Famous Sports Quotes

“The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity.” Lewis Grizzard

“I asked Darrell Royal, the coach of the Texas Longhorns, why he didn’t recruit me and he said: “Well, Walt, we took a look at you and you weren’t any good.”
Walt Garrison / Oklahoma State

“football is not a contact sport-it is a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport.”
Duffy Daugherty / Michigan State

“After USC lost 51-0 to Notre Dame, his post game message to his team: “All those who need showers, take them.”
John McKay / USC

“Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.” Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh

Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he’s got to play from the ground up — from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That’s OK You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second.
Vince Lombardi

No star playing, just football.
Knute Rockne

People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies strewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.
Don Delillo

There is a progression of understanding vis-a-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance — physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way. Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit mystique that blew the sacred institution of baseball off its ”national pastime” pedestal in less than fifteen years.
Hunter S. Thompson

NFL owners should quit worrying about silly things like players celebrating in the end zone. They should give them something to really celebrate. Get rid of the artificial surfaces.
O. J. Simpson

More Famous Football Quotes:

Read the rest of this entry »

Image by jasonpearce via Flickr

Quotes about the sport of basketball by players, coaches, fans and media.

The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot. ~Bill Russell

I hate it. It looks like a stickup at 7-Eleven. Five guys standing there with their hands in the air. ~Norm Sloan, on zone defense

Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up. ~Red Auerbach

Fans never fall asleep at our games, because they’re afraid they might get hit by a pass. ~George Raveling

Any American boy can be a basketball star if he grows up, up, up.
Bill Vaughn

One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The invention of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need. Those boys simply would not play “Drop the Handkerchief.” ~James Naismith

This is the second most exciting indoor sport, and the other one shouldn’t have spectators. ~Dick Vertleib

There are really only two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and put the darn ball in the basket. ~Abe Lemons

Any American boy can be a basketball star if he grows up, up, up. ~Bill Vaughn

If the NBA were on channel 5 and a bunch of frogs making love was on channel 4, I’d watch the frogs even if they were coming in fuzzy. ~Bobby Knight

The rule was “No autopsy, no foul.” ~Stewart Granger, on the pickup games of his childhood

When it’s played the way is spozed to be played, basketball happens in the air; flying, floating, elevated above the floor, levitating the way oppressed peoples of this earth imagine themselves in their dreams. ~John Edgar Wideman

I haven’t been able to slam-dunk the basketball for the past five years. Or, for the thirty-eight years before that, either. ~Dave Barry

I look at the NBA as a football game without the helmet. ~Tom Tolbert

To win, you’ve got to put the ball in the macramé. ~Terry McGuire

These are my new shoes. They’re good shoes. They won’t make you rich like me, they won’t make you rebound like me, they definitely won’t make you handsome like me. They’ll only make you have shoes like me. That’s it. ~From a Charles Barkley commercial for basketball shoes, 1993

I liked the choreography, but I didn’t care for the costumes. ~Tommy Tune, on why he never considered playing basketball

If you meet the Buddha in the lane, feed him the ball. ~Phil Jackson

Nothing there but basketball, a game which won’t be fit for people until they set the basket umbilicus-high and return the giraffes to the zoo. ~Ogden Nash Read the rest of this entry »

 

QUOTES ABOUT YANKEE STADIUM

“To be a Yankee is a thought in everyone’s head . . .Just walking into Yankee Stadium, chills run through you.
Jim “Catfish” Hunter

“To play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer.”
Mickey Mantle

“When I first came to Yankee Stadium, I used to feel like the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were walking around in there.”
Mickey Mantle

“I thought it (Yankee Stadium) would be in black and white.”
Greg Maddux,

“That Babe was some architect.”
“Nothing in our league compares to Yankee Stadium.”
Chipper Jones

“When I came up to the Yanks from Newark at the end of the 1946 season, I took one look at the staium and thought, ‘Geez, whatta big place!’”
Yogi Berra

“Thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee. . . .I suppoose we get more sentimental as we get older. That day they had for me, more than any at Yankee Stadium, gave me an awful lot of satisfaction-a feeling that I’d done a pretty good job with the only talent I had.”
Joe DiMaggio

“People from out of town say ther are three things they want to see - the Statue of Liberty, Radio City, and Yankee Stadium. I guess you could say the stadium is hallowed ground.”
Bill Waite

“Yankee Stadium is something else, a law unto itself. It has earned the right to look any way it pleases and I would change a seat of it. . . .It is particularly dreamworthy because not so long ago the World Series used to turn up there as regularly as Wimbledon. I once sneaked out to center field myself as a youth to see how things looked from Mickey Mantle’s point of view and felt the same tingle some people get from Civil War battlefields.”
Wilfred Sheed

“Every day I went to the ballpark in Yankee Stadium as well as on the road people were on my back. The last six years in the American League were mental hell for me. I was drained of all my desire to play baseball.”
Roger Maris

“The crack of a bat sounded amplified in cavernous Yankee Stadium, sprinkled lightly with fans on a cool September evening.”
William E. Geist quotes

“Some ball yard!”
Babe Ruth

“There was a great, dark mystery about it when I first came here from Oklahoma. I still get goose pimples just walking inside it. Now I think this is about the prettiest ball park I ever saw.”
Mickey Mantle

“I grew up loving Southern League Baseball. When I was four my daddy took me to the old Rickwood Field in Birmingham. Then, coming to Yankee Stadium in 1937 for the first time-where the greats like the Babe, Lou and DiMag played-was just beyond my dreams. Suddenly here I was, a guy supposed to practice law, broadcasting Yankee home games on radio from this mecca of baseball. This was the place, the number-one place in baseball. The stadium was like the Empire State Building or the Grand Canyon of baseball, and every time I stepped inside of it I had to pinch myself!”
Mel Allen

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Final Days of Yankee Stadium


• 10 Memorable Moments at Yankee Stadium (and then some)


• Commentary: Yankee recalls doomed stadium

Winner of 9 Gold Medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Michael Phelps has become an icon and a hero for many.  Here are some Michael Phelps Quotes

Being compared to Ian Thorpe, that could be one of the greatest compliments you could ever get in swimming - being compared to him and Mark Spitz.

—-
Every day after I wake up, I think, ‘Wait… this can’t be real; I’m still going to wake up.’
—-

I always thought, it would be neat to make the Olympic team.
—-

I have reached a place in my life where I need to sit down and say, ‘Well, what do I do? What’s best for me?’ I need to look into options for the future.
—-

I have the opportunity to be part of swimming history. To take the sport to a new level would be an honor for me. There’s no better time to try this than now.
—-

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.
—-

I want to be able to look back and say, ‘I’ve done everything I can, and I was successful.’ I don’t want to look back and say I should have done this or that. I’d like to change things for the younger generation of swimmers coming along.
—-

I want to test my maximum and see how much I can do. And I want to change the world of swimming.
—-

I won’t predict anything historic. But nothing is impossible.
—-

I wouldn’t say anything is impossible. I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and put the work and time into it.
—-

I’m the same kind of guy before all this happened.
—-

If I didn’t swim my best, I’d think about it at school, at dinner, with my friends. It would drive me crazy.
—-

My goal is one Olympic gold medal. Not many people in this world can say, ‘I’m an Olympic gold medalist.’
—-

Swimming is normal for me. I’m relaxed. I’m comfortable, and I know my surroundings. It’s my home.
—-

There is a one woman in China that claimed she paid $50 to get my e-mail address. It was pretty shocking. I got one this morning from Scotland. A girl’s requesting a signed photo of me.
—-

You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.
Michael Phelps

Related Michael Phelps articles by Zemanta

• Michael Phelps joins Olympic greats with ninth gold medal
• Is Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian ever?
• Michael Phelps Donates $1 Million To Charity
• Caple: How you, too, can be an Olympic stud like Michael Phelps

 Image by Getty Images via Daylife

May 20, 1946 - July 12, 2008  RIP Bobby Murcer

“I feel especially blessed to have been able to hear from and see all these Wonderful People. Through this entire ordeal, their prayers and support have been so gratifying. You have no idea what a strength the fans have been for me.”  

When recovering, Murcer said, “God has blessed me so much since I was diagnosed with this brain tumor and so many blessings have come my way.  Its changed our lives for the better”

On returning to broadcasting, Murcer said, “I can’t tell you I know everything about baseball, but I’ll just make it up like I always do.” 

You decide you’ll wait for your pitch. Then as the ball starts toward the plate, you think about your stance. And then you think about your swing. And then you realize that the ball that went past you for a strike was your pitch.

“Trying to hit him [Phil Niekro] was like trying to eat Jell-O with chopsticks.”

“Any time I walk through these halls and be in this place here, talking about baseball, man, that’s right up my alley,” Murcer said in May.

Quotes by Bobby Murcer Peers:
“It’s a sad day.  Just a wonderful person, a great teammate and a heck of a baseball player. [Wife] Kay and Bobby were good friends. I was informed about this about five minutes ago, and I knew that he was struggling. But, boy, you just don’t think these sort of things happen, but they do. They happen frequently.”  ~Lou Pinella

“All of Major League Baseball is saddened today by the passing of Bobby Murcer, particularly on the eve of this historic All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium, a place he called home for so many years. Bobby was a gentleman, a great ambassador for baseball, and a true leader both on and off the field. He was a man of great heart and compassion and made many wonderful contributions to the Baseball Assistance Team and to the game. All of us in baseball will miss him. We pass on our sympathies and condolences to his family and to his many friends.”  ~Allan “Bud” Selig

“Bobby Murcer was a born Yankee, a great guy, very well-liked and a true friend of mine. I extend my deepest sympathies to his wife Kay, their children and grandchildren. I will really miss the guy.”  ~George Steinbrenner

“He was so great in the clubhouse, just a pleasure to have in the clubhouse. The players really loved having him around. Old-Timers Day was always a special day for Bobby. When the Yankees would come to Kansas City when I was growing up there, he was always one of the guys I was trying to get an autograph from. He was a really good player, a really solid left-handed hitter.”  ~David Cone

“Bobby was one of the finest human beings I’ve ever met. He handled his battle with a grace and class that was hard to fathom. For me personally, it’s an incredible loss. He was my idol growing up. I was lucky to work with him as a broadcaster, and it showed me that I had great taste as a kid. He was everything that you’d want in someone that you once looked up to. He lived up to every ideal that a little boy set for him. I’m going to miss him a lot. I miss him a lot already.”   ~Broadcaster Michael Kay

“He was a great Yankee, but more importantly, he was a great friend to all of us. He cared about the game — he cared whether we won or lost every day. He wore his emotions on his sleeve — in the booth and as a player.”  ~Joe Girardi

“From Day 1, through all my struggles, he was always there with a smile. He stayed very positive, very uplifting. He’s a symbol for what the Yankees stand for — he’s a real champion.”  ~Alex Rodriguez

“He loved to talk hitting all the time. He was a great hitter, made a lot of adjustments playing in Yankee Stadium with that short right-field wall, but the biggest thing was the spirit that he had. He was always happy, always had a positive spin on something, whether you were struggling or not. He always was that guy who would come down and root you on.”  ~Jason Giambi

“Ever since I was a young player, any time I did something good, he would always come over and congratulate me. He always stayed positive, even when you struggled. He was always someone you looked forward to seeing.” ~Derek Jeter

Related articles

• Former Yanks All-Star, broadcaster Murcer dies
• One-time Yankee Bobby Murcer loses cancer battle
• Ex-Yanks Star, Broadcaster Bobby Murcer Dies at 62
• Former Yankee Bobby Murcer Dead At 62
• Yankees All-Star, announcer Murcer dies at 62
• Yankees’ ex-star, broadcaster Murcer dies at 62
• Beloved Yankee Remembered as an Example

In all sport there is pain but the rewards of that pain are worth every ounce of blood, sweat and tears.  Sports pain quotes:

“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”
Unknown


“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
Carl Jung


“The pain of disipline is far less than the pain of regret”
- Sarah Bombell, swimmer

“Sweet is Pleasure after Pain”
- Dirigo Rowing

“Your training partner’s name is pain. You start out trying to ignore him. Can’t do it. You attempt to reason with him. No way. You try to strike a bargain. Hah. You plead. You say “Please stop, please go away. I promise never ever to do this again if you just leave me alone.” But he won’t. Pain only climbs off if you do. Then you’re beaten. ”
- Scott Martin

“The Truth is that Running Hurts. No one gets faster without meeting their personal pain barrier straight on. No amount of junk miles, fun runs or affirmations are going to get you over the hill at the five mile mark in a 10k. However, what will pull you through is solid prep with hard hill runs and interval work.”
- Manciata

Pain is nothing compared to what it feels like to quit.  ~Author Unknown

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.
Jim Rohn

Pain is only temporary but victory is forever. - Lance Armstrong

Image via Wikipedia

What can be said about Howard Cosell?  I hope you’re old enough to remember his broadcasts.  Below are some quotes by Cosell and by his peers.
Without me, the nature of the telecasts was entirely altered. I had commanded attention. I had a palpable impact on the show, giving it a sense of moment. If that sounds like ego, what can I say? I’m telling it like it is.  - Howard Cosell Quote

===

“He become a giant by the simple act of telling the truth in an industry that was not used to hearing it and considered it revolutionary. Every person working in sports journalism today owes a tremendous debt to Howard Cosell. His greatest contribution was elevating sports reporting out of daily play-by-play and placing it in the larger context of society.”
– Roone Arledge quote, ABC News president
Famous Howard Cosell Quotes

“Sports is the toy department of human life.”

===

“Courage takes many forms. There is physical courage, there is moral courage. Then there is a still higher type of courage–the courage to brave pain, to live with it, to never let others know of it and to still find joy in life; to wake up in the morning with an enthusiasm for the day ahead.”

===

“The ultimate victory in competition is derived from the inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done your best and that you have gotten the most out of what you had to give.”

===
 
“What’s right isn’t always popular. What’s popular isn’t always right.”
 
===

“Mommy, why does daddy cuss the TV and call it Howard?”

===

“Joe Schmidt, he couldn’t motivate a frog,”
===

“Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these. Of course, I am.”

===

“I see nothing to sanctify any sports event.”

===

“The man has a cash register where a heart should be.”
About Los Angeles Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley.

===

“Look at that little monkey run.”
About wide receiver Alvin Garrett.

===

“Boxing is the only sport in the world where the clear intention is for one person to inflict bodily harm upon the other person, mainly to the head where brain damage must ensue … I don’t think improvements or controls are the answer. I think the answer is abolition.”

===

“Like President Reagan, he is a Teflon man. No matter how many mistakes he makes during a telecast, no matter how glaring his weaknesses as a performer, nothing sticks to him. The television critics, wooed by his smooth off-camera personality, generally rave about him, rarely taking him to task on purely objective standards.”
About colleague Frank Gifford.
Famous quotes by Howard Cosell’s peers:

“Howard Cosell was a good man and he lived a good life. I have been interviewed by many people, but I enjoyed interviews with Howard the best. We always put on a good show. I hope to meet him one day in the hereafter. I can hear Howard now saying, Muhammad, you’re not the man you used to be.’ I pray that he is in God’s hands. I will miss him.”
– Muhammed Ali

===

“He rose to prominence during a time of drama and upheaval in sports. His style — part journalist, part carnival barker — made him unique.”
– NBC sportscaster Bob Costas

===

===
“He was loud, boisterous and extreme, but he really got people’s attention and he was really bright.”
– Former tennis champion Billie Jean King

===

“I used to kid him, You couldn’t diagram an end run,’ but he memorized the press guides, everything.”
– Sportscaster Curt Gowdy

• Remembering Howard Cosell, 13 Years Later [Howard Cosell] [via Zemanta]

Some of the greates sports quotes below.  Find more great sports quotes on DMOZ.

Every game is an opportunity to measure yourself against your own potential.
Bud Wilkinson

It is how you show up at the showdown that counts.
Homer Norton

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

Close doesn’t count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Frank Robinson

Discipline is not a dirty word.
Pat Riley

Statistics are used much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.
Vin Scully

The only way I’m coming to Washington is if I am elected. And if I do, I will paint the White House pink and turn it into a Mexican restaurant.
Bill “The Spaceman” Lee

I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won’t matter if I get this guy out.
Bill The Spaceman” Lee

I have four basic pitches: fastball, curve, slider and change-up, plus eight illegal ones.
Tommy John

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

Success isn’t something that just happens - success is learned, success is practiced and then it is shared.
Sparky Anderson

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.
Aristotle

Make yourself necessary to somebody.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyone I meet is in some way my superior.
William Shakespeare

The only way to maximize potential for performance is to be calm in the mind.
Brian Sipe

Playing golf is like going to a strip joint. After 18 holes you’re tired and most of your balls are missing.
Tim Allen

Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher in baseball. He is always pitching when the other team doesn’t score any runs.
Tim McCarver

Sports fans, I have the final score for you on the big game between Harvard and William & Mary. It is: Harvard 14, William 12, Mary 6.
Steve Allen

Baseball owners have moral scruples against taking any man’s dollar when there is a chance to take a dollar and a quarter.
Red Smith

Why do people sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” when they’re already there?
Larry Andersen

If he’s a good fastball hitter, should I throw him a bad fastball?
Larry Andersen

I am going to turn this team around 360 degrees.
Jerome Bettis

A hot dog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz.

Image via Wikipedia

The best of the best team up and face each other at in Baseball’s Midsummer Summer Classic, the All Star Game.  The 2008 game is to be held at Yankee Stadium.  The last All Star game at “The House That Ruth Built” before they move to their new location next year.

All Star Sports Quotes from some famous All Star people:
“The only thing bad about winning the pennant is that you have to manage the All-Star Game the next year. I’d rather go fishing for three years.”
Whitey Herzog
 
“We knew we had to keep playing until the game was decided one way or the other. We played 10, 15 innings sometimes. The All-Star Game was important to us. We weren’t worried about setting records. We were worried about winning.”
Willie Mays
 
“If I ain’t startin’, I am departin’.” - Garry Templeton (1981 All-Star Game)

“In All-Star Games the players are chosen by balloting. Millions of fans vote. It is Democracy at its most transcendent. All the voters get out of it is the loss of a three-cent stamp or a two-cent postal card. Dishonesty in counting the votes has never been charged.” - Fred Schwed

“I think the National League has better biorhythms in July.” - Earl Weaver (1979 All-Star Game)

“It’s right up there with lobster.” - Gary Gaetti in The Sporting News on being voted to the All-Star Game (August 1, 1988)

“They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays.”
Ted Williams

He’s such a big, strong guy he should love that porch (in Tiger Stadium). He’s got power enough to hit home runs in any park, including Yellowstone.” - Sparky Anderson (1971 All-Star Game on Willie Stargell)
“The 1930s also saw an effort to apply the principles of business to baseball, especially in the area of advertising and promotional techniques. The first major breakthrough came in 1933 with the institution of the All-Star Game.” - Richard Crepeau

• Midsummer Classic 2008: First Base [via Zemanta]
• MLB to honor Hall of Famers in All-Star ceremony [via Zemanta]

Call it “football” or “soccer“, he was the greatest.  Born, Edison Arantes do Nascimento here are some quotes by the Brazilian soccer player better known as, Pele.

 
“A penalty is a cowardly way to score.”
 
“For 20 years they have been asking me the same question, who is the greatest? Maradona or Pele? I reply that all you have to do is look at the facts - how many goals did he score with his right foot or with his head?”
 
“He is the best in the world right now, … Without a doubt, he is the player who gives [Brazilians] the most joy.”
 
“I’m worried with this front-runner status, … We have had several examples of teams that were heavy favorites … but ended losing.”
 
“the most talented kid we’ve ever seen at that age.”
 
“For me it’s a proud moment to be here today,”
 
“it is encouraging to hear that men of great ability themselves think that we have talent in our ranks.”

“It helps a lot, … We get a jump start and get to know everything and be together as a team when a lot of teams aren’t.”

“Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.” 
 
“I’ve come to accept that the life of a frontrunner is a hard one, that he will suffer more injuries than most men and that many of these injuries will not be accidental.”
 
“Everything is practice.”
  
“He was something very special, … I couldn’t believe it when Sven spoke of Wayne in the same breath but it just goes to show how special he has become and how highly thought of he is now.”

Image via Wikipedia

• David Beckham Honors Soccer Legend Pele