My Favorite Sports Quotes

  • Do any of you critics realize how short a year is? -Red Auerbach. This is the only one that I think needs an explanation and it inspired the post. I watched this great video about Larry Bird earlier and I thought it skipped over one of the most interesting pieces of sports trivia that I know. Red Auerbach and the Celtics selected Larry Bird sixth overall in the 1978 NBA draft after Bird’s junior season at Indiana State. No one knew if Bird would return for his senior season. A reporter asked Auerbach why he would use such a high draft pick on a player when he didn’t know if Bird would play that season for the Celtics and this quote is how he replied. Bird did end up going back to Indiana State for his senior year but Auerbach’s willingness to gamble and follow his gut paid off as Bird led the Celtics to three titles.
  • I’m tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok. -Shaquille O’Neal
  • Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost. -Martina Navratilova
  • Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy Protestants, today it’s open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. -Dave Barry
  • Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back… play for her. -Mia Hamm
  • You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. -Wayne Gretzky
  • There’s no crying in baseball! -Jimmy Dugan
  • Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath. -Wilt Chamberlain
  • You can observe a lot just by watching. -Yogi Berra
  • Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. -Lou Gehrig
  • Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein. -Joe Theismann
  • It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up. -Vince Lombardi
  • I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 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
  • You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach the limits, that is real joy. -Arthur Ashe
  • Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. -Jim Valvano