Monthly Archive: April 2022

Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Saturday, April 30, 2022 – Knute Rockne

Harry April 30, 2022

“A coach’s greatest asset is his sense of responsibility – the reliance placed on him by his players.”

And

“Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points.”

And

“Drink the first. Sip the second slowly. Skip the third.”

And

“Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.”

And

“It isn’t necessary to see a good tackle. You can hear it.”

And

“The essence of football is blocking, tackling, and execution based on timing, rhythm and deception.”

And

“The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.”

And

“We count on winning. And if we lose, don’t beef. And the best way to prevent beefing is – don’t lose.”

And

“Show me a good and gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.”

And

“One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than fifty preaching it.”

And

“The best thing I ever learned in life was that things have to be worked for. A lot of people seem to think there is some sort of magic in making a winning football team. There isn’t, but there’s plenty of work.”

And

“I’ve found that prayers work best when you have big players.”

And

“Win or lose, do it fairly.”

And

“Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up”

And

“No star playing, just football.”

And

“Tell the public about the boys. They’re the ones that do the work and they should get the credit. The people are interested in them, not me.”

And

“Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

And

“Let’s win one for the Gipper.”

Wikipedia: Knute Rockne

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Friday, April 29, 2022 – Darrell Royal

Harry April 29, 2022

“A boy shows how much he wants to play in the spring, when it’s tough, and during two a days, when it’s hot and tough. I don’t count on the boy who waits till October, when it’s cool and fun, then decides he wants to play. Maybe he’s better than three guys ahead of him, but I know those three won’t change their minds in the fourth quarter.”

And

“Breaks balance out. The sun don’t shine on the same ol’ dog’s rear end every day.”

And

“Football doesn’t build character. It eliminates the weak ones.”

And

“I learned this about coaching: You don’t have to explain victory and you can’t explain defeat.”

And

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

And

“Once you cross the 50 you feel like an unsaddled horse.”

And

“Punt returns will kill you quicker than a minnow can swim a dipper.”

And

“You know, a football coach is nothing more than a teacher. You teach them the same subject, and you have a group of new guys every year.”

And

“You’ve got to think lucky. If you fall into a mudhole, check your back pocket – you might have caught a fish.”

And

“You’ve got to be in a position for luck to happen. Luck doesn’t go around looking for a stumblebum.”

And

“On game day, I am more nervous than a pig in a packing plant.”

And

“There’s an old saying, ‘You dance with who brung ya.’”

And

“Really, it was said about two-thirds in jest. Since we won the Arkansas and Notre Dame games with fourth-down and short-yardage passes, another image has arisen. I’ve been pictured as a man who takes chances. Two stinkin’ plays, and I’m a helluva gambler.”

And

“Some of them are so green you could hide ‘em on top of a lettuce leaf.”

And

“He could run like small-town gossip.”

And

“Ol’ Ugly is better than Ol’ Nothing.”

And

“They’re gonna come after us with their eyes pulled up like BBs.”

And

“There was a hornet’s nest waiting for us in Houston, and we were walking into it like Little Red Riding Hood with jam on her face.”

And

“Winning coaches must treat mistakes like copperheads in the bedclothes – avoid them with all the energy you can muster.”

And

“The best thing a coach can hope for is to please the majority. And the only way to please the majority is to win.”

And

“I’m pretty thin-skinned. When they say, ‘Do you want some constructive criticism?’ I say, ‘No.’”

And

“It’s an in-the-trench battle. It’s meat on meat, flesh on flesh and stink on stink. And that’s the only way you can play it.”

And

“Trends are bunk. Only angry people win football games.”

And

“We don’t want candy stripes on our uniforms. These are work clothes.”

And

“He’s as quick as a hiccup.”

And

“He doesn’t have a lot of speed, but maybe Elizabeth Taylor can’t sing.”

And

“I didn’t want to stay until I had used up all the enjoyment because that’s too long to stay anywhere.”

And

“If worms carried pistols, birds wouldn’t eat ’em.”

Wikipedia: Darrell Royal

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Thursday, April 28, 2022 – Babe Ruth

Harry April 28, 2022

“Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.”

And

“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.”

And

“Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.”

And

“Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.”

And

“As soon as I got out there I felt a strange relationship with the pitcher’s mound. It was as if I’d been born out there. Pitching just felt like the most natural thing in the world. Striking out batters was easy.”

And

“Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?”

And

“You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.”

And

“I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run.”

And

“I didn’t mean to hit the umpire with the dirt, but I did mean to hit that bastard in the stands.”

And

“If it wasn’t for baseball, I’d be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery.”

And

“I said I’m going to hit the next one right over the flagpole. God must have been with me.”

And

““How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball… The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.”

And

“You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth – that means the boys. And after you’ve been a boy, and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime.”

And

“I know, but I had a better year than Hoover.”
– Reported reply when a reporter objected that the salary Ruth was demanding ($80,000) was more than that of President Herbert Hoover’s ($75,000)

And

“I’d give a year of my life if I could hit a homerun on opening day of this great new park.”
– April 18, 1923, about the newly built Yankee Stadium

And

“To my sick little pal. I will try to knock you another homer, maybe two today.”

Wikipedia: Babe Ruth

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Wednesday, April 27, 2022 – Don Shula

Harry April 27, 2022

“The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others.”

And

“One thing I never want to be accused of is not working.”

And

“I don’t know any other way to lead but by example.”

And

“Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.”

And

“I think what coaching is all about, is taking players and analyzing there ability, put them in a position where they can excel within the framework of the team winning. And I hope that I’ve done that in my 33 years as a head coach.”

And

“The ultimate goal is victory. And if you refuse to work as hard as you possibly can toward that aim, or if you do anything that keeps you from achieving that goal, then you are just cheating yourself.”

And

“You know it’s only 50 miles from Grand River to Canton, but it took me 67 years to travel that distance.”

Wikipedia Page: Don Shula

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Tuesday, April 26, 2022 – Epictetus

Harry April 26, 2022

“If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, “He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.”

And

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will. ”

And

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

And

“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”

And

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”

And

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

And

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”

And

“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems”

And

“Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.”

And

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

And

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”

And

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”

And

“All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.”

And

“People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.”

And

“First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”

And

“Only the educated are free.”

And

“To accuse others for one’s own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.”

And

“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. ”

And

“Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.”

And

“Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.”

And

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

And

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. ”

And

“You are a little soul carrying around a corpse”

And

“Seek not the good in external things; seek it in yourselves.”

And

“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now.”

And

“If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it.”

And

“Do not try to seem wise to others. ”

And

“Don’t seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.”

And

“No man is free who is not master of himself.”

And

“If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.”

And

“Difficulty shows what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat.”

And

“Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”

And

“In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.”

And

“Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.”

And

“Practice yourself, for heaven’s sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.”

Wikipedia: Epictetus

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Monday, April 25, 2022 – Jim Lovell

Harry April 25, 2022

“Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job.”

And

“Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”

And

“The moon is essentially gray, no color. It looks like plaster of Paris, like dirty beach sand with lots of footprints in it.”

And

“There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen.”

And

“From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. It wasn’t a miracle, we just decided to go.”

Wikipedia: Jim Lovell

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Sunday, April 24, 2022 – Frank Sinatra

Harry April 24, 2022

“I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living life, a man who had good friends, fine family – and I don’t think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.”

And

“I’m for whatever gets you through the night.”

And

“I’m gonna live till I die.”

And

“May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.”

And

“People often remark that I’m pretty lucky. Luck is only important in so far as getting the chance to sell yourself at the right moment. After that, you’ve got to have talent and know how to use it.”

And

“The best revenge is massive success.”

And

“Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I’m honest.”

And

“I’m not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I’m not looking for the secret to life…. I just go on from day to day, taking what comes.”

And

“What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can.”

And

“I’m supposed to have a Ph.D. on the subject of women. But the truth is I’ve flunked more often than not. I’m very fond of women; I admire them. But, like all men, I don’t understand them.”

And

“For years I’ve nursed a secret desire to spend the Fourth of July in a double hammock with a swingin’ redheaded broad … but I could never find me a double hammock.”

And

“The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.”

Wikipedia: Frank Sinatra

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Saturday, April 23, 2022 – Johnny Carson

Harry April 22, 2022

“Anytime four New Yorkers get into a cab together without arguing, a bank robbery has just taken place.”

And

“Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.”

And

“I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.”

And

“I know you’ve been married to the same woman for 69 years. That is marvelous. It must be very inexpensive.”

And

“I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.”

And

“My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day.”

And

“Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”

And

“Talent alone won’t make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: “Are your ready?””

And

“The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money”

Wikipedia: Johnny Carson

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Friday, April 22, 2022 – Omar Bradley

Harry April 22, 2022

“Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.”

And

“Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.”

And

“Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

And

“This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.”

And

“Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that you would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all-inclusive thing. If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him. Soldiers must have confidence in their leader.”

And

“We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”

And

“Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them, must share the guilt for the dead.”

And

“The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.”

And

“With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescents.”

And

Military hero, courageous in battle, and gentle in spirit, friend of the common soldier, General of the Army, first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he embodies the best of the American military tradition with dignity, humanity, and honor. Gerald Ford, remarks upon presenting Bradley with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (10 January 1977)

And

An Armistice Day Address

By General Omar N. Bradley
Boston, Massachusetts
November 10, 1948

“TOMORROW is our day of conscience. For although it is a monument to victory, it is also a symbol of failure. Just as it honors the dead, so must it humble the living.

Armistice Day is a constant reminder that we won a war and lost a peace.

It is both a tribute and an indictment: A tribute to the men who died that their neighbors might live without fear of aggression. An indictment of those who lived and forfeited their chance for peace.

Therefore, while Armistice Day is a day for pride, it is for pride in the achievements of others—humility in our own.

Neither remorse nor logic can hide the fact that our armistice ended in failure. Not until the armistice myth exploded in the blast of a Stuka bomb did we learn that the winning of wars does not in itself make peace. And not until Pearl Harbor did we learn that non-involvement in peace means certain involvement in war.
We paid grievously for those faults of the past in deaths, disaster, and dollars.

It was a penalty we knowingly chose to risk. We made the choice when we defaulted on our task in creating and safeguarding a peace.

It is no longer possible to shield ourselves with arms alone against the ordeal of attack. For modern war visits destruction on the victor and the vanquished alike. Our only complete assurance of surviving World War III is to halt it before it starts.

For that reason we clearly have no choice but to face the challenge of these strained times. To ignore the danger of aggression is simply to invite it. It must never again be said of the American people: Once more we won a war; once more we lost a peace. If we do we shall doom our children to a struggle that may take their lives.

ARMED forces can wage wars but they cannot make peace. For there is a wide chasm between war and peace—a chasm that can only be bridged by good will, discussion, compromise, and agreement. In 1945 while still bleeding from the wounds of aggression, the nations of this world met in San Francisco to build that span from war to peace. For three years—first hopefully, then guardedly, now fearfully—free nations have labored to complete that bridge. Yet again and again they have been obstructed by a nation whose ambitions thrive best on tension, whose leaders are scornful of peace except on their own impossible terms.

The unity with which we started that structure has been riddled by fear and suspicion. In place of agreement we are wrangling dangerously over the body of that very nation whose aggression had caused us to seek each other as allies and friends.

Only three years after our soldiers first clasped hands over the Elbe, this great wartime ally has spurned friendship with recrimination, it has clenched its fists and skulked in conspiracy behind it secretive borders.

As a result today we are neither at peace nor war. Instead we are engaged in this contest of tension, seeking agreement with those who disdain it, rearming, and struggling for peace.

Time can be for or against us.

It can be for us if diligence in our search for agreement equals the vigilance with which we prepare for a storm.

It can be against us if disillusionment weakens our faith in discussion—or if our vigilance corrodes while we wait.

Disillusionment is always the enemy of peace. And today—as after World War I —disillusionment can come from expecting too much, too easily, too soon. In our impatience we must never forget that fundamental differences have divided this world; they allow no swift, no cheap, no easy solutions.

While as a prudent people we must prepare ourselves to encounter what we may be unable to prevent, we nevertheless must never surrender ourselves to the certainty of that encounter.

For if we say there is no good in arguing with what must inevitably come, then we shall be left with no choice but to create a garrison state and empty our wealth into arms. The burden of long-term total preparedness for some indefinite but inevitable war could not help but crush the freedom we prize. It would leave the American people soft victims for bloodless aggression.

BOTH the East and the West today deprecate war. Yet because of its threatening gestures, its espousal of chaos, its secretive tactics, and its habits of force—one nation has caused the rest of the world to fear that it might recklessly resort to force rather that be blocked in its greater ambitions.

The American people have said both in their aid to Greece and in the reconstruction of Europe that any threat to freedom is a threat to our own lives. For we know that unless free peoples stand boldly and united against the forces of aggression, they may fall wretchedly, one by one, into the web of oppression.

It is fear of the brutal unprincipled use of force by reckless nations that might ignore the vast reserves of our defensive strength that has caused the American people to enlarge their air, naval, and ground arms.

Reluctant as we are to muster this costly strength, we must leave no chance for miscalculation in the mind of any aggressor.

Because in the United States it is the people who are sovereign, the Government is theirs to speak their voice and to voice their will, truthfully and without distortion.

We, the American people, can stand cleanly before the entire world and say plainly to any state:

“This Government will not assail you.

“You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressor.”

Since the origin of the American people, their chief trait has been the hatred of war. And yet these American people are ready to take up their arms against aggression and destroy if need be by their might any nation which would violate the peace of the world.

There can be no compromise with aggression anywhere in the world. For aggression multiplies—in rapid succession—disregard for the rights of man. Freedom when threatened anywhere is at once threatened everywhere.

NO MORE convincing an avowal of their peaceful intentions could have been made by the American people than by their offer to submit to United Nations the secret of the atom bomb. Our willingness to surrender this trump advantage that atomic energy might be used for the peaceful welfare of mankind splintered the contentions of those word-warmakers that our atom had been teamed with the dollar for imperialistic gain.

Yet because we asked adequate guarantees and freedom of world-wide inspection by the community of nations itself, our offer was declined and the atom has been recruited into this present contest of nerves. To those people who contend that secrecy and medieval sovereignty are more precious than a system of atomic control, I can only reply that it is a cheap price to pay for peace.

The atom bomb is far more than a military weapon. It may—as Bernard Baruch once said—contain the choice between the quick and the dead. We dare not forget that the advantage in atomic warfare lies with aggression and surprise. If we become engaged in an atom bomb race, we may simply lull ourselves to sleep behind an atomic stockpile. The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.

WITH the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescents. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. We have many men of science; too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

This is our twentieth century’s claim to distinction and to progress.

IN OUR concentration on the tactics of strength and resourcefulness which have been used in the contest for blockaded Berlin, we must not forget that we are also engaged in a long-range conflict of ideas. Democracy can withstand ideological attacks if democracy will provide earnestly and liberally for the welfare of its people. To defend democracy against attack, men must value freedom. And to value freedom they must benefit by it in happier and more secure lives for their wives and their children.

Throughout this period of tension in which we live, the American people must demonstrate conclusively to all other peoples of the world that democracy not only guarantees man’s human freedom but that it guarantees his economic dignity and progress as well. To practice freedom and make it work, we must cherish the individual; we must provide him the opportunities for reward and impress upon him the responsibilities a free man bears to the society in which he lives.”

Wikipedia Page: Omar Bradley

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