306. “What keeps me going is not winning, but the quest for reaching potential in myself as a coach and my kids as divers. It’s the pursuit of excellence.” – Ron O’Brien
307. “I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.” – Mia Hamm
308. “The man who has no imagination has no wings.” – Muhammad Ali
309. “The minute you get away from fundamentals – whether its proper technique, work ethic or mental preparation – the bottom can fall out of your game, your schoolwork, your job, whatever you’re doing.”
310. A champion is simply someone who did not give up when they wanted to. –Tom Landry
311. “Sports do not build character. Sports reveal character.” – Heywood Hale Broun
312. “Remember, once you set a goal, it’s all about how hard you’re willing to work, how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it.” –J.J. Watt
313. Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory. –Bill Russell
314. “Big games are usually about doing the simple things well – not trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat.” – Owen Farrell, rugby union player.
315. “We old athletes carry the disfigurements and markings of contests remembered only by us and no one else. Nothing is more lost than a forgotten game.” – Pat Conroy
316. “I always want to give more than I gave yesterday.” – Allyson Felix
317. “Gotta stay in to win”
318. “Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less-than-perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.”
319. “Ain’t no chance, if you don’t take it.” – Guy Clark
320. “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
321. “Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence. If you’re in control, they’re in control.” –Tom Landry
322. “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.” —Andre Agassi
323. “I wouldn’t let the boys down, no way. If my arm came off I’d still play.” — Jack Bird
324. “Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.” — Laird Hamilton
325. “You know what we worry about, things we care about. I didn’t get nervous making breakfast this morning.”
326. Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble. –John Madden
327. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi
328. The game is 90% mental, the other half is physical. –Yogi Berra
329. “If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.”– Herschel Walker
330. “Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision.” – Muhammad Ali
331. “Your basketball goals should be out of reach, but never out of sight.” – Felicity Luckey
332. Passion first, and everything else will fall into place. –Holly Holm
333. “You don’t play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.” – Bobby Knight
334. “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” – Jerry Rice
335. “This won’t be good enough. It wasn’t good enough today. It won’t be good enough against anybody else, either.”
336. “I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.” –Emmitt Smith. SOUTHERN LIVING
337. “Every quarterback can throw a ball, every running back can run, and every receiver is fast, but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness.”
338. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” –George S. Halas
339. “When you lose, talk little. When you win, talk less.”
340. “Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up.” – Rocky Balboa
341. You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy. –Arthur Ashe
342. “You play to win the game…Hello. You play to win the game.” — Herman Edwards
343. “You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.” — A. J. Kitt
344. My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging. –Hank Aaron
345. “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.” —Tommy Lasorda
346. Behind every fearless player is a fearless coach who refused to let them be anything but the best they could be. –Unknown
347. “The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.” – Arnold Palmer
348. Never limit yourself, never be satisfied, and smile…it’s free! –Jennie Finch
349. “I mean, it’s not important what kind of pants you were; it’s how you wear them.” – Ronnie Lott
350. “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”
351. “If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.” – Ben Hogan
352. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.” – Babe Ruth
353. “Winning solves everything.” — Tiger Woods
354. “You will never get the best out of anyone professionally unless you understand what motivates and makes them tick personally as a human being.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru
355. “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.” – Ross Perot
356. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” – Matt Biondi
357. Around 70,000 visitors are expected at this year's OMR Festival in Hamburg. It is one of the largest marketing and digital conferences in Europe. Photo: Marcus Brandt/dpa (Photo by Marcus Brandt/picture alliance via Getty Images)
358. The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning. –Pele
359. Your body can stand almost anything. It’s your mind that you have to convince. –Andrew Murphy
360. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” – George Halas
361. “No one ever drowned in sweat.” –Lou Holtz. SOUTHERN LIVING
362. “Don’t be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed.” —LeBron James
363. “Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.” – Ted Williams
364. “Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.”
365. “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
366. “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” – Babe Ruth
367. “In sports, players need to be reminded of their competition to become motivated to practice. The same can be applied in business.” – Gavin McGinnis
368. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” –George S. Halas. SOUTHERN LIVING
369. “It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”
370. “Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t pretend that you do and, and some point, you will.” —Venus Williams
371. A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are. –Ara Parseghian
372. “What do you do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.” – Dean Smith
373. I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability. –Bruce Jenner
374. “Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back… play for her.” —Mia Hamm
375. “A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.” – Mary Lou Retton
376. “Sometimes, a winner is a dreamer who just won’t quit.” – Rudy
377. “The ability to conquer one’s self is no doubt the most precious of all things that sports bestows.” —Olga Korbut
378. “Don’t complain about not getting a chance and then be unprepared when you finally do.”
379. “Don’t tell me how rocky the sea is, just bring the ship in.” – Lou Holtz
380. “Our Team. Our Mission.”
381. “New Season. New Team. One Dream.”
382. Players respond to coaches who really have their best interest at heart. –Mike Singletary
383. “The five S’s of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit; but the greatest of these is spirit.” —Ken Doherty
384. “My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.” – Hank Aaron
385. “I believe in the impossible because no one else does.” —Florence Griffith Joyner
386. “I think team first. It allows me to succeed, and it allows my team to succeed.”
387. “When you don’t give up, you cannot fail.” –Adrian Peterson
388. “It’s good to be successful, but it’s great to be significant.” – Lou Holtz
389. “I got more bruises, grass-burns and cuts in practice than in match play.”
390. “Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence. If you’re in control, they’re in control.” –Tom Landry. SOUTHERN LIVING
391. “You can learn a line from a win and a book from defeat.” –Paul Brown
392. “You might not be able to outthink, out market or outspend your competition, but you can outwork them.” – Lou Holtz
393. “Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We.”
394. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, don’t quit, suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” —Muhammad Ali
395. “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it – then I can achieve it.” – Muhammad Ali
396. Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period. –Lou Holtz
397. “Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”
398. Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t pretend that you do and, and some point, you will. –Venus Williams
399. “If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.” —Ben Hogan
400. One thing about championship teams is that they’re resilient. No matter what is thrown at them, no matter how deep the hole, they find a way to bounce back and overcome adversity. –Nick Saban
401. “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden
402. “Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.” —George F. Will
403. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” - Tim Notke
404. “My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.” —Hank Aaron
405. No matter the circumstances you may be going through, just push through it. –Ray Lewis
406. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” – Billie Jean King
407. “Effort without talent is a depressing situation. But talent without effort is a tragedy.” – Mike Ditka
408. “Competition is an ordinary performance on a special day.”
409. I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion. –Billie Jean King
410. “If you don’t want to be the best, then there’s no reason going out and trying to accomplish anything.”
411. What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose. –Andre Agassi
412. “The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.” – Ernie Banks
413. “The best motivation always comes from within.”
414. “On a team, it’s not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.”
415. A coach is someone who sees beyond your limits and guides you to greatness! –Michael Jordan
416. “Winners, I am convinced, imagine their dreams first. They want it with all their heart and expect it to come true. There is, I believe, no other way to live.”
417. “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.” – Knute Rockne
418. “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.” —Arthur Ashe
419. “It’s not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”
420. “You must learn how to hold a team together. You must lift some men up, calm others down, until finally, they’ve got one heartbeat. Then you’ve got yourself a team.” – Paul “Bear” Bryant
421. “You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.” – Yogi Berra
422. “You must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to never quit.” —Abby Wambach
423. “A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.” – Billie Jean King
424. “You can learn a line from a win and a book from defeat.” –Paul Brown. SOUTHERN LIVING
425. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.” —Mike Singletary
426. “Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.”– Satchel Paige
427. “To give any less than your best is to sacrifice a gift.” - Steve Prefontaine
428. That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased. –Heber Grant
429. “I’ve never lost a game. I just ran out of time.” — Michael Jordan
430. “If at first you don’t succeed, try doing what your coach told you to do the first time.”
431. “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” — Michael Jordan
432. “In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I’m going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here’s a chance to grow.” —Carol Dweck
433. “Competitive sports are played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch court, the space between your ears.” – Bobby Jones
434. “It is action that creates motivation.” —Steve Backley
435. “There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” – Derek Jeter
436. “One of the biggest errors we have made in elite sport is we use the word confident when we actually mean competent. I can’t sing. I am not competent at singing. Put six beers in me in a karaoke bar and now I’m confident … but I am still terrible at singing.”
437. “It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that really counts.”
438. “Every man, at some point in his life, is going to lose a battle. He is going to fight and he is going to lose. But what makes him a man is that in the midst of that battle, he does not lose himself.” -Friday Night Lights
439. “Whatever is going to happen will happen, whether we worry or not.” – Ana Monnar
440. “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.” – Michael Jordan
441. “Football is like life. It requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING
442. “If you want to be the best, you have to do the things that other people aren’t willing to do.” — Michael Phelps
443. “Bodybuilding is much like any other sport. To be successful, you must dedicate yourself 100% to your training, diet and mental approach.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
444. “Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.” – Bethany Hamilton
445. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” - Matt Biondi
446. “To live in the past is to die in the present.”
447. “When you go into the really big games you look at your team and think ‘where are we weak, where are we vulnerable.” – Graeme Souness, soccer player.
448. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – unknown
449. “Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.” ― Paul Tournier
450. “It never gets easier, you just get better.”
451. “There is always going to be a reason why you can’t do something; your job is to constantly look for the reasons why you can achieve your dreams.” —Shannon Miller
452. “Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.”
453. “If you are afraid of failure you don’t deserve to be successful!” – Charles Barkley
454. “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while–you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”
455. It's not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters. –Paul "Bear" Bryant
456. “Soccer forces life to move on. There’s always a new match. A new season. There’s always a dream that everything can get better. It’s a game of wonders.” – Fredrik Backman
457. “When you get that nice celebration coming into the dugout and you’re getting your ass hammered by guys—there’s no better feeling than to have that done."
458. “I don’t count my situps. I only start counting once it starts hurting. ” -Muhammad Ali
459. One man practicing sportsmanship is better than 50 men preaching it. –Knute Rockne
460. “Sports for me is when a guy walks off the court, and you really can’t tell whether he won or lost, when he carries himself with pride either way.” — Jim Courier
461. “So many players enter the game with the same approximate skills. The difference is not aptitude but attitude.” — Dave Winfield
462. “The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.” – Bobby Knight
463. You are not defeated when you lose, you are defeated when you quit. –Paulo Coelho
464. “Win From Within”
465. “I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me. And the one guy who didn’t vote for me, thank you, too.” – Shaquille O’Neal
466. Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you what it feels like to win and lose – it teaches you about life. –Billie Jean King
467. “Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”– Michael Jordan
468. How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser. –Lou Holtz
469. “I think sports gave me the first place where this awkward girl could feel comfortable in my own skin. I think that’s true for a lot of women—sports gives you a part of your life where you can work at something and you look in the mirror and you like that person.” – Teri McKeever
470. “You’re never a loser until you quit trying.”– Mike Ditka
471. “Good players want to be coached… Great players want to be told the truth.” — Doc Rivers
472. “Moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.” – Martina Navratilova
473. “Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss.” — Doug Williams
474. “Champions don’t become champions when they win an event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it.” – Michael Jordan, basketball player.
475. “You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.” – Michael Phelps
476. “You’ll score a lot of goals in your career but not one of them will happen without the help of a teammate.” – Abby Wambach
477. “Act as if it was, and it will be.”― Lailah Gifty Akita
478. “In baseball and in business, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened.”
479. “There is no getting around the fact that the moment you are at your very best is the moment you begin to become worse and worse. Others will come along who can run faster, jump higher, hit harder, and you will be forgotten. Your winning moment is dated to die.” – Charlie Higson
480. “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.”
481. “At one point in your life you either have the thing you want or the reasons why you don’t.” – Andy Roddick
482. “The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.”
483. “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” - Vince Lombardi
484. “WE ARE ONE”
485. “Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.”
486. “My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win… channel your energy. Focus.” — Carl Lewis
487. “It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” - Paul “Bear” Bryant
488. “You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self motivation.”
489. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.” –Vince Lombardi
490. “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.”
491. “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” – Michael Jordan
492. “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.”
493. “It’s not whether you get knocked down – it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi
494. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” —Neale Donald Walsh
495. “Anyone who waits for someone else to make a change automatically becomes a follower.” — Peyton Manning
496. “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
497. “Work. Pride. Victory.”
498. “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” – Muhammad Ali
499. “The Spirit of Sports: The spirit of sports gives each of us who participate an opportunity to be creative. Sports knows no sex, age, race or religion. Sports gives us all the ability to test ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally in a way no other aspect of life can. For many of us who struggle with ‘fitting in’ or our identity – sports gives us our first face of confidence. That first bit of confidence can be a gateway to many other great things!”
500. “The most valuable player is the one who makes the most players valuable.” –Peyton Manning. SOUTHERN LIVING
501. “Bottom line: You’re the only one who knows—in your heart of hearts—if you are really giving it all you have. You are the only one who knows what you’re capable of—and the only one who can evaluate your effort relative to your own standard.” – Andy Frisella
502. “You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.” – Herb Brooks
503. Don't quit. Suffer now, and live the rest of your life as a champion. –Muhammad Ali
504. “At a young age winning is not the most important thing… the important thing is to develop creative and skilled players with good confidence.” – Arsene Wenger
505. “Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.” —Jackie Joyner-Kersee
506. “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” —Sandy Koufax
507. “Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.” – John Wooden
508. “Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.” —Liane Cardes
509. “No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room.” — Muhammad Ali
510. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
511. “Remember, once you set a goal, it’s all about how hard you’re willing to work, how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it.” – J.J. Watt
512. “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.” —Knute Rockne
513. “I tell the kids, somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose. Just don’t fight about it. Just try to get better.” – Yogi Berra
514. “The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.” – Pele
515. “A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning.” – Pat Riley
516. “To paly the game is great, to win the game is greater, but to love the game is the greatest of all.” ― Palestra Palque
517. “Hard days are the best because that’s when champions are made.”
518. Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. –Jim Ryun
519. “Goals prepare Olympic athletes physically and mentally. Did you know that goals are used by sports psychologists in order to help athletes improve their performance?” – Paul Bailey
520. Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence...if you're in control, they're in control. –Tom Landry
521. “Winning takes talent; to repeat takes character.” – John Wooden
522. “Commit yourself to something you have a passion for.”
523. “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.” – Vince Lombardi
524. “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”
525. I've learned that something constructive comes from every defeat. –Tom Landry
526. Hard days are the best because that's when champions are made. –Gabby Douglas
527. “Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.”
528. “Remind your critics when they say you don’t have the expertise or experience to do something that an amateur built the ark and the experts built the titanic.
529. “A well-adjusted person is one who can play golf and bridge as if they were games.” ― Evan Esar
530. “You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation.”– Homer Rice
531. “Find the good. It’s all around you. Find it, showcase it, and you’ll start believing it.”
532. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan
533. “There is only one way to succeed in anything…and that is to give it everything.” –Vince Lombardi
534. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.”
535. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” —Billie Jean King
536. “If you don’t fall, how are you going to know what getting up feels like?” – Stephen Curry
537. “If you work hard and you play well, all those critics quiet themselves pretty quickly.”
538. “You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.” –Joe Paterno
539. “I’ve failed over & over & over again in my life & that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
540. “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” – Terry Bradshaw
541. “Winning is a habit. Watch your thoughts; they become your beliefs. Watch your beliefs; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character.”
542. Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it or work around it. –Michael Jordan
543. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit. –Aristotle
544. “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” – Sandy Koufax
545. “I never left the field saying I could have done more to get ready and that gives me peace of mind.” —Peyton Manning
546. “They say discipline and dedication and respect are the key factors, but patience is a virtue that is absolutely essential!” —Ria Ramnarine
547. “Some medals are pinned to your soul, not to your jacket.”— Gino Bartali
548. You'll never know what you're capable of until you take that first step and just go for it. –Natasha Hastings
549. “I have to leave the games now if the announcer says something I don’t agree with. I’m thinking, ‘Peyton, it is not healthy to be all worked up before a game.’” — Peyton Manning
550. “I don’t have any ideas; my coaches have them. I just pass the ideas on and referee the arguments.” — Bear Bryant
551. “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” –Terry Bradshaw. SOUTHERN LIVING
552. “If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win.”– Carl Lewis
553. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”
554. “I just want to win,” Antetokounmpo says. “All that other stuff takes away from the game, and you just spend extra energy on looking good for five seconds.” – Giannis Antetokounmpo, basketball player.
555. “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realised how seldom they do.”
556. The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's determination. –Tommy Lasorda
557. “Passion first and everything will fall into place.” —Holly Holm
558. “Make this your moment”
559. “Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.”– Larry Bird
560. “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” – Yogi Berra
561. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size in the fight of the dog.” –Archie Griffin
562. “I don’t plan on being disappointed. We plan on being really good, and obviously, we plan on winning.” – Gregg Troy
563. “If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.”– Ronnie Lott
564. The secret of getting ahead is getting started. –Mark Twain
565. I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it. –Gale Sayers
566. “Won’t. Back. Down.”
567. The mind is the most important part of achieving any fitness goal. Mental change always comes before physical change. –Matt McGorry
568. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” - Babe Ruth
569. “I get fired up in big games. Other guys might get scared, but with me, my intensity overrules my jitteriness.” – Lorenzen Wright, basketball player.
570. “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” – Naoki Higashida
571. “It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.” - Carl Lewis
572. “Make each day your masterpiece.” – John Wooden
573. “I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all.” —Simone Biles
574. Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually, it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. –Lance Armstrong
575. “I had to work hard and hit the books because the opportunity to play in the NFL is not really that big, so I knew I needed something to fall back on. That’s the message I want to send to those kids when I talk to them in person and let them know the most important thing is getting your education.”
576. You don't demand respect, you earn it. –Steve Seidler
577. “The sun has been there for 500, 600 years.”
578. “Can’t kick the football habit”
579. “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.”
580. “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz
581. “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong
582. Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you. –Satchel Paige
583. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it.”
584. “Sports is human life in microcosm.” ― Howard Cosell
585. “For every pass I caught in a game, I caught a thousand in practice.” – Don Hutson
586. “You dream. You plan. You reach. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, with belief, with confidence and trust in yourself and those around you, there are no limits.” —Michael Phelps
587. “Whenever there is a big game and people don’t think I can do it, I always play my hardest, and now it has become a part of me.” – Dwyane Wade, basketball player.
588. “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.” – Tommy Lasorda
589. “Everybody’s got plans… until they get hit.” – Mike Tyson
590. “Sports creates a bond between contemporaries that lasts a lifetime. It also gives your life structure, discipline and a genuine, sincere, pure fulfillment that few other areas of endeavor provide.”
591. ”Goaltending is a normal job, sure. How would you like it in your job if every time you made a small mistake, a red light went on over your desk and 15,000 people stood up and yelled at you?”
592. Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their growth. –John Whitmore
593. “Rather than focusing on the obstacle in your path, focus on the bridge over the obstacle.” – Mary Lou Retton
594. “A win is a win”
595. “You have to have a real love of your sport to carry you through all the bad times.” — Nancy Greene
596. I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen Covey
597. “That’s one thing you learn in sports. You don’t give up; you fight to the finish.” ― Louis Zamperini
598. “Always work hard, never give up, and fight until the end because it’s never really over until the whistle blows.” —Alex Morgan
599. “No one ever won a game by resigning.” – Ksawery Tartakower
600. “Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records. ” — William Arthur Ward
601. “I think the thing about that was I was always willing to work; I was not the fastest or biggest player, but I was determined to be the best football player I could be on the football field, and I think I was able to accomplish that through hard work.”
602. “I don’t have to wait for nobody, I move when I wanna move.” – Floyd Mayweather
603. “It’s not the will to win that matters. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” –Paul “Bear” Bryant
604. “If you are afraid of failure you don’t deserve to be successful!” - Charles Barkley
605. “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” – Wayne Gretzky
606. “To me the beauty of teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.” – Coach Mike Krzyzewski
607. “Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.” – John Wooden
608. “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” – William Shakespeare
609. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.” -Mike Singletary
610. Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. –Lou Holtz
611. “Make each day your masterpiece.” - John Wooden
612. “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.”
613. “You fail all of the time. But you aren’t a failure until you start blaming someone else.” – Bum Phillips
614. “I can only control my performance. If I do my best, then I can feel good at the end of the day”
615. “My only feeling about superstition is that it’s unlucky to be behind at the end of the game.” — Duffy Daugherty
616. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.” –Vince Lombardi. SOUTHERN LIVING
617. “It’s not who’s put up the fastest time in the world that year, or who’s put up the fastest time in the previous four years, but who can get their hand on the wall first today.”
618. “How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.” — Lou Holtz
619. “Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played ‘em 10 times, they might win 9, but not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, WE are the greatest hockey team in the world.” -Miracle
620. “I love to play big games, it makes you a bigger player.” – Rafael van der Vaart, soccer player.
621. “The hardest skill to acquire in this sport is the one where you compete all out, give it all you have, and you are still getting beat no matter what you do. When you have the killer instinct to fight through that, it is very special.” – Eddie Reese
622. “No matter how much you’ve won, no matter how many games, no matter how many championships, no matter how many Super Bowls, you’re not winning now, so you stink.” — Bill Parcells
623. “You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.”
624. “The five S’s of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill and spirit – but the greatest of these is spirit.” – Ken Doherty
625. “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.”
626. “If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.” —Mark Spitz
627. “Sport is part of every man and woman’s heritage and its absence can never be compensated for.” — Pierre de Coubertin
628. “Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.” – Pele
629. “Just be patient. Let the game come to you. Don’t rush. Be quick, but don’t hurry.” – Earl Monroe
630. “No man can avoid being born average,but no man has to stay average.” — Satchel Paige
631. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vince Lombardi
632. “I want big games to prove to myself that I’m a winner and not a loser.” – Danilo Gallinari, basketball player.
633. “The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.” - Les Brown
634. “I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
635. “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” ― Michael Jordan
636. “It’s not the will to win that matters. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” –Paul “Bear” Bryant. SOUTHERN LIVING
637. “The harder the battle, the bigger the victory.”
638. “The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” – Wilma Rudolph
639. “No one ever drowned in sweat.” –Lou Holtz
640. “There’s no way around hard work. Embrace it. You have to put in the hours because there is always something you can improve on”
641. “Winners never quit and quitters never win. Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” – Heywood Broun
642. “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
643. “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” – Wayne Gretzky
644. “When you go through a significant injury and have a major career change, you truly do go one year at a time, and you don’t look past what’s going on now, because you are not sure what’s going to happen. Tomorrow is not promised.” — Peyton Manning
645. “The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.”– Wayne Gretzky
646. I figure practice puts your brains in your muscles. –Sam Snead
647. Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live. –Jim Rohn
648. “In the sports arena I would say there is nothing like training and preparation. You have to train your mind as much as your body.” — Venus Williams
649. “You learn you can do your best even when its hard, even when you’re tired and maybe hurting a little bit. It feels good to show some courage. “ — Joe Namath
650. “The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing.” – Jackie Joyner Kersee
651. “I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything.”
652. “Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.” - Lou Holtz
653. “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” - Sandy Koufax
654. Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself. –Usain Bolt
655. “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.” -Vince Lombardi
656. “It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day.” — Willie Mays
657. “They don’t hand out winner’s medals to those who were feeling the best on the day, nor to those who were thinking clearly and positively. The medals only go to those who did the best.”
658. “Just breathe, relax. Sometimes it can be a little bit too tense. We know how important these moments are. But just come out and play our game.” – Jaylen Brown, basketball player.
659. “Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.” – Vince Lombardi
660. A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life. –John Wooden
661. “You have good days, you have bad days. But the main thing is to grow mentally.”
662. Every champion was once a contender that refused to give up. –Rocky Balboa
663. “Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be.”
664. “Most of us never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.”
665. “For every pass I caught in a game, I caught a thousand in practice.” – Dom Hutson
666. “If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.” — Mark Spitz
667. It ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. –Rocky Balboa
668. “You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.” – Jerry West
669. “Football games are generally won by the boys with the greatest desire.” — Bear Bryant
670. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size in the fight of the dog.” – Archie Griffin. SOUTHERN LIVING
671. “Nothing is black-and-white, except for winning and losing, and maybe that’s why people gravitate to that so much.” – Steve Nash
672. “Being a good teammate isn’t about recognition. I do it because it makes me whole and complete.” – Dwyane Wade
673. “Kill them with success and bury them with a smile.” – Usain Bolt
674. “Sport should be in your Blood/Veins, Not in the Joints or Bones.” ― Binoy Boban
675. I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum capabilities. –Bob Nardelli
676. “It’s game day!”
677. “When you fall, get right back up. Just keep going, keep pushing it.” —Lindsey Vonn
678. “Today, you’ve got a decision to make. You’re gonna get better, or you’re gonna get worse, but you’re not gonna stay the same. So which will it be?” – Joe Paterno
679. “Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding.” – Jim Valvano
680. “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” –Terry Bradshaw
681. “When you’re riding, only the race in which you’re riding is important.” – Bill Shoemaker
682. It is not the size of the man, but the size of his heart that matters. –Evander Holyfield
683. A great coach tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. –Sagi Kalev
684. “Victory requires a down payment”
685. “It’s not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.” – Bear Bryant
686. “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” - Joe Namath
687. “Do not let what you can not do interfere with what you can do.”
688. “I am facing a challenge, I am not facing defeat. Remember this.” – Nikki Rowe
689. You must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to never quit.–Abby Wambach
690. “It’s a great day for football”
691. A coach is someone who tells you what you don't want to hear, who has you see what you don't want to see, so you can be who you always known you could be. –Tom Landry
692. “Sometimes in life the biggest challenges end up being the best things that happen in your life.” – Tom Brady, football player.
693. Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. –Winston Churchill
694. It is not what the coach knows; it is what his players have learned. –Unknown
695. “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.”– Lou Brock
696. “I talk a big game because I carry a big stick.” – Richard Sherman, American football player.
697. “Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference.” – Lou Holtz
698. “You can’t always be the best. You have to remember that everyone makes mistakes sometimes.” —Aly Raisman
699. “As the last ball travelled over the net, and as I realized that the final match was mine, I cannot describe. I felt that here was a prize for all the games I had ever played.” – Helen Wills, tennis player.
700. “Dan Marino never won the big game. Does that mean his career is a failure? No, not at all.” – Donovan McNabb, Football quarterback.
701. I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down, and I will not let myself down. –Mia Hamm
702. “Competitive sports are played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch court, the space between your ears.”
703. “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger
704. “Show me a gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.” – Knute Rockne
705. “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” ― Dean Karnazes
706. “Stay focused. Your start does not determine how you’re going to finish.“ – Herm Edwards
707. You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. –Wayne Gretzky
708. “To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them.” – Picabo Street
709. “It ain’t over till it’s over.” – Yogi Berra
710. “Pain is only temporary but victory is forever.” ― Jeremy H
711. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth
712. “Nobody who gave his best ever regretted it.” – George Halas
713. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” and “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”
714. “You’ve got to be confident when you’re competing. You’ve got to be a beast.” —Gabby Douglas
715. “Number one is just to gain a passion for running. To love the morning, to love the trail, to love the pace on the track. And if some kid gets really good at it, that’s cool too.” —Pat Tyson
716. “A team isn’t a bunch of kids out to win. A team is something you belong to, something you feel, something you have to earn.”
717. “Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.”
718. “Close don’t count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.” — Frank Robinson
719. Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. –Earl Nightingale
720. “Passion first and everything will fall into place.” – Holly Holm
721. “A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” — Jack Dempsey
722. “To do things you’ve never done before, you have to do things you’ve never done before.” –Sean Payton. SOUTHERN LIVING
723. “All I know is, I don’t want to stop coaching, and I don’t want to stop winning, so we’re gonna break the record unless I die.” — Bear Bryant
724. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.”
725. Champions keep playing until they get it right. –Billie Jean King
726. “Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.” – Casey Stengel
727. “I got more bruises, grass burns and cuts in practice than in match play.” – Jonty Rhodes
728. I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan
729. “Football is like life. It requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority.” –Vince Lombardi
730. “Winning means you’re willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.” – Vince Lombardo
731. Most talented players don’t always succeed. Some don’t even make the team. It’s more what’s inside. –Brett Favre
732. “In baseball and in business, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” – Tommy Lasorda
733. You’re playing a game, whether it’s Little League or Game 7 of the World Series. It’s impossible to do well unless you’re having a good time. People talk about pressure. Yeah, there’s pressure. But I just look at it as fun. –Derek Jeter
734. “So many people along the way, whatever it is you aspire to do, will tell you it can’t be done. But all it takes is imagination. You dream. You plan. You reach.” – Michael Phelps
735. “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.” - Vitas Gerulaitis
736. “Losing teaches you how to win, winning teaches you how not to lose.” – Matshona Dhliwayo
737. “And I understood that in an age where there was so much ego, because of the camera, that it was very important to look for that kind of player … I began to look for the kind of player that doesn’t need his ego fed by stardom, but will do what he’s supposed to do because he knows the game and loves the game, and will do the job the right way even if someone else gets the glory.”
738. “An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.” – Emil Zatopek
739. “In the field of sports you are more or less accepted for what you do rather than what you are.” — Althea Gibson
740. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop until you get there.” – Bo Jackson
741. “No matter the circumstances you may be going through, just push through it.” –Ray Lewis. SOUTHERN LIVING
742. “Comfort the challenged, and challenge the comfortable.” – Ric Charlesworth
743. “Losing feels worse than winning feels good.” — Vin Scully
744. “Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts.”
745. “When the going gets tough, I’m not always sure what you do. I’m not saying that I know how to fix everything when the going gets tough, but I do know this: when the going goes tough, you don’t quit. And you don’t fold up. And you don’t go in the other direction.”
746. “You’ve got to remember what your priorities are. When you’re playing, what you do on the field is the most important thing.“ — Peyton Manning
747. “If you can’t win, make the one ahead of you break the record.” — John McKeithen
748. “If you’re going to win games, you’re going to have to come up with the big hits. That’s the bottom line.” – Derek Jeter, baseball player.
749. “Even while they teach, men learn.” —Seneca the Younger
750. If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh
751. “Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.” – Frank L. Gaines
752. “From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.” – Arthur Ashe
753. “It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” – Paul “Bear” Bryant
754. “We know how rough the road will be, how heavy here the load will be, we know about the barricades that wait along the track, but we have seen our soul ahead upon a certain goal ahead, and nothing left from hell to sky shall ever turn us back.”
755. “As I look back now on my coaching career, I think of my family, I think of the days that we spent together. So I say this to coaches everywhere: If you ever have a chance to take your kids with you, take them. Don’t miss that opportunity. Because when it’s all over and done with, when you look back, those are going to be your fondest memories.”
756. “Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.” – Jackie Joyner-Kersee
757. “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.”
758. “If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.” – Herschel Walker
759. “It’s not about motivation, it’s about connecting to what matters.”
760. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they worked on it every single day. –Unknown
761. “Never say never because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.” – Michael Jordan
762. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. –Mahatma Ghandi
763. “In sports, it is not the strongest, who wins, but the most practical and skillful” — Sunday Adelaja
764. “Some may have more talent than you, but there is no excuse for anyone working harder than you do.” – John Tavares
765. “Teamwork makes the dream work”
766. “It never gets easier. You just get better.” – Jordan Hoechlin
767. “A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.”
768. “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.”
769. “Preparation is everything and focus is the key. It’s easy to say you gave it your all out on the pitch. But the point is if you’d prepared you’d have had more to give and you’ve played better”.
770. “It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” – Paul Bryant
771. Nothing will work unless you do. –John Wooden
772. “The best athletes in the world are those who are willing to push harder then anyone else, and go through more pain then anyone else.” ― Ashley M.L.
773. Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back…play for her. –Mia Hamm
774. “It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.”
775. “Kids who dream of reaching the top must grow up looking forward to the big games which define them at every level they play.” – Robbie Savage, soccer player.
776. “There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing as life in-between.” – Pat Riley
777. “Life is gonna throw you curve balls and it’s how you deal with them and your attitude and your work ethic.” – Kerri Strug
778. “You learn from mistakes, you learn from losses, but this game doesn’t put something on me where it’s, ‘Hey, I’ve finally done it. This was a big game. We won it and we have to move on.” – LeBron James, basketball player.
779. “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.” – Vernon Law
780. “You can’t win if you don’t play as a unit.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
781. “I keep all my letters saying I wasn’t good enough in my living room as motivation to prove them wrong.” – Aaron Rodgers
782. “Finding the right balance is very important in preparing for a big game or for business. If you are mentally in the right zone, you will play well whether in sports or in business.” – Virat Kohli, cricket player.
783. “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.” – Andre Agassi
784. “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”
785. “When the game is over, I just want to look at myself in the mirror, win or lose, and know I gave it everything I had.”
786. Room 235, Terrill Hall, University of North Texas
787. “A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive, and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.”
788. “It’s not about reducing pressure it’s about building the capacity to embrace more.”
789. “Do not let what you can not do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden
790. “Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling.”
791. “A good sport can be contrasted with someone who tries to ‘win at all costs’.” ― Nick Hunter
792. Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears. –Laird Hamilton
793. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Tim Notke
794. “You have to do something in your life that is honorable and not cowardly if you are to live in peace with yourself.” – Larry Brown
795. You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within. –Bob Nelson
796. “I’ve always thrived under the pressure of the big games. I enjoy that, and there’s nothing I get afraid about.” – Dele Alli, Soccer player.
797. “It’s not wanting to win that makes you a winner; it’s refusing to fail.”
798. “To give any less than your best is to sacrifice a gift.” – Steve Prefontaine
799. “You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation.” —Homer Rice
800. “I believe in the impossible because no one else does.” – Florence Griffith Joyner
801. “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” – Archie Griffin
802. “On a football team, it’s not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together.” – Bill Belichik
803. “Listen to everyone because even an idiot will have a good idea once or twice in their life. Then evaluate and pick out what works for you and commit to it.”
804. “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” – Dean Karnazes
805. “Stubbornness usually is considered a negative; but I think that trait has been a positive for me.”- Cal Ripken, Jr.
806. “If you think you’re done, you always have at least 40 percent more.” —Lauren Crandall
807. “Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever.” — Billie Jean King
808. “To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.”
809. “Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.” – John Wooden
810. “It’s what you learn after you think you know it all that really counts.” – John Wooden
811. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” –Vince Lombardi
812. “Don’t be a spectator. Don’t let life pass you by.” – Lou Holtz
813. “Blessed, stressed and football-obsessed”
814. “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz
815. “Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points.” – Knute Rockne
816. “Sports teaches you character. It teaches you to play by the rules. It teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose. It teaches you about life.”— Billie Jean King
817. “I believe in myself.” – Muhammad Ali
818. “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” – Vince Lombardi
819. “Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next.”— George Steinbrenner
820. “If you don’t start out aiming for the big game, you almost never can get there.” – Reid Hoffman
821. “Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.” —Laird Hamilton
822. If something stands between you and your success, move it. Never be denied. –Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
823. But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration — because it’s a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. –James Cameron
824. “Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it’s because you’ve started to think of failure.” – Tommy Lasorda
825. “Before you can win, you have to believe you are worthy.” – Mike Ditka, American football coach.
826. “Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.” – Pat Riley
827. “Dreams are free. Goals have a cost. While you can daydream for free, goals don’t come without a price. Time, Effort, Sacrifice, and Sweat. How will you pay for your goals?“
828. “Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.”– Lou Holtz
829. “Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.” – Lou Holtz
830. “Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.”
831. “Good is not good when better is expected.” – Vin Scully
832. “I’ve never lost a game I just ran out of time.” ― Michael Jordan
833. “The only way to prove you are a good sport is to lose.” – Ernie Banks
834. “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.”
835. Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.” –Arnold Schwarzenegger
836. “The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.” — Les Brown
837. “Victory is in having done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won.” – Billy Bowerman
838. “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”
839. To be a champ you have to believe in yourself when no one else will. –Sugar Ray Robinson
840. “Sports creates complicated men, proud enough to refuse to admit their mistakes, but humble enough always to put their team first.” — Fredrik Backman
841. “The road to success runs uphill.”
842. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” - Billie Jean King
843. Winners never quit and quitters never win. –Vince Lombardi
844. “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” – Bobby Unser
845. “Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed in the loss.”
846. “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them; a desire, a dream, a vision.”
847. “It’s not about positive thinking it’s about taking positive action, no matter what you feel. There are no gold medals for the best positive self talk at the Olympics. Sport is a behaviour.”
848. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. –Tim Notke
849. “Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.” —Wilma Rudolph
850. “Show me a guy who's afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time.”
851. “If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don’t care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book were gonna be winners.” -Hoosiers
852. “Wisdom is always an over match for strength.” – Phil Jackson
853. “Comfort the challenged, and challenge the comfortable”
854. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’”– Muhammad Ali
855. “In the end, the game comes down to one thing: man against man. May the best man win.” ― Sam Huff
856. “Sometimes stars don’t have big games and it’s tough to win. That’s one thing that with our team we always say no matter what, we can go out there and get a win.” – Draymond Green, basketball player.
857. “The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.” – Steve Young
858. “You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself – your own highest standards – and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.” – Arthur Ashe
859. “The strength of the team is in each individual member…the strength of each member is the team.”
860. “To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.” – Tony Dorsett
861. “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” - Yogi Berra
862. “If you can’t outplay them, outwork them.” - Ben Hogan
863. “The attitude with which we approach the situation can determine our success or failure.”
864. “It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.” – Evander Holyfield
865. “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” – Joe Namath
866. “The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.”
867. “If something stands between you and your success, move it. Never be denied.” —Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
868. One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. –Kareem Abdul-Jabaar
869. “Sport is singularly able to give us peak experience where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential.” — George A. Sheehan
870. A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever. –Mary Lou Retten
871. “Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That’s what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.” —Bethany Hamilton
872. “Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.”― Mike Singletary
873. “When I go out there, I have no pity on my brother. I am out there to win.” – Joe Frazier
874. “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.” – Vitas Gerulaitis
875. “What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle, and giving 110 percent all the time.” – Don Zimmer
876. “Great players show up to big games.” – Brad Marchand, Ice hockey player.
877. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
878. “You need to face your fears head on. Don’t avoid them or say that you’re not scared. Acknowledge it and be honest about it. It’s normal to get nervous about a big game or to get nervous about an important event in your life.” – Matt Cullen, Ice hockey center.
879. “Some people say I have attitude – maybe I do…but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there. ” – Venus Williams
880. “The best and fastest way to learn a sport is to watch and imitate a champion.” — Jean-Claude Killy
881. I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan
882. “Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done the best way it can be done, and do it that way every time.” – Bob Knight
883. If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done. –Thomas Jefferson
884. “It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” —Paul “Bear” Bryant
885. “I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.” –Emmitt Smith
886. “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” – Michael Jordan
887. “A good leader is always learning. The great leaders start learning young and continue until their last breath.”
888. “I used everything as a positive to make me a better person and a better player. I have no regrets. Everytime I had to play a big game, I played a big game. I used some of the skepticism as a positive and motivation.” – Chris Osgood, hockey goaltender.
889. Never say never because limits, like fears, are often just illusions. –Michael Jordan
890. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali
891. “Don’t let people tell you that you can’t do something.” – Laurie Hernandez
892. “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.” – Muhammad Ali
893. “Creating gold from dross is alchemy; making lemonade when you’re given lemons is leadership; making lemonade when you don’t have any lemons is great leadership.”
894. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” - Muhammad Ali
895. “It’s going to be a journey. It’s not a sprint to get in shape.” —Kerri Walsh Jennings
896. “Love is playing every game as if it’s your last.” ― Michael Jordan
897. “If you want to be the best, you have to do the things that other people aren’t willing to do.”
898. “You can’t win the big game until you win it.” – Carson Palmer, football player.
899. “Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.” — Liane Cardes
900. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
901. “The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight."
902. “The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.” – Les Brown
903. “The four most powerful words are: I believe in you.”
904. “Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points, they almost always win.”
905. “A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.”
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