Championship Quotes

#1. It's probably indicative that I was destined for an academic career that I'm 6-5 and I lost the slam-dunk championship to somebody 5-8. I was a lot better at math.

Peter Blair Henry

#2. I feel like winning a world championship was a hurdle I had to get over.

Lindsey Vonn

#3. If I would have listened to other people back in 2000 telling me I should have stopped playing basketball because of a kidney disease, I wouldn't have won a world championship.

Alonzo Mourning

#4. In this millennium that we live in, the 'Hack-a-Shaq'has proven not to work. It might work a couple games every now and then, but when it comes to the playoffs or a championship series, it doesn't work - not at all.

Shaquille O'Neal

#5. You can take a sidewards step in the Premier League, go to a team in the Championship or come to a team in League One.

Alan Smith

#6. Building a business and becoming a billionaire is it's not championship. It's the competence; the competence in your sector with other companies not looking to have some kind of records in this issue.

Carlos Slim

#7. The championship always goes to the team that wins the most rounds and is the most prepared. I think everybody on our team works hard towards keeping that goal. Time will tell if we're prepared or not.

Larry Dixon

#8. Growing up, I always dreamed of winning a major championship.

Jeev Milkha Singh

#9. Winning the Indy 500 in 1995 and the Formula 1 championship in 1997 are very special moments for me, and the people in NASCAR show me respect for what I've achieved so far in my career.

Jacques Villeneuve

#10. I'm very excited about my new agreement with the Heat. This contract allows me to address all of my family's long-term financial goals while allowing the Heat the ability to acquire those players that we need to win a championship.

Shaquille O'Neal

#11. If you win a National Championship, or you win two, people think you have not only seen the Holy Grail, but you've embraced it. Basically, I do what a lot of people do, but I've been able to win.

Mike Krzyzewski

#12. I can see Sue and I leading this team to many more championships ... We're going to take this and learn from it. We worked too hard for this.

Lauren Jackson

#13. The support this city and our fans have shown the Grizzlies made my decision to stay in Memphis an easy one. Memphis deserves a championship team, and I am committed to that.

Jerry West

#14. Pressure is working down the pit. Pressure is having no work at all. Pressure is trying to escape relegation on 50 shillings a week. Pressure is not the European Cup or the Championship or the Cup Final. That's the reward.

Bill Shankly

#15. I was trying to control myself because I wanted to just park the car and jump out and do cartwheels. The next dream is to win the world championship.

Lewis Hamilton

#16. There's nothing easy about winning a game in the National Football League, let alone winning a championship, things that we've done in the past. However, that's in the past.

Rodney Harrison

#17. Every game's a championship game. When we focus that way, get prepared that way-that this is it, you know, this is the last one, the biggest one-you get ready, you get amped up, you get that laser focus and you're ready to play.

Russell Wilson

#18. When I won the world championship, in 1972, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, a baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country.

Bobby Fischer

#19. I've had more world championships than you've had women!

Ric Flair

#20. You've got to coach worrying about your entire team: whether that gets you a championship or whether that gets you fired. I think it allows you to coach free. You're coaching with freedom because you know you're doing what you think is right.

Doc Rivers

#21. Any time you play in a USGA Championship, if you don't drive the ball on the fairway, you're dead. You're done.

Tom Watson

#22. When we won the league championship, all the married guys on the club had to thank their wives for putting up with all the stress and strain all season. I had to thank all the single broads in New York.

Joe Namath

#23. It's not about being a head coach, I'd rather be a DC at Auburn and win championships.

Will Muschamp

#24. Around the time I opened my second restaurant, Etta's, I had just finished judging at the Jack Daniels World Invitational BBQ Championship in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Back home in Seattle, my goal was to recreate the sweet and smoky taste of that BBQ using our local wild king salmon instead of pig.

Tom Douglas

#25. In those years, it was easier to win the Soviet Championship than a game against 'Iron Tigran'.

Lev Polugaevsky

#26. Anyone who doesn't win their conference has no business playing in the national championship game.

Nick Saban

#27. To win a national championship, you've got to be a little lucky.

Lou Holtz

#28. I want to win four or five championship rings. That's how I dream. I dream big.

Adrian Peterson

#29. Clinching the [County] Championship is a strange sensation ... There's more atmosphere in a doctor's waiting room

Simon Hughes

#30. I am very pleased with my synthetic golf green from Southwest Greens. It reacts like a championship golf green, so I can practice my short game whenever I'm at home. I couldn't believe that a synthetic green could be this perfect.

Matteo Manassero

#31. I once heard that Paul Seymour said as much as winning an NBA Championship, he'd like to see the Celtics lose a game after Auerbach brought out the cigar so he could go up to Arnold and stuff the cigar in his face.

Bob Cousy

#32. My pat line about the Cubs and payroll is that the amount of merchandise the Cubs would sell off a world series championship would more than cover for a big payroll.

Billy Corgan

#33. I've been a very lucky guy. I played on championship teams. I played for Canada. I've won some awards and I'm very proud of those accomplishments. But I don't think there's anything greater than to come home and to be recognized at home. This is the pinnacle.

Bobby Orr

#34. As a sophomore, I wanted to play varsity in three sports. And I accomplished that. It was a great feat that year, and something I held special. I wanted to bring a championship team to Oceanside High School, and it happened. It was a great year that I will never forget.

Junior Seau

#35. When Paul Brown talked contract, the championship game was part of it. We took the championship game for granted.

Otto Graham

#36. I think this can be a championship team. But we do have to take it one game at a time. You can't look at the end of the road before you get the next foot in.

Michael Strahan

#37. On the other hand, chess is a mass sport now and for chess organisers shorter time control is obviously more attractive. But I think that this control does not suit World Championship matches.

Boris Spassky

#38. People want national championship banners. People want to talk about Indiana being competitive. How do we get there? We don't get there with milk and cookies.

Bobby Knight

#39. It's been an unbelievable thing for me to walk Bruin Walk and walk past Coach Wooden's statue, a guy that when I was in elementary school, it's Coach Wooden winning his final championship, his 10th in 12 years.

Steve Alford

#40. People confuse being world No. 1 with winning a Major championship.

Lee Westwood

#41. Winning the world championship in '66 was really the pinnacle of the whole thing, because to win a championship with an Australian made engine was a fantastic feather in our cap ...

Jack Brabham

#42. Brazil is crazy about football. People, they wait for this moment, but this doesn't mean we are going to win the championship. That is the problem.

Pele

#43. I dont believe it wins championships. (It) gets you to the playoffs.

Byron Scott

#44. New York is the place where everyone will stop a championship fight to look at an usher giving a drunk the bum's rush.

Damon Runyon

#45. Coming back in that AFC Championship Game against the Steelers, that was a poignant moment for me for a lot of reasons - the magnitude of the game and having not been able to play for quite a while and to be able to get on the field for that game. That one stands out.

Drew Bledsoe

#46. I had to persevere because this was my life. This championship, this was the stuff I dreamt of all my life, and I wasn't gonna be denied.

Mike Tyson

#47. Bill Russell is one of the great names in basketball, an all-American ... and the only athlete to ever win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a professional championship all in the same year-1956 ... But Bill Russell had this one problem: He threw up before every game.

John Eliot

#48. Look, I won in high school, I won a national championship in college, I want to win one in the NBA. But winning a gold medal, I don't think anything can top that.

Carmelo Anthony

#49. I have great respect for Jaypee Greens as a company that has produced a truly world class, 24-carat, championship golf course. I am happy to be associated with a company with such outstanding qualities.

Kapil Dev

#50. I saw this college team bowling championship. Each team had their own coach. What kind of strategy advice is a bowling coach giving? "You know what? This time Timmy, I want you to knock down all the pins." "You sure?" "Trust me. Just do it son!"

Jim Gaffigan

#51. I wouldn't feel good about it at all. At the end of the day I'm here to win a team prize, and that's to win a championship, not an individual prize.

LeBron James

#52. The Ironman World Championship is the hardest race I've competed in. Not only do the elements (heat, wind, humidity) make it grueling, but the quality of the field makes it a true test.

Timothy O'Donnell

#53. I'm not trying to get back on a team, but I have tried to stay in shape just in case a team needs a point guard. A championship team. I wouldn't go to any other team.

Tim Hardaway

#54. I probably should've listened to Michael a year ago when he said that Charles will never win a championship because he doesn't show any dedication.

Scottie Pippen

#55. The championship, in my eyes, in television, is obviously an Emmy.

Keyshawn Johnson

#56. To win a major championship - I think, at the end of the day, that's what a golfer's career is based upon.

Adam Derek Scott

#57. I'm the head coach at LSU. I will be the head coach at LSU. I have no interest in talking to anybody else. I got a championship game to play, and I'm excited for the opportunity of my damn strong football team to play in it. Please ask me after. I'm busy. Thank you very much. Have a great day!

Les Miles

#58. I've been on a team that won the world championship of barbecue. But barbecue's interesting, because it's one of these cult foods like chili, or bouillabaisse. Various parts of the world will have a cult food that people get enormously attached to - there's tremendous traditions; there's secrecy.

Nathan Myhrvold

#59. Champions are not generated from the championship. Champion is generated from something they have in them, desires, dreams, and visions.

Muhammad Ali

#60. I guess if you're not going to win the championship, you're better off taking the opportunity to win a Brickyard or a Daytona 500 than you are to make the Chase and then fizzle out.

Tony Stewart

#61. My mom was a championship pool player.

Drake Bell

#62. The PGA Championship, last of the majors each year, might well be accustomed to having fun poked at it by the print press for being mired in August, but this isn't fair.

Dan Jenkins

#63. It takes a number of critical factors to win an NBA championship, including the right mix of talent, creativity, intelligence, toughness, and of course, luck. But if a team doesn't have the most essential ingredient - love - none of those other factors matter.

Phil Jackson

#64. I'll be too old to face a difficult championship as the one in America will surely be.

Diego Maradona

#65. I have been waiting to win a world championship since 1985. I've had three cracks at a world title - in karting, I finished third at Le Mans; that hurt because it was very close, but then in Formula One there wasn't really an opportunity to finally crack it, so it's third time lucky.

Allan McNish

#66. Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character.

Alan Armstrong

#67. So, yeah, I'm going to try to win the national championship next year. But I'm not going to kill myself doing it. I'm not going to kill my players either. You really start to realize there's a lot more to what we're trying to do then winning games

Geno Auriemma

#68. [Wayne Rooney ] best tournament was the 2004 European Championships, when he played alongside me and made such a big impact, but it hasn't happened for him at the World Cup for one reason or another.

Michael Owen

#69. Championships are not won on the night of a big event, but years before by athletes who commit themselves daily to championship principles

Dick Devenzio

#70. It's a different thing when you play on a team that has to win, that doesn't consider it a good year unless you win the championship

Manu Ginobili

#71. Tomboy. Alright, call me a tomboy. Tomboys get medals. Tomboys win championships. Tomboys can fly. Oh. And tomboys aren't boys.

Julie Foudy

#72. I'm competitive. I'd love another chance to be part of a Stanley Cup championship team. That'd be awesome.

Ed Belfour

#73. Any team that does not win it's conference championship game should not play in the BCS title game

Nick Saban

#74. In the current FIDE World Championship, on the knock-out system, weaker players have good chances. Those, who in a long match would practically have no chance, here may creep through.

Vladimir Kramnik

#75. Beliavsky told me that, when he scolded Misha for giving to the Sports Committee almost all of his prize of several thousand dollars for winning the World Blitz Championship in Saint John, Misha simply replied: 'Well, they asked me for it and I gave it to them.

Genna Sosonko

#76. The team which I led to the 1992 European Championship Finals is the only one in the history of the entire competition to have won every single one of its qualifying matches.

Michel Patini

#77. When the BCS started, a decision was made collectively, as coaches, that the BCS champion would receive our championship and our trophy. It's as simple as that.

Grant Teaff

#78. They were ridiculous times. After I won my world championship in 1976, I went to Japan.

Barry Sheene

#79. I got a goal, and it's a huge goal, and that's to bring an NBA championship here to Cleveland, and I won't stop until I get it.

LeBron James

#80. I want to qualify for the Tour Championship. Being a Georgia Tech grad, playing at East Lake would feel like home.

Matt Kuchar

#81. David Nugent tore up the Championship but he's gone to Portsmouth and he's a fish up a tree

Paul Merson

#82. We aren't comfortable. We are not satisfied. We have to stay even-keeled.

LeBron James

#83. The main thing is media attention which is good publicity for the sport. As I'm the only women in this championship I would like to think that it encourages other young females to get into it. Also the media helps me in getting sponsorship.

Liz Halliday

#84. I won the city scoring championship as a senior.

Bob Cousy

#85. I think the draw quotient has always been high in world championship matches because the amount of effort people put into neutralizing each other's openings. It's just now with computers that it has reached a new level.

Viswanathan Anand

#86. I don't think a coach becomes the right coach until he wins a championship.

Kobe Bryant

#87. You don't even have to win a championship every year to draw the fans. You just have to show you're really trying.

Tom Hicks

#88. The fact that I am still alive after 100,000 laps is my championship.

Jacky Ickx

#89. I'm not promising a championship. I know how hard that is to deliver. We're not ready right now.

LeBron James

#90. We felt like when we went into last year we had a pretty good chance to win the championship from the previous year with the fall we put together. We've got the same everything now, so I think we can come back and be as strong this year.

Sterling Marlin

#91. Billy Konchellah with his World Championship titles, Paul Ereng with his Olympic gold and Wilson Kipketer with his World records are my role models.

David Rudisha

#92. From where started, I think it is too far down to try and win a championship at the end of the season, although we had a very good first race at Mondello and scored some good points.

David Leslie

#93. When Phil Taylor is in the field - no matter whether it's tiddlywinks or the world championship at Alexandra Palace - he is the man to beat.

Eric Bristow

#94. I would tell players to relax and never think about what's at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you've lost your focus.

Michael Jordan

#95. You always want to have good balance. That's the key to winning a Super Bowl. You look at the teams who have won championships, you got to have balance. So, to be able to run the ball effectively and throw the ball effectively is what gives you the chance to win a world championship.

John Elway

#96. Although it's only the beginning of the championship, I am very surprised at my capability.

Jean Alesi

#97. It's not about rugby, it's about young men. It's not about building a championship team, it's about building championship boys. Boys who will be forever strong.

Larry Gelwix

#98. The one I was driving for at the time, Nissan, they pulled out after they won the championship, because it was costing millions of pounds to do a national championship and ok, that might be ok when you're doing an international championship, but not for a national one.

David Leslie

#99. He'd had no intentions of being at the World Memory Championship. Instead, he had devoted the last six months to memorizing the first 50,000 digits of the mathematical constant pi,

Joshua Foer

#100. I want to play for a championship team. I want to win a championship.

Richard Jefferson