Sports Player Quotes

#1. Coaching is something that takes place only when learning does. No matter what you are doing in your practices, if your players are not learning something significant, you're really not coaching. If a player fails in a game, the coach may have failed in practice.

John Kessel

#2. My opinion is there should NOT be an MVP award [in hockey]. The Olympic teams sports shouldn't acknowledge individuality. And if there is going to be such an award a player on the losing team who lets in the losing goal shouldn't get it.

Michael Wilbon

#3. Beside my obvious physical structure, I have been told on almost every set I've been on that I am a joy to have around. I grew up as a team player on team sports. Later as a doorman where you had to watch each other's back and trust the guy beside you.

James Preston Rogers

#4. A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

Wayne Gretzky

#5. He's got everything. He' not a great player yet because he hasn't won any major championships, but it's a matter of time. He's an outstanding talent. I didn't realize how tall he is.

Nick Price

#6. He's probably the only player who doesn't play for 10 months and, if he scores a hat trick in his first game back, no one would be surprised.

Ryan Whitney

#7. Everybody's got pretty good players now, more players than there've ever been. If you play poorly, you're going to get beat.

Bear Bryant

#8. I think it's important to cross train. Surfing is a good cross training sport for your shoulders. I don't think I know of any other football player who does it, who can go and paddle out past the sets.

Troy Polamalu

#9. You think the greatest thing in the whole world would be to become a baseball player - if best things already happened, what's next?

John McGraw

#10. Players need you to care, especially when they do not deserve it.

John Kessel

#11. ABC wouldn't be a player in the news major leagues until the 1970s, when Roone Arledge brought to ABC News the energy and programming approach he had applied to ABC Sports.

Tom Brokaw

#12. Playing other sports - and believe me, I played every sport I could - made me a better hockey player.

Tie Domi

#13. There is something about Game 7 that there's a memory there for you for sure. You want to be a coach or a manager or a player or a goaltender that gets it done, because to me, that's all part of sports. That's what you dream about when you're a little kid - scoring the winning goal.

Mike Babcock

#14. There was no 'I' in team, but there was meat in team. And we were all dead meat.

Jennifer Lane

#15. A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.

Ara Parseghian

#16. Football is such a team sport, so no one individual does it. No one coach or no one assistant coach or no one player, it's a great team sport, so I don't get carried away with a bunch of accolades.

Jimmy Johnson

#17. Acting is a sport. On stage you must be ready to move like a tennis player on his toes. Your concentration must be keen, your reflexes sharp; your body and mind are in top gear, the chase is on. Acting is energy. In the theatre people pay to see energy.

Clive Swift

#18. A ball feels different off every player's racket-there are minute but concrete subtleties of force and spin. Now, hitting with her (Steffi Graf), I feel her subtleties. It's like touching her, though we're forty feet apart. Every forehand is foreplay.

Andre Agassi

#19. Nadal's the best player in history on [clay], and he is one of the best-ever players that played this game.

Novak Djokovic

#20. You don't like to see hookers going down on players like that.

Murray Mexted

#21. The players are too serious. They don't have any fun any more. They come to camp with a financial adviser and they read the stock market page before the sports pages. They concern themselves with statistics rather than simply playing the game and enjoying it for what it is.

Rocky Bridges

#22. The one thing that has gotten worse for sports media is access. We hardly get to see, talk to and most of all get to know the players and coaches anymore.

J. A. Adande

#23. Habits are critical for players. They cannot think and play well at the same time.

Don Meyer

#24. Basketball was always my sport. It just took me until my second year of college for me to realize that I was a better baseball player than a basketball player. But basketball was always my number one love. Finally found out I was better at baseball and chose to pursue that route.

Curtis Granderson

#25. If there is something a coach might wish to see changed in a player or team, the first place to check and see if it could not be done better is in yourself.

John Kessel

#26. Talent is extremely important. It's like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win, but then there's a multiplier from how those players work together and the strategy they employ.

Elon Musk

#27. I consider the Detroit Red Wings one of the greatest franchises in any sport. For a player to come in and play, it's so special to wear the jersey.

Steve Yzerman

#28. When everyone has good players, teaching will be a telling difference.

John Wooden

#29. I want to be remembered as part of the group of the greatest players ever.

Cristiano Ronaldo

#30. I feel one of the most significant honors a player can have in his sport is to have his number retired. Certainly for me to have that at Tennessee, it's with great pride.

Peyton Manning

#31. I wasn't really a work-conscious type of person. I was a player. I loved to play sports.

Michael Jordan

#32. I'm proud of the fact that besides being known as a successful former football player, I've also worked hard to establish myself as a successful businessman, network broadcaster, sports & entertainment executive and philanthropist.

Warren Moon

#33. Rarely has a new player on the game captured so much attention so fast.

Auliq Ice

#34. In the NFL you get one first-round draft pick if you're lucky. You couldn't really outwork anybody else. In college I could recruit ten players with first-round talent every year.

Nick Saban

#35. It is my goal to win every time I play. But on the other hand, I also seek a balance of compassion and respect for the other players. I understand that everyone goes through difficult times, either mentally or physically, to cope with their life, to live the sport.

Novak Djokovic

#36. I go out and do the best I can in each game, and I don't think about the fouls other players will commit or whether I might be injured. It only does you harm to worry about those things.

Lionel Messi

#37. There is no harm in dreaming of becoming the world's best player. It is all about trying to be the best. I will keep working hard to achieve it but it is within my capabilities.

Cristiano Ronaldo

#38. Every time a player goes out there, at least 20 people have some amount of influence on him. His mother has more influence than anyone. I know because I played, and I loved my mama.

Bear Bryant

#39. I actually play sports better when I'm mad. Some players don't play better when they're mad. They lose their sense of where they're at. I have a tendency to do better when I'm under pressure.

Kevin Costner

#40. Work hard - beat out half the team. Be committed, play fair as a team player - Beat out another quarter of the team. The last quarter is your desire and beliefs, and where you are playing.

John Kessel

#41. I got cast playing the best baseball player anybody's ever seen. I don't know how to play any sport, including baseball, but I trained really hard. They had these great coaches, and they started saying, "Wow, you have some like really untapped athletic ability."

Geena Davis

#42. A player should be disparaged if he gives less than his all, if he doesn't give 100%, no matter what shirt he's wearing. Whether it's your national team, your club, or little league. Yes, there are friendly matches, recreational ones, and so on, but sport in its essence is about giving your best.

Rabih Alameddine

#43. If you're thinking something good about your players, say it; don't save it for later.

Vic Braden

#44. Johan Cruyff was the first player who understood that he was an artist, and the first who was able and willing to collectivise the art of sports.

David Winner

#45. But I was so wrapped up in sports growing up as a kid, that I think I was going to grow to be a pro ball player. But I found out real quick that was not going to happen.

Tim McGraw

#46. If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people.

William Petersen

#47. Soccer and cricket were my main sports growing up. I had trials as a soccer player with a few clubs interested, Crystal Palace being one, but it was cricket which became my chosen profession.

Ian Botham

#48. I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they'd be, what position they'd play and so on.

Lou Holtz

#49. Tennis is at an amazing time when you've got two of the best players ever to play the game. You can argue the two very best playing in the same generation. It's a rivalry I think that we've never seen in our sport.

Andre Agassi

#50. The Coach does not play in the game, but the Coach helps the players identify areas to improve their game.

Lord Byron

#51. My kids used to do things to aggravate me, too. I'd take them to a game, and they'd want to come home with a different player.

Bob Uecker

#52. I think LPGA players for a long time were afraid to say what's on their minds. But we're doing all the right things and there's nothing wrong with having some great personalities and rivalries and some friction. I think that's really good for the sport.

Cristie Kerr

#53. You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.

Herb Brooks

#54. If you're a good experienced player, you wknow what it takes to do. If you're in trouble, you know how to change. One hundred percent of my game is instinct. I never stop and think I'm going to hit a ball crosscourt or down the line. I just do it.

Bjorn Borg

#55. A player who conjugates a verb in the first person singular cannot be part of the squad, he has to conjugate the verb in the first person plural. We. We want to conquer. We are going to conquer. Using the word I when you're in a group makes things complicated.

Vanderlei Luxemburgo

#56. When asked if he was a basketball player he replied No I clean giraffe ears.

Elvin Hayes

#57. I am here to give my players the little push they need, just like they needed long ago, when first learning the art of the swing. All you needed then was a little push, and quickly you were pumping away, flying higher and higher, without any more help from the 'coach.'

John Kessel

#58. My sporting hero was Drazen Petrovic, the NBA basketball player, who was killed in a car accident in 1993. He was a good friend, an unbelievable player, and I dedicated my Wimbledon win to him.

Goran Ivanisevic

#59. Every single day I wake up and commit myself to becoming a better player. Some days it happens, and some days it doesn't. Sure, there are games I'm going to dominate and there are going to be games when I struggle. But it doesn't mean I give up.

Mia Hamm

#60. Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.

Pele

#61. If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team.

Bud Wilkinson

#62. Too many players are so afraid to do anything that they seldom venture to do anything.

John Kessel

#63. That concerns me. You're either getting better or you're getting worse. I don't think you stay the same in sports. If we want to achieve something special in the game, then these players have to recognize that they're responsible every day for getting better.

Russ Rose

#64. Karch inspired his partners, his opponents and the world of volleyball players to be better than they were, to be great ... In the end, who could do more for a sport than that?

Mike Dodd

#65. I started playing ball when I was a kid. My dad was a pro ball player and he passed on his knowledge to me.

Kurt Russell

#66. Force, not persuasion, not discussion, is the legitimate instrument for influencing and policing the hockey mind. Fighting in hockey is one of the most magnificent and eloquent displays of refinement in all of sports.

Brian D'Ambrosio

#67. You must allow your players to become the athletes they can be. Don't make them into anything just to become the kind of winners fans, friends and others think they must be.

John Kessel

#68. I was a better basketball player growing up in high school than I was a swimmer. Basketball to this day is my favorite sport.

Ryan Lochte

#69. I don't think you're ever there. You never arrive, but if you do, you might as well quit because you're already there. Can't get any better. And as players, if you ever have that moment - you should never have that moment. You're always trying to get better.

Tiger Woods

#70. Don't just stand back and play the way you're coached. A great player must rise to the occasion and turn the game around on his own.

Joe Paterno

#71. There are guys who play lacrosse, and there are lacrosse players.

Brendan Mundorf

#72. Give your players something they can physically do - don't ask them to do something they can't do.

Lou Holtz

#73. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, but tennis players talk to themselves-and answer. Tennis players look like lunatics in a public square.

Andre Agassi

#74. I don't consider myself a particularly young chess player. I have been playing in the best tournaments in the world since I was 16 years old. In other sports, if you have been playing for seven years, you are not a young prodigy any more. You're one of the pros.

Magnus Carlsen

#75. One single great player doesn't make anything for a team; it has to be a team. I think [American] football is the greatest team sport there is because you have to depend on your brother next to you.

Tim Tebow

#76. No one did what I did last season and for this I deserve the Golden Boot and why not the best World Player.

Cristiano Ronaldo

#77. Golf is the only sport I know of where a player pays for every mistake. A man can muff a serve in tennis, miss a strike in baseball, or throw an incomplete pass in football and still have another chance to square himself. In golf, every swing counts against you.

Lloyd Mangrum

#78. Most football players are temperamental. That's 90 percent temper and 10 percent mental.

Doug Plank

#79. A player who makes a team great is better than a great player.

John Wooden

#80. If you have the sense of participation in sports or athletics, of being a player, then you are not really into the Zen mind. In Zen mind there is no sense of self in the play.

Frederick Lenz

#81. We can no longer ignore the stupidity of the hits that are still happening today despite the fact that the players know the concussion aspect is such a big part of the game and sports in general.

Jeremy Roenick

#82. One of the Arsenal players came up to me afterwards and said it had been an honor to be on the same pitch as me. I thought, My God, that is a great thing to say when your team has just lost.

Lionel Messi

#83. I never drop a player I only make changes.

Bill Shankly

#84. If the players aren't getting paid, there's something terribly, terribly wrong, and that's true only in the United States. Everywhere else, where money is involved with sport, the players get paid. But these poor kids in college, they're doing it for free, and that's just disgraceful.

Frank Deford

#85. I find that I've tried to become a better hockey player every year and not just hold on. At the same time, I've also made it a point to increase or grow in some other area of my life. If I were just playing hockey, I would probably be done with the sport.

Angela Ruggiero

#86. I find that rock climbing is the finest, most healthiest sport in the whole world. It is much healthier than most; look at baseball, where 10 000 sit on their ass to watch a handful of players

John Salathe

#87. You always catch the wrong players.

Abe Lemons

#88. I think, in general, the sports I've enjoyed covering the most have been the offbeat ones. The more popular, mainstream, the less I like them because they're more, they're more structured and the players don't have much interesting to say because they're interviewed all the time.

Mitch Albom

#89. I said, 'You missed practice yesterday didn't you?' The player replied, 'No coach, not a bit.'

Vince Lombardi

#90. Morale - the will to win, the fighting heart - are the honored hallmarks of the football coach and player. Likewise, they are characteristic of the enterprising executive, the successful troop leader, the established artist and the dedicated teacher and scientist.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

#91. Good players win volleyball games for you, not tall players.

John Kessel

#92. I only had one player in my 33 years of sports that couldn't be traded. He wore No. 23 - and 45 when he played baseball.

Jerry Reinsdorf

#93. I wanted to be a football player. Football is a sport that I love, but the more I started playing basketball, the more I started dreaming of playing in the NBA.

Dwyane Wade

#94. Like most ghetto kids I knew it was important to be 'somebody' so I became a good soccer player, because excelling at a sport seemed to make you special.

Vidal Sassoon

#95. The Germans only have one player under 22, and he's 23!

Kevin Keegan

#96. You can be harsh on your players and still coach, but it is easier when you are kind to them.

John Kessel

#97. A lot of players go into a restaurant and ask for a special table. I go and stand in line with the working people. It's very easy to get spoiled playing professional sports.

Johnny Damon

#98. Sports in Indonesia aren't being supported by the government. The rewards you get as a young player don't match the effort you put in. I want to be different from other athletes, if not better, and I want to make something good out of my profile and help the younger players have opportunities.

Taufik Hidayat

#99. Like all sports fans, tennis junkies are not satisfied with simply following the current crop of players and admiring their accomplishments. They seemingly always need to compare players of different eras and designate one of them as the greatest player of all time.

Dave McPherson

#100. A baseball field must be the most beautiful thing in the world. It's so honest and precise. And we play on it. Every star gets humbled. Every mediocre player has a great moment.

Jim Lefebvre