Wit and Wisdom
Observations from those close to the game
- "For when the One Great Scorer comes / to write against your name, / He marks - not that you won or lost / But how you played the game."
- Grantland Rice (1880-1954), sportswriter
- "I missed over 9,000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games.
Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot, and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed." - Michael Jordan (born 1963), former professional basketball player
- "Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing."
- Vince Lombardi (1913-1970), professional football coach
- "Champions keep playing until they get it right."
- Billie Jean King (born 1943), professional tennis player
- "[Baseball] is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything is new again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops, and leaves you to face the fall alone."
- A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938-1989), scholar, Yale University president, and commissioner of Major League Baseball
- "Half this game is 90% mental."
- Yogi Berra (born 1925), former New York Yankees catcher and member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, famous for his malapropisms.
- "A lifetime of training for just ten seconds."
- Jesse Owens (1913-1980), track-and-field athlete and Olympic gold medalist
- "Sports do not build character. They reveal it."
- Variously attributed to John Wooden (born 1910), college basketball coach, and Heywood Hale Broun (1918-2001), journalist and author
- "When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less."
- Paul Brown (1908-1991), professional football coach
- "The start of a world cross-country event is like riding a horse in the middle of a buffalo stampede. It's a thrill if you keep up, but one slip and you're nothing but hoof prints."
- Ed Eyestone (born 1962), marathon runner
- "You miss 100% of the shots you never take."
- Wayne Gretzky (born 1961), former professional hockey player
- "The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital."
- Joe Paterno (born 1926), college football coach
- W"hen I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing. I told him I wanted to be a real Major League Baseball Player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be president of the United States. Neither of us got our wish."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969 ), U.S. president 1953-1961