Great Athletes Quotes

“Over the course of my years, I have met thousands of people. I have dined with the prosperous as well as the poverty-stricken. I have conversed with the mighty and with the meek. I have walked with the famous and the feeble. I have run with outstanding athletes and those who are not athletically inclined. One thing I can tell you with certainty is this: You cannot predict happiness by the amount of money, fame, or power a person has. External conditions do not necessarily make a person happy ... The fact is that the external things so valued by the world are often the cause of a great deal of misery in the world. Those who live in thanksgiving daily, however, are usually among the world's happiest people. And they make others happy as well.”

— Joseph B. Wirthlin

“All great athletes essentially come to a fork in the road where they have to change their approach to succeed. It's a sign of intelligence and character. My college coach, Jack Hartman, made me play only defense for a full year in practice when I became academically ineligible for my junior year at Southern Illinois. Embarrassed, I thought at first about arguing with Coach Hartman over what I felt was a tremendous slight. But instead I started lifting weights and working so hard on my defense that my teammates hated to see me match up against them in practice. That was the turning point of my life, on and off the court.”

— Walt Frazier

“The real secret behind top athletes' genius, then, may be as esoteric and obvious and dull and profound as silence itself. The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player's mind as he stands at the center of a hostile crowdnoise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all.”

— David Foster Wallace

“I definitely think the way the game is transforming, becoming more and more athletic, guys are great athletes out here and relying on the physical skills more than their tennis skills, almost, sometimes. So for that reason, matching up with some of these guys, I can't keep up.”

— Daniel Nestor

“I know that BMW is now a sponsor of the USOC - of the United States Olympic Committee - so they offer the use of their aerodynamic speed-tunnel for testing and such for the athletes, which is a great advantage. But to be honest with you, I'd rather have a free car!”

— Apolo Ohno

“That is what great athletes can do: they give us a model of striving for human perfection.”

— Armstrong Williams

“Cyclists, I work with a number of cyclists. They are great athletes; they are great aerobic athletes. If you ask them to hit a baseball or golf ball, they can't do that.”

— Eric Heiden

“I've met and sketched most of the great athletes from the past five decades and their movement, grace and energy have kept me captivated over the years. That's what the ancient Greeks first saw and that's what caught my interest.”

— LeRoy Neiman

“Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.”

— Bill Bradley

“I had a great interest in sports. I had three older brothers who were great athletes. I was not.”

— George J. Mitchell

“Lance Armstrong has joined the legion of the lost, the great athletes who were barred or exiled for sins admitted or charged or suspected.”

— George Vecsey

“Last time I was starstruck was when I met Roger Federer. He is one of the few athletes that I really look up to - incredibly talented both on and off the track and a great role model for tennis.”

— Henrik Lundqvist

“You'd like more people to recognise what you do is special. But I take the attitude that the best thing I can do for my sport is to be the best at it. The best way people will come to recognise that track and field is a great sport is to see athletes excelling at it.”

— Maurice Greene

“To be candid with you, free agency hurts all sports. It's great for athletes making an enormous amount of money. But to say it helps the sports, I don't believe that.”

— Jerry West

“But as much as I am personally proud for winning five championships, I'm equally proud just being part of a women's division that has gotten so much better with all these great athletes here.”

— Trish Stratus

“These days the temptation to use steroids in sports has become too great for many young athletes.”

— Jim Sensenbrenner

“I am thrilled yet overwhelmed. There are so many great women athletes, some incredible performances.”

— Nancy Greene

“There are a lot of great athletes who stop working out, and they get out of shape like everybody else in their 30s and 40s.”

— Dolph Lundgren

“We feel very honored to have been offered the responsibility to host this great event, Berlin is a wonderful city that is developing at a tremendous rate, and this decision means that we can now prepare to welcome the world's best athletes to a fascinating place.”

— Otto Schily

“You have to be equal at both - great at football and great at dedicating yourself to the academics at Notre Dame. It's hard. There are no rooty-toot classes for athletes in South Bend.”

— Justin Tuck

“Americans' addiction to sports, with the NFL at the top, is based on the excitement generated by the potential for the unexpected great play which can only happen with honest competition from great athletes.”

— Arlen Specter

“All good athletes make mistakes; the great ones learn to make that mistake only once.”

— Raul Lopez

“Personally, I think SmackDown! has to be a little spicier than it is, a little more electrifying than it is. It's got great athletes and they've got great action, they've done some tremendous stuff, but I want it to knock you off the couch when it opens up. And I think we as a group have the ability to do that.”

— Dusty Rhodes

“Golf has humbled, humiliated, and just about licked all the great athletes who tried it.”

— Earl Blaik

“In Lake Placid we have Bible studies and it's awesome to be able to share your struggles as an athlete and as a Christian with others Christian athletes. That's one of the coolest things about sports ministry. We can share these common experiences with other Christians. Having Lolo as a teammate, for example, has been great.”

— Elana Meyers

“I was worried that all the corners of the earth had been explored, all the great battles fought. The famous people on TV were athletes and actresses and singers. What did they stand for? I wondered: Had the time for heroes passed?”

— Eric Greitens

“Olympics are probably the most important thing for Russians than any other athletes in the whole world. Since I was a little kid and since everybody was a little kid, their dream was playing in Olympic Games, especially if we have a chance to represent our country in Sochi, it's unbelievable and it's going to be a great thing.”

— Alexander Ovechkin

“Athletics is a great sport with many different events and athletes come in all shapes and sizes. I'm one of the smallest athletes on the track. They call me the 'pocket rocket'.”

— Jenny Meadows

“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

“I don't fold under pressure, great athletes perform better under pressure, so put pressure on me.”

— Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

“The really great athletes make their news on the field, not off the field.”

— Jimmy Haslam

“I think in general, people look at all Olympic athletes, look at all superstar athletes, and they say, "Okay, this guy doesn't have any insecurities." They're almost like these icons who - I don't know how to say it, but like they can't make mistakes. But the reality is, and I'll tell you this firsthand, a lot of great athletes have a lot of insecurities, and they have a really hard time dealing with a lot of so-called losing or however you want to classify it.”

— Apolo Ohno

“There are a lot of young great athletes out there; they're much better athletes than what we were. They're bigger, faster, stronger, unfortunately, there're fewer places to go.”

— George Steele

“Great coaches are great humanitarians. They really care for the athlete as people first and athletes second. This is paramount in gaining respect.”

— Gordie Gillespie

“If parents are aiming at choosing children who will be good athletes, or great musicians, or who will get into Ivy League schools, or who will be tall enough to make the basketball team, then there is a danger that the life of the child will bear the burden of that expectation; and the risk of disappointment and the cost of disappointment will be even higher than they are now, and even now they can be considerable.”

— Michael Sandel

“The thing about great athletes is that they all believe they can win the very next time.”

— Michael Wilbon

“I'm a huge wrestling fan. Wrestlers have so many great qualities that athletes need to have.”

— Bob Stoops

“By continually increasing the difficulty of the sport, we are discouraging younger athletes from starting and continuing in the sport. But most importantly, we are losing the beauty of our sport. We do not want gymnastics to lose what makes it so great - its artistic beauty.”

— Svetlana Boginskaya

“I get a lot of parents coming up to me, telling me they are grooming their kids to be professional athletes. I'm really against that. I think it's a great life, and yeah, you can lead them in that direction. I think a lot of parents live their lives through the kids. Because they didn't make it, they want their kids to make it. It puts a lot of undue pressure on the kids.”

— Wayne Gretzky

“My job is to teach them to believe they could perform better than they realize. Great coaches teach athletes to go beyond the barriers.”

— John Roderick

“Great people and great athletes realize early in their lives their destiny, and accept it. Even if they do not consciously realize the how, the where, the what.”

— Percy Cerutty

“It's like athletes: To be a great company you need great competitors ... It's what keeps you alive and keeps you honest.”

— Craig R. Barrett

“All athletes, without fail, are potentially great and good. A great athlete is a little man tirelessly inspired.”

— Sri Chinmoy

“The attention I get has been great. It has opened so many doors for me. It's nice that people are accepting beautiful women as athletes. It's encouraging to girls that muscles don't mean you can't be beautiful.”

— Jennie Finch

“As a kid I always idolized the winning athletes. It is one thing to idolize heroes. It is quite another to visualize yourself in their place. When I saw great people, I said to myself: I can be there.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

“What drove me to become the world's greatest bodybuilder is no different from what drives other athletes to become great tennis players or boxers or jockeys.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

“You learn from music, from watching great athletes at work - how disciplined they are, how they move. You learn these things by watching a shortstop at work, how he concentrates on one thing at a time. You learn from classic music, from the blues and jazz, from bluegrass. From all this, you learn how to sustain a great line without bringing in unnecessary words.”

— Ernest Gaines

“All in all it's a pretty great day for major league sports. At long last they've decided that gay people are fit to be included in their elite club-one that's already allowed in adulterers, wife-swappers, gamblers, cheaters, rapists, racists and slaughterers of man. Those who've abused spouses, drugs, alcohol, family members and animals. Congratulations, gay athletes. Are you sure you want to hang out with these people?”

— Jon Stewart

“You've got to have great athletes to win, I don't care who the coach is. You can't win without good athletes but you can lose with them. This is where coaching makes the difference.”

— Lou Holtz

“The ban doesn't have anything to do with Livestrong or my ability to work in [the cancer] community. Perhaps it speeds it up. I don't know the examples in Great Britain of athletes who have fallen. I know the examples in the United States - the Tiger Woods, the Michael Vicks, even the Bill Clintons - people who are still out there able to work.”

— Lance Armstrong