Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I want guys that are sincerely interested in coming to Clemson. I don't need any practice recruiting, and I don't like wasting time. I want to be transparent, and I want prospects to be transparent, and if they're really interested in Clemson, then they're going to come here unofficially on their own.
A hard-fought, well-fought, hairline-close game is as classical in sports as tragedy is in the theater. Victory is contained within defeat, and defeat is contained within victory. That's the way it is in the best of games. What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.
I think when you win the national championship, it works throughout your team. Where human nature is to say, I did well. I got my quota this month. Now do I get some time off? Do I get a bonus? Do I get to go on a cruise? But it's not to keep trying to be the best. That's not necessarily human nature.
The caliber of play in professional football compared to college is better and everybody knows it. They don't realize how much better. What a giant leap forward in the ability of talent level, the speed, and even the grasp of what you are trying to do. There is no other distractions before the players.
I want what's best for people who want to improve the quality of their life. I hope whoever our leader is will do all that he can do to make our country safe and improve the quality of life for a lot of the people we have in our country, and I don't think I am qualified to determine who that should be.
This isn’t Kirk Cousins’ job to win. Right now this is Kirk Cousins’ job to lose…He’s putting together a profile right now, a resume of these next seven weeks that will make the decision easy for the Redskins: either they sign him to a contract or they’re still looking for the quarterback of the future.
I was always going to church with my mom, dad and sister. I was literally raised under the godly influence both at home and church. There was no alcohol and no smoking at our house. That was the way a Bowden was supposed to live. My dad always told me to represent the Bowden name in a respectful manner.
All of us that have teams want to pick the right people. I've thought a lot about that. In the NFL, we've got 13 scouts traveling the country. We're trying to pick 22 year-olds coming out of college who will be successful in the NFL. It's very hard to do. What I've learned is it's always character first.
For a long time, I was an assistant in the NFL to George Allen, and George was paranoid that other teams were cheating on him... that they were offering bounties, that they were wiring our locker room, that they were putting food poisoning into the pregame meal of the other team's stars, stuff like that.
The National Liberation Front was not...a viable, autonomous organization with a life of its own; it was a facade, a "front," by means of which the DLD (the North Vietnamese Communist Party) sought to mobilize the people in the South to accomplish its ends, and to garner international sympathy and support.
People sometimes ask me to name the greatest coach in NFL history. George Halas may have set the standard, but Don Shula has won more games than anyone, and he has done it in the most competitive era. He had an incomparable ability to evaluate players, to motivate them, and to teach them the game of football.
An agent won't help you get drafted higher, won't make you win more games, and won't make you faster or stronger. They all say they can, but the people who do the drafting don't talk to agents. They talk to coaches, they watch film, they talk to the people who've worked with players. They don't talk to agents.
When Washington State has been good, they've always had a connection to Southern California. You know, as far as visiting, that's different than recruiting. Recruiting is based on production and players, who you can get. You know, so, the nicest parts of Southern California aren't necessarily the best players.
Now, everybody always says there's no 'I' in team, but there is an 'I' in win, because the individuals make the team what it is, and how they think and what they do is important to the team. So when you act like the individual is not important, well, it is damn important who these people are and what they are.
Real anatomy exists in three dimensions, so any time you can view anatomical data in 3D, you'll have a much more accurate picture of the subject, ... Even multiple two-dimensional CT slices can never allow you to understand a subject's dental condition as quickly or as accurately as a quality 3D visualization.
I love coaching my grandkids, but I love working with my two sons. J.D. is the head coach, and I'm the assistant - you believe that? I missed so much of them growing up. I really messed up there. So I like working with J.D. and Coy. I'm trying not to do the same thing again. With J.D. and Coy, I missed so much.
You get these Satanists types that don't believe in God. OK, so you realize you don't get Satan if you don't get God, right? Or atheists that want to believe in ghosts. Wait, wait, wait. You can't have a two-way go on that. You want to be agnostic, be an atheist, fine. But you don't bring ghosts along with you.
Once you have a plan, you must sell it to the players. It is not enough to put it on the blackboard and say, 'Okay, here it is.' You have to convince the players that the plan is a good one and show them, in specific ways, why it will work. If you do, you send them out to the practice field with more confidence.
I was fortunate to be around a couple of coaches who took me under their wing and taught me how to train, how to work and how to prepare myself for a game. They gave me so much, and I saw the passion they had for the game and for teaching it. What I learned from them led me to want to become a teacher and coach.
When you play against good people, that's when you focus your concentration. Your sense of urgency to be disciplined in your execution all become more critical. Sometimes you get away with doing things not quite right against lesser competition, but when you play against real good people that's when it shows up.
There's so much more involved with the game than just sitting there, looking at the numbers and saying, 'OK, these are my percentages, then I'm going to do it this way,' because that one time it doesn't work could cost your team a football game, and that's the thing a head coach has to live with, not the professor.
To be recognized for making the contributions I did, along with the others who are part of the Hall of Honor, it really is humbling. Particularly when you grow up in Pittsburgh and know what the Steelers mean to the city. To me, as a little boy growing up watching the Steelers, this means a lot to me. It's special.
The thing I enjoy the most about being the head coach is that I get to create the climate. I get to control the environment everybody comes to work in every day, and I'm very in tune to the chemistry, the morale of my staff, my support staff, my secretaries, the guy cleaning the building, the players, the walk-ons.
There's two parts of leadership. You've got to be a good leader - you've got to be somebody that people want to emulate and care about the other people. But the other guys that you have have to accept their leadership. They have to respond to it. That's the chemistry that you never know how that is going to happen.
I wound up through a wild set of circumstances getting into coaching. I went in and volunteered with Don Coryell, who was a big part of my past, great coach. A lot of people say he was one of the greatest coaches ever. He was very good in high school, college and pro. Another guy on that staff was named John Madden.
When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who's in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you're investing your time in that.
I had great football players. To be quite truthful, my great football players, the ones who wanted the ball at the end of the games, they weren't focused on money. They want to do something great. They want to go to Pro Bowls. They want to win Super Bowls. Those are the people that succeed in sports - or in business.
What I meant by that is, any time you have adversity, now you've got a chance to see all of these guys play every game the rest of the way like it's a playoff game. What you want guys to do when there's adversity is to play harder and play better, and that's when you see what kind of guys you have in your locker room.
The exponential rewards you receive as a reaction to the service that you give is phenomenal. If everybody understood that you get back in spades what you put in in terms of service, not only will everybody’s lives be more fulfilling – I mean can you imagine a society look like that? I’m Bill Courtney and I share hope.
If I'm Colin Kaepernick I have to prove myself. I would say, 'I would love the opportunity to show that I am a championship-winning quarterback again, and I understand that I am not going to be handed anything and that I would love the opportunity to come back.' If he said that it would open the ears of a lot of teams.
I'm a big believer in the student-athlete part. I value the education and what it provides for you. Football is a vocation. Only 1.67 percent of these athletes go on to the NFL. An education provides you an opportunity for a career. A lot of people just don't get that. To say they aren't getting anything is misinformed.
If you made me the national commissioner of football, I'd tell you one thing that I would mandate. The second Saturday in September, we're going to have conference day. Everybody from the SEC plays a Big 12 team. Everybody from the Big Ten is going to play the ACC. Everybody from the Big East is going to play the Pac-10.
Current condition of the BYU football program? I think it's in good shape. We've got some good young players. We've had two or three pretty good recruiting years. We lost some players, obviously, that hurt us, but you always have turnover in college through attrition (graduation, transfers). That's the nature of the game.
In football, it's the job of the player to play, the coach to coach, the official to officiate. Each guy is charged with upholding his end, nothing more. In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life - or at least the way life should be.
I went to many coaching clinics, talked to other coaches, read articles, books, etc. Anything I could do that would help me prepare to be the best coach possible. Fortunately, the coaches I had as a player were good men and were excellent role models in setting priorities and relating to the team members and coaching staff.
The thing I like about college football so much is you can affect these guys a lot more when they are 18-22, 23 years old in terms of people and having a chance to be more successful. They are still a value type development, where you have a chance to help them mature a bit and help them be a little more successful in life.
I just love the Buffalo market. Say what you want about their fans, it'll be December and they've been out of the playoffs for a month. But if there's a December game with snow, there's still going to be 72,000 people in those stands. One of the most passionate, loyal groups of fans in the National Football League, bar none.
Trust me, people that know me know I ain't perfect, but I do try to live my life in a way that hopefully can be pleasing to my maker because I know I'm going to meet Him one day, and He's not going to pat me on the back and talk about how many wins I had or how many Coach of the Year trophies we got or how much money I made.
In golf, you keep trying to score well when you're ahead. In basketball, they don't quit shooting when they're ahead. In hockey, they don't quit shooting the puck when they're ahead. And in boxing, you don't quit punching when you're ahead. But in football, somehow magically, you're supposed to quit playing when you're ahead.
But someone once described the contrast between a good life and a godly life as the difference between the top of the ocean and the bottom. On top, sometimes it's like glass -- serene and calm -- and other times it's raging and stormy. But hundreds of fathoms below, it is beautiful and consistent, always calm, always peaceful.
BYU takes on defending national champion Florida State in the Pigskin Classic in Jacksonville, Fla., eight days after announcing that the 2000 season would be his last before retirement: We looked at it. We knew it would make things tougher. But how many chances does anyone get to play Florida State? It was too good to pass up.
I think the legal profession is getting somewhat corrupted. When it comes to lawyers, I think it's kind of a Catch-22. On one hand, there's so much process, procedure and mess caused by the legal profession. But on the other hand, the only way to sort through all that process, procedure and mess is through the legal profession.
Speaking as he unintentionally launched his farewell tour by announcing that the 2000 season would be his last before retirement: Honestly, I had never, ever in my wildest dreams believed I would ever do this. All I wanted to do was to play it out and when it was time to go, hang it up, take off and sail into the sunset somewhere.
In adversity, there is opportunity. Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity. I've never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity. Adversity is another way to measure the greatness of individuals. I never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger.
It's not human nature to be great. It's human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by. That is normal. When you have something good happen, it's the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished.
The Bible is big in my teaching. It's a wonder the ACLU didn't get after me pretty good. I really kept thinking they would. I took my boys to church. I took my football team to church. I only did it two times a year. Before I signed a kid, I'd write the parents and I'd tell that parent we were gong to take your son to church twice.
The biggest thing for me is to be accessible. When a high school coach comes on our campus, they can sit in every position meeting they want to sit in. They can come to every practice. And the comments I've gotten from our high school coaches is how accessible we are to them. That's what you need to do to build those relationships.
Faith is the most important thing in the world to me. It's the greatest strength I've had. It's helped me get through the hard times. You're not going to win every one of your football games. I've always said I'm not going to make football my god. A lot of coaches put so much into coaching football games that they have nothing left.
Atlanta might have snow and Macon might have good weather, and they're not really far apart. But there's a period of time in the year where the gnats get all over your face and they bite you. And the Macon crowd, it's funny, but they can sit there like nothing's happening and there can be gnats just biting the hell out of your face.
I could sum it up in one thing: A guy has to be what he is. He's got to coach and have a philosophy based on his own personality. You see too many coaches trying to imitate other coaches, trying to be someone else. It's all right to emulate the qualities of good coaches but I don't think you should imitate. You've got to be yourself.