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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Saturday, April 1, 2023 – Tommy Lasorda

April 1, 2023

“About the only problem with success is that it does not teach you how to deal with failure.”

And

“Guys ask me, don’t I get burned out? How can you get burned out doing something you love? I ask you, have you ever got tired of kissing a pretty girl?”

And

“I believe managing is like holding a dove in your hand. If you hold it too tightly you kill it, but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it.”

And

“Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it’s because you’ve started to think of failure.”

And

“The only way I’d worry about the weather is if it snows on our side of the field and not theirs.”
‘
And

“There are three types of baseball players: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happens.”

And

“The difference between the possible and the impossible lies in a person’s determination.”

Wikipedia:  Tommy Lasorda

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day, Tuesday, March 20, 2023 – Albert Einstein

March 21, 2023

“A man should look for what he is, and not for what he thinks should be.”

And

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”

And

“All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.”

And

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”

And

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”

And

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

And

“I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.”

And

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

And

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

And

“Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.”

And

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

And

“People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.”

And

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

And

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.”

And

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

And

“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”

And

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”

And

“Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But there is no doubt in my mind that the lion belongs with it even if he cannot reveal himself to the eye all at once because of his huge dimension.”

And

“I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.”

And

“Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.”

And

“I do not carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. …The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”

And

“I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of sudden a thought occurred to me: If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.”

And

“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.”

And

“If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y and z is keeping your mouth shut.”

And

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

And

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”

And

“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”

And

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

And

“The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when contemplating the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of the mystery every day. The important thing is not to stop questioning; never lose a holy curiosity.”

And

“When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.”

And

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.”

And

“If I can’t picture it, I can’t understand it.”

And

“The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavor in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind.”

Wikipedia Page:  Albert Einstein

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Thursday, December 8, 2022 – Michael Jordan

March 19, 2023

“Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation.”

And

“As athletes, we’re used to reacting quickly. Here, it’s ‘come, stop, come, stop.’ There’s a lot of downtime. That’s the toughest part of the day.”

And

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

And

“I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot… when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.”

And

“I never thought a role model should be negative.”

And

“I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.”

And

“I realize that I’m black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and this is everybody’s wish.”

And

“I’m not out there sweating for three hours every day just to find out what it feels like to sweat.”

And

“I’ve always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come.”

And

“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”

And

“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.”

And

“I’ve never been afraid to fail.”

And

“If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.”

And

“If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But 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.”

And

“Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.”

And

“My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”

And

“My heroes are and were my parents. I can’t see having anyone else as my heroes.”

And

“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.”

And

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”

And

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”

And

“There is no “i” in team but there is in win.”

And

“To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don’t isolate.”

And

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”

Wikipedia:  Michael Jordan

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Monday, March 6, 2023 – Jake Gaither

March 6, 2023

“I like my boys agile, mobile and hostile.”

And

”Football is a hard-nosed game. You go into it pulling no punches and asking none. Football is a character-building game—but you can build more character with a winning team than with a losing one.”

And

“Expect to lose sometimes, but a loss can be a stepping stone to victory if used properly.”

And

“The Bear can take his and beat yours and take yours and beat his.” Jake Gaither, former Florida A&M coach on Alabama’s legendary Bear Bryant

And

“Never leave the field with a boy feeling you’re mad at him. You can chew him out, but then pat him on the shoulder.”

And

“It’s bad coaching to blame your boys for losing a game, even if it’s true.”

And

“I just organize. Give me credit for selecting good assistants.”

And

“Excuses are no good. Your friends don’t need them, and your enemies won’t believe them.”

Wikipedia: Jake Gaither

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Thursday – February 16, 2023 – Jesse Owens

February 16, 2023

“A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.”

And

“Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.”

And

“I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.”

And

“I always loved running – it was something you could do by yourself and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.”

And

“If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.”

And

“One chance is all you need.”

And

“The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us – that’s where it’s at.”

And

“We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”

And

“I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn’t in Berlin to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I’d learned long ago from Charles Riley, the only victory that counts is the one over yourself.”

And

“To a sprinter, the hundred-yard dash is over in three seconds, not nine or ten. The first ‘second’ is when you come out of the blocks. The next is when you look up and take your first few strides to attain gain position. By that time the race is actually about half over. The final ‘second’ – the longest slice of time in the world for an athlete – is that last half of the race, when you really bear down and see what you’re made of. It seems to take an eternity, yet is all over before you can think what’s happening.”

And

“I fought, I fought harder . . . but one cell at a time, panic crept into my body, taking me over.”  –on almost not qualifying for the Olympic finals in long jump

And

“I decided I wasn’t going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever.”  –on his final leap in long-jump competition, a record-breaking 26 feet, 5 and 5/16 inches

And

“It dawned on me with blinding brightness. I realized: I had jumped into another rare kind of stratosphere – one that only a handful of people in every generation are lucky enough to know.”  
–on his Olympic achievements

Wikipedia:  Jesse Owens

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Wednesday, February 15, 2023 – William Faulkner

February 15, 2023

“A gentleman can live through anything.”

And

“A man’s moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.”

And

“A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.”

And

“All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.”

And

“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

And

“An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn’t know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder why.”

And

“Clocks slay time… time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”

And

“Facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other.”

And

“Given a choice between grief and nothing, I’d choose grief.”

And

“Hollywood is a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.”

And

“I believe that man will not merely endure. He will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”

And

“I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from.”

And

“I’m bad and I’m going to hell, and I don’t care. I’d rather be in hell than anywhere where you are.”

And

“I’m inclined to think that a military background wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

And

“It’s a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can’t eat for eight hours; he can’t drink for eight hours; he can’t make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work.”

And

“Man performs and engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That’s how he finds that he can bear anything.”

And

“My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.”

And

“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.”

And

“The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it.”

And

“There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it’s the risk, the gamble. In any event it’s a thing I need.”

And

“Tomorrow night is nothing but one long sleepless wrestle with yesterday’s omissions and regrets.”

And

‘We have to start teaching ourselves not to be afraid.”

And

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”

And

“Even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as an honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.”

And

“Be scared. You can’t help that. But don’t be afraid. Ain’t nothing in the woods going to hurt you unless you corner it, or it smells that you are afraid. A bear or a deer, too, has got to be scared of a coward the same as a brave man has got to be.”

And

“I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.” Nobel Prize Speech, December 1950

And

“Mr. Khrushchev says that Communism, the police state, will bury the free ones. He is a smart gentleman, he knows that this is nonsense since freedom, man’s dim concept of and belief in the human spirit is the cause of all his troubles in his own country. But if he means that Communism will bury capitalism, he is correct. That funeral will occur about ten minutes after the police bury gambling. Because simple man, the human race, will bury both of them. That will be when we have expended the last grain, dram, and iota of our natural resources. But man himself will not be in that grave. The last sound on the worthless earth will be two human beings trying to launch a homemade spaceship and already quarreling about where they are going next.” Speech in New York, October 1959

And

“No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by that word. It is every individual’s individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only. Whatever its symbol — cross or crescent or whatever — that symbol is man’s reminder of his duty inside the human race. Its various allegories are the charts against which he measures himself and learns to know what he is. It cannot teach a man to be good as the textbook teaches him mathematics. It shows him how to discover himself, evolve for himself a moral codes and standard within his capacities and aspirations, by giving him a matchless example of suffering and sacrifice and the promise of hope.” Paris Review Interview, 1958

And

The two great men in my time were Mann and Joyce. You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with “faith.”

And

“Life is motion, and motion is concerned with what makes man move — which is ambition, power, pleasure. What time a man can devote to morality, he must take by force from the motion of which he is a part. He is compelled to make choices between good and evil sooner or later, because moral conscience demands that from him in order that he can live with himself tomorrow. His moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.”

Wikipedia: William Faulkner

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Monday, February 13, 2023 – Tom Clancy

February 13, 2023

“America is the most inventive country in the world because everybody has access to information.”

And

“Fighting wars is not so much about killing people as it is about finding things out. The more you know, the more likely you are to win a battle.”

And

“I was one of the first generations to watch television. TV exposes people to news, to information, to knowledge, to entertainment. How is it bad?”

And

“I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real, that’s the spooky part.”

And

“In the Soviet Union it was illegal to take a photograph of a train station. Look what happened to them. They tried to classify everything.”

And

“It’s not right to say that our loss in Vietnam turned out to be a gain. But lessons were learned. And they were the right lessons.”

And

“Life is about learning; when you stop learning, you die.”

And

“Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.”

And

“No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there’s something bad about it.”

And

“Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.”

And

“People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad?”

And

“Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI. They realized they couldn’t beat us.”

And

“Show me an elitist, and I’ll show you a loser.”

And

“The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.”

And

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”

And

“The good old days are now.”

And

“The human condition today is better than it’s ever been, and technology is one of the reasons for that.”

And

“The U.S. Military is us. There is no truer representation of a country than the people that it sends into the field to fight for it. The people who wear our uniform and carry our rifles into combat are our kids, and our job is to support them, because they’re protecting us.”

And

“There are two kinds of people: the ones who need to be told and the ones who figure it out all by themselves.”

And

“There used to be this country called the Soviet Union; it’s not there anymore. Our technology was better than theirs.”

And

“There was a time when nails were high-tech. There was a time when people had to be told how to use a telephone. Technology is just a tool. People use tools to improve their lives.”

And

“Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there’s somebody else who has never had a good idea in his life who stands up and says, Oh, you can’t do that.”

Wikipedia:  Tom Clancy

www.tomclancy.com

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Sunday, February 12, 2023 – Vince Lombardi

February 12, 2023

“There’s only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything. I do, and I demand that my players do.”

And

“If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you’ll be fired with enthusiasm.”

And

“Mental toughness is essential to success.”

And

“You never win a game unless you beat the guy in front of you. The score on the board doesn’t mean a thing. That’s for the fans. You’ve got to win the war with the man in front of you. You’ve got to get your man.”

And

“To achieve success, whatever the job we have, we must pay a price.”

And

“Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to win and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible. Most important, you must pay the price to stay there.”

And

“Football is a great deal like life in that it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness and respect for authority is the price each and every one of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”

And

“Once you agree upon the price you and your family must pay for success, it enables you to ignore the minor hurts, the opponent’s pressure, and the temporary failures.”

And

“Confidence is contagious and so is lack of confidence, and a customer will recognize both.”

And

“If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.”

And

“Unless a man believes in himself and makes a total commitment to his career and puts everything he has into it-his mind, his body and his heart-what is life worth to him? If I were a salesman, I would make this commitment to my company, to the product and most of all, to myself.”

And

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”

And

“Once a man has made a commitment to a way of life, he puts the greatest strength in the world behind him. It’s something we call heart power. Once a man has made this commitment, nothing will stop him short of success.”

And

“Unless a man believes in himself and makes a total commitment to his career and puts everything he has into it-his mind, his body, his heart-what’s life worth to him.

And

“It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the hearts of men.”

And

“In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.”

And

“They may not love you at the time, but they will later.”

And

” Leadership rests not only upon ability, not only upon capacity; having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it. His leadership is then based on truth and character. There must be truth in the purpose and will power in the character.”

And

“Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow.”

And

“Having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it.”

And

“A leader must identify himself with the group, must back up the group, even at the risk of displeasing superiors. He must believe that the group wants from him a sense of approval. If this feeling prevails, production, discipline, morale will be high, and in return, you can demand the cooperation to promote the goals of the company.”

And

“Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”

And

“They call it coaching but it is teaching. You do not just tell them…you show them the reasons.”

And

“The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”

And

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.”

And

“The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel-these are the things that endure and these are the qualities that are so much more important than any of the events that occasion them.”

And

“It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the hearts of men. Men respond to leadership in a most remarkable way and once you have won his heart, he will follow you anywhere.”

And

“A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.”

And

“If you’ll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives.

And

“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”

And

“I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something good in men that really yearns for discipline.”

And

“The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.”

And

“Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It’s a state of mind-you could call it character in action.”

And

“Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”

And

“Individual commitment to a group effort-that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

And

“Teams do not go physically flat, they go mentally stale.”

And

“Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn’t do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.”

And

“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.”

And

“The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.”

And

“Success demands singleness of purpose.”

And

“Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will be judged by only one thing-the result.”

And

“Winning is not a sometime thing: it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do the right thing once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”

And

“Winning is not everything–but making effort to win is.”

And

“It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.”

And

“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious.”

Wikipedia: Vince Lombardi

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Saturday, February 11, 2023 – Pete Rozelle

February 11, 2023

“But I haven’t met a player or a coach whose goal isn’t to win the Super Bowl.”

And

“I think the big thing I’ve had going for me in that regard has been the success of the league. I don’t have quite as much control over things as people believe, so I frequently receive more credit than I deserve, and occasionally more criticism as well.”

And

People are interested in pro football because it provides them with an emotional oasis; they don’t want football to get involved in the same types of court cases, racial “problems and legislative issues they encounter in the rest of American life.”

And

“Pro football was taking off when I became commissioner, and when a sport’s successful and you’re its chief executive officer, much of the credit flows to you and you develop a good track record.”

And

“Rather than saying that the commissioner is hired by the owners and therefore is subservient to them, you have to look at whether or not the players are getting a fair shake.”

And

“Squabbling in public will eventually ruin football; there’s no doubt it’s hurting us already. Polls taken by Louis Harris – polls as valid as any political polls – indicate that very clearly.”

And

“There are a lot more TV sets in use on Monday night than on Sunday afternoon.”

And

“Which comes as no great surprise to me, for I strongly believe that sports are an emotional outlet, just as television and motion pictures are.”

Wikipedia:  Pete Rozelle

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Wednesday, February 8, 2023 – Barbara Jordan

February 8, 2023

“But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.”

And

“Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.”

And

“Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment.”

And

“For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.”

And

“I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in “We, the people.”

And

“I never intended to become a run-of-the-mill person.”

And

“If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. If we as public officials propose, we must produce.”

And

“If you’re going to play the game properly, you’d better know every rule.”

And

“Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.”

And

“Let us heed the voice of the people and recognize their common sense. If we do not, we not only blaspheme our political heritage, we ignore the common ties that bind all Americans.”

And

“More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.”

And

“The citizens of America expect more. They deserve and they want more than a recital of problems.”

And

“There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.”

And

“There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure.”

And

“We are a people trying not only to solve the problems of the present: unemployment, inflation… but we are attempting on a larger scale to fulfill the promise of America.”

And

“We call ourselves public servants but I’ll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.”

And

“We must exchange the philosophy of excuse – what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.”

And

“What the people want is very simple – they want an America as good as its promise.”

And

“What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance.”

Wikipedia:  Barbara Jordan

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