Pete Rozelle Quotes

#1. The Saints are Louisiana's team and have been since the late '60s when my predecessor Pete Rozelle welcomed them to the league as New Orleans' team and Louisiana's team. Our focus continues to be on having the Saints in Louisiana.

Paul Tagliabue

#2. When my father bid $5,000 for the 1962 Championship Game, that was a huge amount. It was double the bid the year before. Pete Rozelle was flabbergasted. Who was this guy who was willing to spend so much money on what seemed like relatively worthless rights to the NFL Championship Game?

Steve Sabol

#3. People are interested in pro football because it provides them with an emotional oasis; they don't want football to get involved in the same types of court cases, racial problems and legislative issues they encounter in the rest of American life.

Pete Rozelle

#4. But I haven't met a player or a coach whose goal isn't to win the Super Bowl.

Pete Rozelle

#5. Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style.

William Zinsser

#6. At last, someone came to tell me I'd been selected as commissioner, which gave rise to the line that I took the job with clean hands. I was then taken downstairs to a press conference, and the reporters were as surprised as I was.

Pete Rozelle

#7. There are a lot more TV sets in use on Monday night than on Sunday afternoon.

Pete Rozelle

#8. Firearms manufacturers usually find themselves playing defense.

Bob Barr

#9. Well what would you have us do, Jason? Swan into a hardware store without any cash and say "give us your best rack or we'll set the adorable button-nosed robots on you for bunny-boiler death by cuddling?" Jared Thomas in Red Gods Sing

Trevor Barton

#10. At least I'm going into the job with clean hands.

Pete Rozelle

#11. I think the big thing I've had going for me in that regard has been the success of the league. I don't have quite as much control over things as people believe, so I frequently receive more credit than I deserve, and occasionally more criticism as well.

Pete Rozelle

#12. The two great tests of character are wealth and poverty.

Charles A. Beard

#13. When I was a kid growing up in the States in the late '70s and early '80s, as soon as 'Dallas' came on on a Friday night on CBS at 9 P.M., we stopped everything from that moment on as a family.

John Barrowman

#14. Rather than saying that the commissioner is hired by the owners and therefore is subservient to them, you have to look at whether or not the players are getting a fair shake.

Pete Rozelle

#15. Squabbling in public will eventually ruin football; there's no doubt it's hurting us already. Polls taken by Louis Harris - polls as valid as any political polls - indicate that very clearly.

Pete Rozelle

#16. You dont need to convince everyone. All you need to do is motivate people who choose to follow you.

Seth Godin

#17. I have some sneaking to do. The thought of it kicks my heartbeat sideways.

Laini Taylor

#18. Pro football was taking off when I became commissioner, and when a sport's successful and you're its chief executive officer, much of the credit flows to you and you develop a good track record.

Pete Rozelle

#19. And so the afternoon stretched on, and Ezbon toasted their imminent defeat to the dregs.

C.N. Faust

#20. During any dance to which we surrender with joy, the brain loses it's controlling power, and the heart takes up the reins of the body.

Paulo Coelho

#21. Deception is a developed art of civilization and the most potent weapon in the game of power

Robert Greene

#22. I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.

Maya Angelou

#23. I don't know if 1300 players could really participate in the selection of a commissioner, and I've never given it a great deal of thought. I think it's a logical point they could make, but it's only an academic one.

Pete Rozelle

#24. If memory survived eternally, then indeed there might be justification for a belief in hell.

Stacy Aumonier

#25. Every franchise of both leagues will remain in its present location.

Pete Rozelle

#26. I'm not claiming that football is the nation's salvation in this area, but it's one of them, one little thing that apparently has captured the imagination of a large sector of our society. But when football can't be a relatively pure outlet, a fun thing, then it hurts itself.

Pete Rozelle

#27. I'm not saying that the press is wrong to report any internal differences we have, but at the same time, I think it's our job to keep them from becoming public issues, for anything that detracts from the purely athletic aspects of the sport is bad for us.

Pete Rozelle

#28. In fact, an awful lot of N.F.L. club owners have practically no influence on their players at all, simply because they're not full-time working owners.

Pete Rozelle

#29. The most difficult owner for me was the late George Marshall of Washington.

Pete Rozelle

#30. When you focus on the consumer, the consumer responds.

Alexander Wang

#31. Considering what Americans have been confronted with in the last ten years, domestically and internationally, it's clear that we need emotional outlets; we have to have some peace from our problems.

Pete Rozelle