ESPN.com - CLASSIC - Quotes by Vince Lombardi

 Friday, September 1
In his own words
 
 Quotes by Lombardi

  • "Beat your opponent where he is strongest, and you demoralize him."

  • "Coaches who can outline plays on a blackboard are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their players and motivate."

  • "Defeat is worse than death, because you have to live with defeat."

  • "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather is a lack or will."

  • "Fatigue makes cowards of us all."

  • "Football is a game for madmen. In football, we're all mad. The perfect name for the perfect coach would be Simon Legree."

  • "Football is two things. It's blocking and tackling. I don't care about formations or new offenses or tricks on defense. You block and tackle better than the team you're playing, you win."

  • "Football teams are no different from any groups. They are good examples of success and failure, of competence and incompetence, of inspiration and dullness."

  • "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle, victorious."

  • "If I ever see one of my backs get stopped a yard from the goal line, I'll come off the bench and kick him right in the can."

  • "In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail."

  • "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser."

  • "They call it coaching but it is teaching. You do not just tell them...you show them the reasons."

  • "Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all-time thing."


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    ALSO SEE
    SportsCentury biography of Vince Lombardi

    Lombardi notes