Bill Bowerman Quotes

#1. God determines how fast you're going to run; I can help only with the mechanics.

Bill Bowerman

#2. If you have a body, you are an athlete!

Bill Bowerman

#3. Victory is in having done your best. If you've done your best, you've won.

Bill Bowerman

#4. A teacher is never too smart to learn from his pupils. But while runners differ, basic principles never change. So it's a matter of fitting your current practices to fit the event and the individual. See, what's good for you might not be worth a darn for the next guy.

Bill Bowerman

#5. There is no bad weather, just soft runners.

Bill Bowerman

#6. The real purpose of running isn't to win a race, it's to test the limits of the human heart.

Bill Bowerman

#7. The athlete makes himself, the coach doesn't make the athlete.

Bill Bowerman

#8. The idea that the harder you work, the better you're going to be is just garbage. The greatest improvement is made by the man or woman who works most intelligently.

Bill Bowerman

#9. Don't give anything away. Never make it easy for the guys you are trying to beat.

Bill Bowerman

#10. To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.

Bill Bowerman

#11. The magic is in the man, not the 100 miles.

Bill Bowerman

#12. If at the end of a race you know yourself that you have done your best, you're a winner.

Bill Bowerman

#13. Everything you need is already inside.

Bill Bowerman

#14. Several of my critics have said, 'Bowerman just tacks up a piece of paper in the locker room and turns his runners loose.' They're partially right. I do give the athletes a relatively free rein and for good reason. One of my principles is? 'Don't overcoach.'

Bill Bowerman

#15. I think people can handle 150 to 200 miles a week. But something has to give somewhere. If he's a student, how's he going to study? He may be at the age of chasing and courtship, and that's an important form of sport and recreation, too.

Bill Bowerman

#16. Now to explore the limits of the one competitor above everyone else you've always loved to face: Steve Prefontaine.

Bill Bowerman

#17. There's no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.

Bill Bowerman

#18. I still bother with runners I call hamburgers. They're never going to run any record times. But they can fulfill their own potential.

Bill Bowerman