Yearly Archive: 2021

COACHES HOT SEAT > 2021

Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Wednesday, December 1, 2021 – Alexander the Great

December 1, 2021

“Alexander the Great, reflecting on his friends degenerating into sloth and luxury, told them that it was a most slavish thing to luxuriate, and a most royal thing to labor.”

And

“I do not steal victory.”

And

“Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service — but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay — and not much of at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it. As for our foreign troops — Thracians, Paeonians, Illyrians, Agrianes — they are the best and stoutest soldiers in Europe, and they will find as their opponents the slackest and softest of the tribes of Asia. And what, finally, of the two men in supreme command? You have Alexander, they — Darius!” Aledander addressing his troops prior to Battle of Issus

And

“Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue?”

And

“To the strongest!” After being asked, by his generals on his deathbed, who was to succeed him.

And

“There is nothing impossible to him who will try.”

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“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”

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“I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.”

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“Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.”

Wikipedia:  Alexander the Great

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Tuesday, November 30, 2021 – Knute Rockne

November 30, 2021

“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.”

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

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

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“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 – Monday, November 29, 2021 – Ted Turner

November 29, 2021

“All my life people have said that I wasn’t going to make it.”

And

“I didn’t get here for my acting… but I love show business.”

And

“I see what keeps people young: work!”

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“I’ve never run into a guy who could win at the top level in anything today and didn’t have the right attitude, didn’t give it everything he had, at least while he was doing it; wasn’t prepared and didn’t have the whole program worked out.”

And

“My son is now an ‘entrepreneur.’ That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.”

And

“There’s nothing wrong with being fired.”

And

“You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”

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“You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for.”

And

“Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise”

And

“Sports is like a war without the killing.”

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“I didn’t care what, how much adversity life threw at me. I intended to get to the top.”

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“I mean, there’s no point in sittin’ around and cryin’ about spilt milk. Gotta move on.”

And

“I know what I’m having ’em put on my tombstone: ‘I have nothing more to say’.”

And

“Life is like a B-movie. You don’t want to leave in the middle of it but you don’t want to see it again.”

And

“The mind is just another muscle.”

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“I’m a human being, just like everybody else. I’m up some days and down others. Some days, I just refuse comment. If I’m feeling a little down, I won’t say anything. But if I’m really up, I’ll let it all hang out. I do have a slight propensity to put my foot in my mouth.”

And

“I’m a millionaire, I guess, but I’m just a normal person and I like everybody, taxi drivers, whoever you are, to call me by my first name and talk to me on a man-to-man basis. I think the garbage collector is as important as the goddamned president.”

And

‘I’ve got a virtually limitless supply of bullshit.”

Wikipedia:  Ted Turner

www.tedturner.com

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Sunday, November 28, 2021 – Johnny Unitas

November 28, 2021

“There is a difference between conceit and confidence. Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done.”

And

“I always thought I could play pro ball. I had confidence in my ability, You have to. If you don’t who will?”

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“My father was totally dedicated to this game and made sure everybody on the team was just as dedicated, because it is the ultimate team sport.”

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“Anything I do, I always have a reason for.”

Wikipedia:  Johnny Unitas

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Saturday, November 27, 2021 – Johnny Carson

November 27, 2021

“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.”

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“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, May 7, 2021 – Hayden Fry

November 26, 2021

“I learned a great many things in the Marines that helped me as a football coach.  The Marines train men hard and to do things the right way, just as a football team must train.”

And

“In football, like in life, you must learn to play within the rules of the game.”

And

“We probably spend more time talking about individual players in our coaching sessions than anything else.”

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“You can’t control people.  You must understand them.  You have to know where they’re coming from, their beliefs and values, what turns them off, what they’re against.”

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“I’ve felt sorry for young people who didn’t have an opportunity to play football, because I know what the game can offer.”

Wikipedia Page:  Hayden Fry

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Thursday, November 25, 2021 – Thanksgiving Day

November 25, 2021

“The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.”  H.U. Westermayer

And

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.”  Meister Eckhart

And

“Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.”  E.P. Powell

And

“So once in every year we throng
Upon a day apart,
To praise the Lord with feast and song
In thankfulness of heart.”
Arthur Guiterman, The First Thanksgiving

And

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”  John Fitzgerald Kennedy

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“Remember God’s bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!”  Henry Ward Beecher

And

“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.”  Edward Sandford Martin

And

“Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off’rings, and a thankful strain.”
Alexander Pope

And

“He who thanks but with the lips
Thanks but in part;
The full, the true Thanksgiving
Comes from the heart.”
J.A. Shedd

And

“Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day.”  Robert Caspar Lintner

And

“For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

And

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”   Erma Bombeck

And

“On Thanksgiving Day we acknowledge our dependence.”  William Jennings Bryan

And

“Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.”   Seneca

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“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”  William Arthur Ward

And

“Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.”  William Shakespeare

And

“It is delightfully easy to thank God for the grace we ourselves have received, but it requires great grace to thank God always for the grace given to others.”  James Smith

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“Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often.”  Johnny Carson

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“Thanksgiving is so called because we are all so thankful that it only comes once a year.”  P. J. O’Rourke

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“Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for – annually, not oftener – if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments.”  Mark Twain

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“We can always find something to be thankful for, and there may be reasons why we ought to be thankful for even those dispensations which appear dark and frowning.”  Albert Barnes

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“Thanksgiving is nothing if not a glad and reverent lifting of the heart to God in honor and praise for His goodness.” Robert Casper Lintner

The Desolate Wilderness, Editorial, Wall Street Journal

“Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton , keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford , sometime governor thereof:

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

he next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other’s heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.

Being now passed the vast ocean….”

And the Fair Land, Editorial, Wall Street Journal

“Anyone whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.

For the traveler, as travelers have been always…..”

Wikipedia:  Thanksgiving Day

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Wednesday, November 24, 2021 – Calvin Coolidge

November 24, 2021

“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.”

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“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”

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“I have found it advisable not to give too much heed to what people say when I am trying to accomplish something of consequence. Invariably they proclaim it can’t be done. I deem that the very best time to make the effort.”

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“If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.”

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“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of face within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.”

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“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.  The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

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“Parties do not maintain themselves. They are maintained by effort. The government is not self-existent. It is maintained by the effort of those who believe in it. The people of America believe in American institutions, the American form of government and the American method of transacting business.”

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“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.”

And

“The chief business of the American people is business.”

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“If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final.”

Wikipedia Page: Calvin Coolidge

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Tuesday, November 23, 2020 – Amos Alonzo Stagg

November 23, 2021

“I pray not for victory, but to do my best.”

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“To me, the coaching profession is one of the noblest and most far-reaching in building manhood. No man is too good to be the athletic coach for youth”

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“All football comes from Stagg.” Knute Rockne

And

“Winning isn’t worthwhile unless one has something finer and nobler behind it.”

Wikipedia: Amos Alonzo Stagg

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Coaches Hot Seat Quotes of the Day – Monday, November 22, 2021 – Omar Bradley

November 22, 2021

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

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

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

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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

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

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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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