Bowerman Quotes

#1. 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

#2. Track coach Bill Bowerman decided that his team needed better, lighter running shoes. So he went out to his workshop and poured rubber into the family waffle iron. That's how Nike's famous waffle sole was born.

Jason Fried

#3. I am very outspoken, obviously, and I should say that I can't judge anyone for doing anything.

Kat Dennings

#4. An evil light sparked in his eyes. "You could always go for Plan B."
"Pound everyone to a bloody pulp until they shut up and cooperate?"
"Exactly."
-Curran and Kate

Ilona Andrews

#5. 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

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

Bill Bowerman

#7. People say to me, 'Danielle, you're such a wonderful person. Why are you single ?' How the hell do I know ? Why don't you ask the people who aren't dating me ?!?

Danielle Henderson

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

Bill Bowerman

#9. 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

#10. Everything you need is already inside.

Bill Bowerman

#11. We're not exactly going to the wilderness, Shane. You don't have to take everything. There are vending machines.

Rachel Caine

#12. Now, to follow out this reasoning, what is the marvellous? - that which we do not understand. What is it that we really desire? - that which we cannot obtain.

Alexandre Dumas

#13. The beard, being a half-mask, should be forbidden by the police - It is, moreover, as a sexual symbol in the middle of the face, obscene: that is why it pleases women.

Arthur Schopenhauer

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

Bill Bowerman

#15. I like to stack them up on the shelf and move them about and rearrange them according to new parameters-height, color, thickness, provenance, publisher, author's nationality, subject matter, likelihood that I will ever read them. Then I put them back the way they were.

Joe Queenan

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

Bill Bowerman

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

Bill Bowerman

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

Bill Bowerman

#19. Often, joking for me is a way of diffusing the awkwardness of a situation, so it's kind of exhilarating to be a part of projects where there's nothing funny or lighthearted.

Emma Stone

#20. There are a great many sins in this world, none of them original.

Richard Russo

#21. 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

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

Bill Bowerman

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

Bill Bowerman

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

Bill Bowerman

#25. 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

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

Bill Bowerman

#27. I like a hairy chest, I think that's really sexy. I'm not naked a lot oddly enough but I usually wear sweats, its very unsexy.

Brooklyn Decker

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

Bill Bowerman

#29. When I compare myself, my being-myself, with anything else whatever, all things alike, all in the same degree, rebuff me with blank unlikeness.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

#30. The worst cruelty that can be inflicted on a human being is isolation.

Sukarno

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

Bill Bowerman