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Sport is a great metaphor for life

• Sports remain a great metaphor for life’s more difficult lessons. It was through athletics that many of us first came to understand that fear can be tamed; that on a team the whole is more than the sum of its parts; and that the ability to be heroic lies, to a surprising degree, within. Susan Casey
• Sports are a microcosm of society. Billie Jean King
• Sports is human life in microcosm.  Howard Cosell
• Life is a game,  Learning,  Life is a university

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Sport can teach us much about life and prepare us for it

• Sports can unite a group of people from different backgrounds, all working together to achieve a common goal. And even if they fall short, sharing that journey is an experience they’ll never forget. It can teach some of the most fundamental and important human values: dedication, perseverance, hard work, and teamwork. It also teaches us how to handle our success and cope with our failure. So, perhaps the greatest glory of sport is that is teaches us so much about life itself. Ahmad Rashad
• The values learned on the playing field–how to set goals, endure, take criticism and risks, become team players, use our bodies, stay healthy and deal with stress–prepare us for life. Donna de Varona
• Sports can do so much. They’ve given me a framework: meeting new people, confidence, self- esteem, discipline, motivation. All these things I learned, whether I knew I was learning them or not, through sports. Mia Hamm

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Sport captures the human spirit

• I’m fanatical about sport: there seems to me something almost religious about the fact that human beings can organise play, the spirit of play.  Simon Gray
• The power of the human will to compete and the drive to excel beyond the body’s normal capabilities is most beautifully demonstrated in the arena of sport. Aimee Mullins
• Sport is quite a simple thing. It is play, and in play, people of all ages find the chance to engage their most profound emotions–love, fear, excitement, disappointment, anger and joy. Timothy Shriver, Ph.D.
• An athlete experiences the emotions of pain and elation through triumph and defeat, through teamwork and individuality, as nothing more than a human being…that is the true glory of sport. Aimee Mullins

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Realise life is not a spectator sport

• Learning is not a spectator sport. Blocher
• Climbing is not a spectator sport. Mark Wellman

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Have a genuine love for the game

• The medals don’t mean anything and the glory doesn’t last. It’s all about your happiness. The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing. Jackie Joyner Kersee
• Number one is just to gain a passion for running. To love the morning, to love the trail, to love the pace on the track. And if some kid gets really good at it, that’s cool too. Pat Tyson
• 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
• Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play. Mike Singletary
• The score never interested me, only the game. Mae West
• I can’t play being mad. I go out there and have fun. It’s a game, and that’s how I am going to treat it. Ken Griffey Jr.
• Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game. Michael Jordan
• I love the game. It’s fun to play, period. I love running around and getting sweaty. I love trying to lead my team. I love facing the challenge of another team that’s better. Jamila Wideman
• Winning is only half of it. Having fun winning is the other half. Bum Phillips
• Sports should always be fun. Charles Mann
• God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure. Eric Liddell
• Do what you love

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Be the best prepared

• It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters. Paul Bear” Bryant
• If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail. Mark Spitz
• I never left the field saying I could have done more to get ready and that gives me piece of mind. Peyton Manning
• The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital. Joe Paterno
• I didn’t believe in team motivation. I believe in getting a team prepared so it knows it will have the necessary confidence when it steps on the field and be prepared to play a good game. Tom Landry
• Win or lose you will never regret working hard, making sacrifices, being disciplined or focusing too much. Success is measured by what we have done to prepare for competition. John Smith
• Preparation

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Practice, practice, practice

• Champions keep playing until they get it right. Billie Jean King
• Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it. Ted Williams
• One day of practice is like one day of clean living. It doesn’t do you any good. Abe Lemons
• I figure practice puts your brains in your muscles. Sam Snead
• The more I practice, the luckier I get. Gary Player
• Practice

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Train like mad

• If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat. Herschel Walker
• I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Muhammad Ali
• A lifetime of training for just ten seconds. Jesse Owens
• A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood. George Patton
• Training is what you are doing while your opponent is sleeping in. Brian Owen
• Training gives us an outlet for supressed energies created by stress and thus tones the spirit just as exercise conditions the body. Arnold Schwarzennegger
• The difference between a good athlete and a top athlete is the top athlete will do the mundane things when nobody’s looking. Susan True
• For me, winning isn’t something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream. Emmitt Smith

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Be persistent and never quit

• Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement. Marv Levy
• You’re never a loser until you quit trying. Mike Ditka
• Never give up! Failure and rejection are only the first step to succeeding. Jim Valvano
• A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t. Jack Dempsey
• It ain’t over ’til it’s over. Yogi Berra
• Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss. Doug Williams
• Losers quit when they’re tired. Winners quit when they’ve won.
• The only way to overcome is to hang in. Even I’m starting to believe that. Dan OBrien
• It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up. Vince Lombardi
• Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown. Ross Perot
• Win If You Can, Lose If You Must, But NEVER QUIT! Cameron Trammell
• Perseverance

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Be committed

• There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing as life in- between. Pat Riley
• You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. Wayne Gretzky
• Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period. Lou Holtz
• Commitment

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Be prepared to work very hard

• There may be people that have more talent than you, but theres no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do. Derek Jeter
• If you can’t outplay them, outwork them. Ben Hogan
• The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it. Wayne Gretzky
• In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept destructive criticism. Without 100 percent dedication, you won’t be able to do this. Willie Mays
• The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer. John Madden
• In life, we choose whether or not we want to be a winner or a loser. To be a winner, we must devote time and hard work. To be a loser you do nothing, and that’s exactly what you will get, nothing. Patrick Boles
• Hard work,  Effort

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Make a total effort

• What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle, and giving 110 percent all the time. Don Zimmer
• Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you. Arnold Palmer
• Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds. Larry Bird
• Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. William James
• Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it. George Halas
• If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all? Joe Namath
• You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn’t enough, in the second half, you have to give what’s left. Yogi Berra
• In the dust of defeat as well as the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best. Eric Liddell
• Victory isn’t defined by wins or losses. It is defined by effort. If you can truthfully say, ‘I did the best I could, I gave everything I had,’ then you’re a winner. Wolfgang Schadler
• A race is not well-run unless you’ve crossed the finish line knowing that you couldn’t have kept going for one more step. If you could have, then you didn’t give it everything you had. Jackie Dugall
• In life, as in sports, you will try, and you will sometimes fail. There will be no apparent reward except to know that you did your best. Charles Lawrie
• I believe in playing with your heart, with every fiber in your body–fairly, squarely, by the rules–to win. And I believe that any man’s finest moment, the greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out and lies exhausted on the floor of battle–victorious. Bela Karolyi
• You find that you have peace of mind and can enjoy yourself, get more sleep, and rest when you know that it was a 100 percent effort that you gave–win or lose. Gordie Howe
• You find that you have peace of mind and can enjoy yourself, get more sleep, and rest when you know that it was a one hundred percent effort that you gave–win or lose. Gordie Howe
• Those who truly have the spirit of champions are never wholly happy with an easy win. Half the satisfaction stems from knowing that it was the time and the effort you invested that led to your high achievement. Nicole Haislett

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When you win, be a good sport …

• One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it. Knute Rockne
• Never give up, never give in, and when the upper hand is ours, may we have the ability to handle the win with the dignity that we absorbed the loss. Doug Williams
• Sportsmanship is not just about being nice. It is much more important than that. It’s about realizing that you could not compete without an opponent and that she has the same goals as you. Stephanie Deibler
• Winning

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… and also, when you lose

• The trouble with being a good sport is that you have to lose to prove it. Croft M. Pentz
• The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose. Ernie Banks
• When you win, say nothing, when you lose, say less. Paul Brown
• Sportsmanship for me is when a guy walks off the court and you really can’t tell whether he won or lost, when he carries himself with pride either way. Jim Courier
• Losing

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Play the ball, not the man

• Always show respect. However much you disagree with someone, attack the argument, not the person. To use a sporting metaphor: play the ball, not the man. As Nelson Mandela explained in his autobiography “Long Walk To Freedom”: “I defeated my opponents without dishonouring them”. Roger Darlington

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Striking out is part of winning

• During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball. Mickey Mantle
• 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
• Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer. Ted Williams
• Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. Babe Ruth
• Failure

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Keep swinging, even when you lose

• The hardest skill to acquire in this sport is the one where you compete all out, give it all you have, and you are still getting beat no matter what you do. When you have the killer instinct to fight through that, it is very special. Eddie Reese
• My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging. Hank Aaron
• You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, but you gotta suit up for them all. J. Askenberg

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Realise the price of losing

• Most ball games are lost, not won. Casey Stengel
• Losing is the great American sin. Jerome Holtzman
• Losing streaks are funny. If you lose at the beginning, you get off to a bad start.  If you lose in the middle of the season, you’re in a slump.  If you lose at the end, you’re choking.  Gene Mauch
• What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose. Andre Agassi
• Winning is a habit. Unfortunately so is losing. Vince Lombardi
• When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win. Steffi Graf
• No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room. Muhammad Ali

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Watch and imitate the champions

• The best and fastest way to learn a sport is to watch and imitate a champion. Jean Claude Killy
• Role models

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Learn from every defeat

• I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat. Tom Landry
• What do do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it. Dean Smith
• Learning,  Defeat

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Strive for excellence

• Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence. George F. Will
• Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better. Pat Riley
• Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you do repeatedly. Shaquille O’Neal
• Excellence

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Exceed your limits

• To uncover your true potential, you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them. Picabo Street
• You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get. Michael Phelps
• Stretch your comfort zone,  Limitation

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Build confidence

• You’ve got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive set, confidence is the difference. Chris Evert
• If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win. Carl Lewis
• You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit. Joe Paterno
• With confidence, you have won even before you have started. Marcus Garvey
• Self-confidence

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Build a belief in yourself

• Some people say I have attitude – maybe I do…but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there. Venus Williams
• Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. Gail Devers
• If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it. Ronnie Lott
• Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can. Richard Bach
• Self-belief,  Confidence

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Realise it’s what’s inside you that matters most

• It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters. Evander Holyfield
• Most talented players don’t always succeed. Some don’t even make the team. It’s more what’s inside. Brett Favre
• The five S’s of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit; but the greatest of these is spirit. Ken Doherty
• It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog! Archie Griffin
• It is not how big you are, it’s how big you play.
• Never underestimate the heart of a champion. Rudy Tomjanovich
• Don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
• The treasure within

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Work as a team

• Successful innovation is not a single breakthrough. It is not a sprint. It is not an event for the solo runner. Successful innovation is a team sport, it’s a relay race. Quyen Nguyen
• One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. Kareem Abdul- Jabbar
• The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. Babe Ruth
• Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates. Magic Johnson
• Individual glory is insignificant when compared to achieving victory as a team. Dot Richardson
• When you need a friend, you can always count on your teammates. Jim Brown
• Great teams work harder after a tough loss. Ron Brown
• “Nobody’s more important than the team. Rejean Houle
• Teammates are there for each other even after the noise of the crowd is gone. Jim Brown
• Individual commitment to a group effort–that is what makes a team work. Vince Lombardi
• Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody gets there unless everybody gets there. Virginia Burden
• Teamwork

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Be prepared for pain

• Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. Lance Armstrong
• Pain

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Have guts

• Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts. Dan Gable
• Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts. Steve Prefontaine

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Learn to motivate yourself

• You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation. Homer Rice
• The time when there is no one there to feel sorry for you or to cheer for you is when a player is made. Tim Duncan
• To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you. Tony Dorsett
• The ones who want to achieve and win championships motivate themselves. Mike Ditka
• Motivation

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Have the will to win

• If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep score? Vince Lombardi
• The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning. Pele
• Winning isn’t everything–but wanting to win is. Vince Lombardi
• Some people say I have attitude – maybe I do…but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there. Venus Williams
• Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can. Richard Bach
• The ones who want to achieve and win championships motivate themselves. Mike Ditka
• Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost. Martina Navratilova
• It’s not whether you win or lose – but whether I win or lose. Sandy Lyle
• In life, we choose whether or not we want to be a winner or a loser. To be a winner, we must devote time and hard work. To be a loser you do nothing, and that’s exactly what you will get, nothing. Patrick Boles
• Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser. Vince Lombardi
• Winning,  Being a winner

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Build your desire

• Winning isn’t everything–but wanting to win is. Vince Lombardi
• I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it. Gale Sayers
• Being the best that you can be is possible only if your desire to be a champion is greater than your fear of failure. -Sammy Lee
• Desire

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Overcome adversity and obstacles

• Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. Michael Jordan
• Adversity cause some men to break; others to break records. William A. Ward
• All of us get knocked down, but it’s resiliency that really matters. All of us do well when things are going well, but the thing that distinguishes athletes is the ability to do well in times of great stress, urgency and pressure. Roger Staubach
• Obstacles,  Adversity

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Overcome fear

• Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. Babe Ruth
• Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time. Lou Brock
• Courage is not the absence of fear. It is being afraid but being able to control that fear so you are able to perform at your highest ability. That’s what makes a champion. Cory Lester
• Show me a guy whos afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time. Lou Brock
• Fear,  Courage

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Realise winning is mostly mental

• I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability. Bruce Jenner
• The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent. Arnold Schwarzenegger
• If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it. Ronnie Lott
• Competitive sports are played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch court, the space between your ears. Bobby Jones
• Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical. Yogi Berra
• Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind. Jackie Joyner-Kersee

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Have a positive mindset

• I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it. Sandy Koufax
• Never let the fear of striking out get in your way. Babe Ruth
• Do not let what you can not do interfere with what you can do. John Wooden
• Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. Satchel Paige
• I’ve never lost a game. I just ran out of time. Michael Jordan
• Positivity,  Attitude,  Optimism

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Be determined

• The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination. Tommy Lasorda
• Determination

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Focus on today’s race only

• When you’re riding, only the race in which you’re riding is important. Bill Shoemaker
• Focus

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Aim high

• Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there. Bo Jackson
• Dreams

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Expect big things of yourself

• You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them. Michael Jordan

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Compete against yourself

• The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before. Steve Young
• You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy. Arthur Ashe
• Every time you compete, try harder to improve on your last performance. Give nothing short of your very best effort. Elgin Baylor
• Competition,  Comparison

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Realise your biggest opponent is often yourself

• Your biggest opponent isn’t the other guy. It’s human nature. Bobby Knight
• Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears. Laird Hamilton

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Realise the importance of small successes accumulated

• When climbing a mountain, define each step in the right direction as success. We learn the alphabet before we write words; it works the same in sport and life. Many small successes add up. Dan Millman
• Progress,  Success

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Realise it’s about more than just competition

• Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you’ll be sick. George Leonard

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Build character

• 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
• Sports do not build character. They reveal it. Heywood Broun
• Character

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• A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever. Mary Lou Retton
• An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head. Emil Zatopek
• When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge. Terry Bradshaw
• If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough. Mario Andretti
• Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength. Phil Jackson
• Many people say I’m the best women’s soccer player in the world. I don’t think so. And because of that, someday I just might be. Mia Hamm
• A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. Wayne Gretzky
• Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you. Leroy Paige
• Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability. John Wooden
• To be the man, you have to beat the man. Ric Flair
• In the end, it’s extra effort that separates a winner from second place. But winning takes a lot more that, too. It starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don’t win, how can you lose? Jesse Owens
• You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go. Don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
• The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break. John Madden
• Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting. George Orwell
• I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures. Earl Warren
• Fans don’t boo nobodies. Reggie Jackson
• Nobody roots for Goliath. Wilt Chamberlain
• The breakfast of champions is not cereal, it’s the opposition. Nick Seitz
• If you make every game a life-and-death thing, you’re going to have problems. You’ll be dead a lot. Dean Smith
• Winning is overrated. The only time it is really important is in surgery and war.  Al McGuire
• All sports are games of inches. Dick Ritger
• A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it. Irv Blitzer (John Candy)
• One bout doesn’t make a champion. One win or one loss isn’t reflective of an entire career…Champions aren’t made or lost with one battle. Kelly Williams
• Behind all the years of practice and all the hours of glory waits that inexorable terror of living without the game. Bill Bradley
• Don’t be content with average because average is just as close to the bottom as it is to the top. Danielle Ballentine
• The race isn’t over until you cross the finish line. You’ll be surprised at how much can change in the last twenty strides. Jackie Dugall
• It’s blood, sweat, sometimes tears. Bob Hayes
• It’s important to respect both your teammates and your opponents. Friendships can make a victory last forever. Jamie Koven
• Sport, indeed, is a bare canvas to which we present ourselves…fully, completely, and exquisitely. Dr. Carole Oglesby
• Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust. Jesse Owens
• Every sport pretends to a literature, but people don’t believe it of any other sport but their own. Alistair Cooke

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• I am getting to an age when I can only enjoy the last sport left. It is called hunting for your spectacles.  Edward Grey
• Have you noticed that whatever sport you’re trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent? Dave Barry
• I love the Olympics, because they enable people from all over the world to come together and– regardless of their political or cultural differences–accuse each other of cheating. Dave Barry
• I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out. Rodney Dangerfield
• It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. It took one afternoon on the golf course. Hank Aaron
• 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
• I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators. Gerald R. Ford
• Wrestling is ballet with violence. Jesse Ventura
• Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple. Barry Switzer
• The trouble with referees is that they just don’t care which side wins. Tom Canterbury
• If you screw things up in tennis, it’s 15-love. If you screw up in boxing, it’s your ass.  Randall “Tex” Cobb

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