Looking for inspirational sports quotes that will inspire a team for a big contest? Or, those motivational words to get a team ready for a big game? Or, maybe some funny quotations for your season-ending team banquet?
These notable words can be used for locker room encouragement, coach-to-player communication, and sometimes just for entertainment purposes. For whatever reason to review these, we hope you enjoy them.
Best Sports Quotes
The quotes below are grouped together by sport.
Baseball Quotations
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
Rogers Hornsby
Every hitter likes fastballs, just like everybody likes ice cream. But you don’t like it when someone’s stuffing it into you by the gallon. That’s what it feels like when Nolan Ryan’s thrown balls by you.
Reggie Jackson
There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.
Derek Jeter
I’ve come to the conclusion that the two most important things in life are good friends and a good bullpen.
Bob Lemon
Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire’s eye or on the ball.
Jim Murray
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona.
George F. Will
More of the Best Baseball
Basketball – Famous Quotes
Some say you have to use your five best players, but I found out you win with the five that fit together best as a team.
Red Auerbach
Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.
Tim Duncan
You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed…you’re not gonna succeed all the time, and I know that.
LeBron James
I’ve missed over 9,000 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
There are really only two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and put the darn ball in the basket.
Abe Lemmons
Successful programs consist of people working hard, working together, while never worrying about who gets the credit.
Don Meyer
You might like Famous Sports Quotes.
When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team.
George Raveling
If you make every game a life and death proposition, you’re going to have problems. For one thing, you’ll be dead a lot.
Dean Smith
My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
Jim Valvano
More of the Best Basketball
Cricket
Cricket is a most precarious profession; it is called a team game, but, in fact, no one is so lonely as a batsman facing a bowler supported by ten fieldsmen and observed by two umpires to ensure that his error does not go unpunished.
John Arlott, An Eye for Cricket
My approach to cricket has been reasonably simple: it was about giving everything to the team, it was about playing with dignity, and it was about upholding the spirit of the game. I hope I have done some of that. I have failed at times, but I have never stopped trying. It is why I leave with sadness but also with pride.
Rahul Dravid
In the game of cricket, it has always been customary to accord more adulation to batsman than to bowlers.
I.A.R. Peebles, Talking of Cricket
More of the Best Cricket
Fitness
The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck!
Author Unknown
The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning ‘ability to,’ and bics, meaning ‘withstand tremendous boredom.’
Dave Barry
It is exercise alone that supports the spirits and keeps the mind in vigor.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently.
Ernest Hemingway
Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.
A.A. Milne
Processed foods not only extend the shelf life, but they extend the waistline as well.
Karen Sessions
More of the Best Fitness Sayings
Football
You have to play this game like somebody just hit your mother with a two-by-four.
Dan Birdwell
If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.
Erma Bombeck
It’s not the will to win that matters-everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare towin that matters.
Paul Bear Bryant
To succeed, you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.
Tony Dorsett
A good football coach needs a patient wife, a loyal dog, and a great quarterback – but not necessarily in that order.
Bud Grant – Learn more about Bud’s team – The Minnesota Vikings Fan Guide
There are several differences between a football game and a revolution. For one thing, a football game usually lasts longer, and the participants wear uniforms. Also, there are usually more casualties in a football game. The object of the game is to move a ball past the other team’s goal line. This counts as six points. No points are given for lacerations, contusions, or abrasions, but no points are deducted. Kicking is critical in football. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic players even kick the ball, occasionally.
Alfred Hitchcock
Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.
Bo Jackson
The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.
John Madden
When it comes to football, God is prejudiced – toward big, fast kids.
Chuck Mills
More of the Best Football
Golf Sayings
A “gimme” can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers, neither of whom can putt very well.
Author Unknown
I had a wonderful experience on the golf course today. I had a hole in nothing. Missed the ball and sank the divot.
Don Adams
When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls.
Henry Beard
One of the advantages bowling has over golf is that you seldom lose a bowling ball.
Don Carter
Golf is a game in which you yell “fore,” shoot six and write down five.
Paul Harvey
Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots – but you have to play the ball where it lies.
Bobby Jones
I play in the low 80s. If it’s any hotter than that, I won’t play.
Joe E. Lewis
More of the Best Golf Quotes
Gymnastics
I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run towards it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your foot.
Nadia Comaneci
Gymnastics has made me strong. I feel like it broke me down to my lowest point, but at the same time, it has given me the greatest strength anyone could ask for.
Shawn Johnson
If there has not been such a thing as gymnastics, I would have had to invent it because I feel at one with the sport.
Olga Korbut
There is always going to be a reason why you can’t do something; your job is to constantly look for the reasons why you can achieve your dreams.
Shannon Miller
As much time as you put into it, that’s what your achievements are going to be when you come out of it.
Mary Lou Retton
It’s important to push yourself further than you think you can go each and every day — as that is what separates the good from the great.
Kerri Strugg
More of the Best Gymnastics
Hockey Quotes
Hockey players wear numbers because you can’t always identify the body with dental records.
Author Unknown
Great moments are born from great opportunities.
Herb Brooks
Half the game is mental; the other half is being mental.
Jim McKenny
How would you like a job where, every time you make a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo?
Jacques Plante
Hockey belongs to the Cartoon Network, where a person can be pancaked by an ACME anvil, then expanded – accordion-style – back to full stature, without any lasting side effect.
Steve Rushin
More of the Best Hockey Sayings.
Lacrosse
Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
Unknown
Communication is the secret to success. Pass it on!
Unknown
The goalie. Lacrosse’s unsung hero. Keeper of the net. Last line of defense. A player whose contribution never shows up on the scoreboard at the end of a game but whose efforts may have determined the outcome. They say there is a personality-a “type”- that tends to choose the same position on the field. Attackers like the limelight. Defenders crave physicality. Midfielders like a sampling of both. And goalies only function with the weight of the world on their shoulders. After all, goalies are people who voluntarily put themselves in the line of fire. And the good ones never flinch.
Dana Czapnik
I thought lacrosse was what you find in la church.
Robin Williams
More of the Best Lacrosse
Running
It’s rude to count people as you pass them. Out loud.
Adidas ad
A lot of people don’t realize that about 98 percent of the running I put in is anything but glamorous: 2 percent joyful participation, 98 percent dedication! It’s a tough formula. Getting out in the forest in the biting cold and the flattening heat, and putting in kilometer after kilometer.
Rob de Castella
The nine inches right here; set it straight and you can beat anybody in the world.
Sebastian Coe, holding his fingers up to his head
Good things come slow – especially in distance running.
Bill Dellinger
Marathoning is like cutting yourself unexpectedly. You dip into the pain so gradually that the damage is done before you are aware of it. Unfortunately, when awareness comes, it is excruciating.
John Farrington
More of the Best Running Quotations.
Soccer
Why is there only one ball for 22 players? If you gave a ball to each of them, they’d stop fighting for it.
Author Unknown
Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence.
Bobby Charlton
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Soccer is not about justice. It’s a drama, and criminally wrong decisions against you are part and parcel of that.
Pete Davies
Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.
Mia Hamm
Whoever invented football should be worshipped as a God.
Hugo Sanchez
If I walked on water, my accusers would say it is because I can’t swim.
Berti Vogts
More of the Best Soccer Quotations.
Softball Quotes
We’re prepared, and we’ve done everything we can to prepare for this moment in time. That’s what confidence is all about.
Lisa Fernandez
And my dad drilled it in my head, you know, “If you want it bad enough, and you’re willing to make the sacrifices, you can do it. But first, you have to believe in yourself.”
Jennie Finch
If what you did yesterday still looks big to you today, then you must not have done anything today.
Unknown
Don’t think you’re too good to sit and root for your team, be a team player.
Unknown
More of the Best Softball Quotations
Swimming
I concentrate on preparing to swim my race and let the other swimmers think about me, not me about them.
Amanda Beard
I wouldn’t say anything is impossible. I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and put the work and time into it.
Michael Phelps
I actually love swimming but I just hate jumping in the water.
Natalie Coughlin
When you are behind, don’t give up; when you are ahead, don’t let up.
Unknown
The swimmer who says, “It can’t be done” is passed by the swimmer who is doing it.
Unknown
More of the Best Swimming
Tennis
Nothing can substitute for just plain hard work. I had to put in the time to get back. And it was a grind. It meant training and sweating every day. But I was completely committed to working out to prove to myself that I still could do it.
Andre Agassi
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
Arthur Ashe
If you can react the same way to winning and losing, that’s a big accomplishment. That quality is important because it stays with you for the rest of your life, and there’s going to be a life after tennis that’s a lot longer than your tennis life.
Chris Evert
When I was 40, my doctor advised me that a man in his 40s shouldn’t play tennis. I heeded his advice carefully and could hardly wait until I reached 50 to start again.
Hugo L. Black
Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you’re too damned old to do anything about it.
Jimmy Connors
I fear no one but respect everyone.
Roger Federer
More of the Best Tennis Sayings
Volleyball
Volleyball is the sport through which I am able to express my God-given talents of being an athlete. It is a sport that involves relating, pushing, and encouraging your teammates. It has helped evolve me into the person I am today.
David Beard
Most people put a hat and glasses on to go incognito. I take them off.
Karch Kiraly
It takes a lot of hard work and dedication just like any pro sport. Especially for beach volleyball, you don’t have to be tall or as fast as other sports. You just have to have the skills.
Misty May
More of the Best Volleyball
Wrestling – Sports Quotes
The harder you work, the luckier you get.
Unknown
Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.
Dan Gable
I bring smiles to people’s faces. I also stand on people’s faces. Balance.
CM Punk
Victory happens when ten thousand hours of training meets one moment of opportunity.
Unknown
More of the Best Wrestling Quotes.
Yoga
For me, yoga is not just a workout – it’s about working on yourself.
Mary Glover
The pose begins when you want to leave it.
Unknown
Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind.
Patanjali
The most important pieces of equipment you need for doing yoga are your body and your mind.
Rodney Yee
Other
Don’t count the days, make the days count.
Muhammad Ali
Using these quotes
These quotations can be used for a variety of reasons. Place them signs for the locker room. Put your favorite lines on posters for hallways. Use these sports quotes in speeches and presentations. Use them to motivate players and assistants. The power of words is amazing! There are thousands of sayings to choose from organized by each sport. In addition to these, we also feature pages devoted to sayings and slogans associated with a wide variety of sports, including baseball, basketball, golf, football, tennis, wrestling, cross-country, running, hockey, and more.
These fun-to-read sports quotes come from various speakers and sources, including athletes, coaches, writers, humorists, announcers, and more. What makes some worthy of inclusion on our list? Well, there’s not a quick answer to why we include some and leave others out. A big part of it has to do with whether the quote is memorable or not. The source of the quote also plays a significant role in our inclusion decisions.
If you have suggestions for other favorites you’d like to see in our collection, please use the contact us page and let us know.
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