Quotes About Athletes

It's an incredible feeling, 110,000 people energy at that level. What I realized from watching the first day of competition was that athletes that got excited and happy and got the fans into it and clapping, they did better. The athletes that took it too seriously, they didn't do as well as they'd hoped.

Much in the way Olympic athletes optimize their game by paying an enormous - borderline maniacal - amount of attention to things like diet, exercise, sleep, and of course the essential R&R, we all would do well to pay more attention to those key aspects of our lives that comprise our overall health equation.

A fan is always an outsider. Most sportswriters are not, by this definition, fans. They capitalize on access to athletes. They spoke to Kobe last night, and Kobe says his finger is going to be fine. They spent three days fly-fishing with Brett Favre in March, and Brett says he's definitely coming back for another season.

Children and even adults, when they like certain athletes, they can tell you about their batting average, about where they came from.

We have become more and more not a nation of athletes but a nation of spectators.

If parents are aiming at choosing children who will be good athletes, or great musicians, or who will get into Ivy League schools, or who will be tall enough to make the basketball team, then there is a danger that the life of the child will bear the burden of that expectation; and the risk of disappointment and the cost of disappointment will be even higher than they are now, and even now they can be considerable.

One of the things I want ... all the kids here to remember, is that these [Major League Soccer] stars were not born superstar athletes ... Many of them started out just like many of you-playing on a team at school, or just kicking a ball around on the playground with their friends. But they stuck with it. And I tell this to my girls all the time. I mean, you get to the point when ... things you enjoy ... start getting hard-that's when you know you're getting good, and you have to stick through it.

Elite athletes learn entitlement. They believe they are entitled to have women serve their needs. It's part of being a man. It's the cultural construction of masculinity.

Back in high school, about two years ago, I was in this silly punk band called Ballet for Athletes. We were all trying to take it seriously, and then I realized that "punk" and "serious" aren't really two words you can put in the same sentence - at least, in my opinion.

As the longest-running women's professional sports league in the country, the WNBA is a great product comprising 132 of the best female athletes in the world. And when you look beyond the players to owners, coaches, trainers, accountants, and chief operating officers - it's a wonderful example of what women can achieve in sports and in business.

To go to hospitals and see people fight and overcome cystic fibrosis or cancer or any number of illnesses is to see courage that is humbling. And athletes constantly need to be humbled.

My most frequent admonition to athletes and coaches is: train, do not strain.

In team sports the athletes were bonded by each other, there was an immense peer pressure to keep going. One dared not miss a practice for fear of letting his teammates down. Every time an athlete thought of getting back into bed in the morning he knew he would have to face the anger of his closest friends. But the sculler had to find motivation entirely within himself. No one else cared.

You are worth so much more than points on a scoreboard or wins vs. losses. The best athletes I know are also some of the best people I've ever met.

I never performed on drugs. That'd be stupid. It's the same thing with athletes. They can't perform when they have cocaine problems.

Mediocre athletes that tried like hell to get good are the best coaches.

The coverage [of crimes] is different. It's less angry when white [athletes] are involved, less accusatory, less judgemental. I see that in the pieces that are written and reported. At times it bothers me to the point that I just stop reading...just stop.

I have read many studies out of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and they demonstrated that Vitamin E, Co-Q-10, and Fish Oil could protect the immune system of athletes and prevent disease.

People complain that pro athletes make a lot of money; but what they don't understand is that we need a lot of money because we spend a lot of money.

Who is to blame for this most recent of sports disgraces in America? The culture that flings young athletes like Tyson up out of obscurity, makes millionaires of them and watches them self-destruct?

The sport has changed so much since 2004, it's incredible. If you look even at me, the way I'm fencing now compared to 2004, it's a completely different sport. They've changed so many things just with what [the referees] are calling, they've changed the timing of the [scoring] lights. You always have to be evolving as a fencer. The Olympics is interesting because it's such a small field compared to what we're used to. This world championships, I think we had a hundred and something [athletes]. The Olympics is going to be less than 32.

I never considered myself a good photographer. I still don't. I thought of myself as a hard worker. My camera was a sponge and I had an instinct that athletes have - anticipation. Photography really represents an enormous amount of anticipation - understanding what might be there the next moment and being prepared for it.

The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance.

My favorite thing about being linked to Oakley is getting to hang with the cool people, the cool athletes - like the X-Games guys. Those guys play sports where they can really hurt themselves, and, well, I just play golf. I'm like the wimpy guy over here.

For centuries, New York has served as the gateway for millions of people from all over the world in search of the American dream. It only makes sense that it would now serve as a gateway for the world's greatest athletes.

I had female role models to look up to starting in middle school, athletes like Julie Foudy and Mia Hamm who made me realize that there was room in the world of sports for women. They ignited my dream of becoming an Olympic athlete.

Professional football's a tough game. It's a lot of contact. It's a lot of wear and tear on your body. You've got elite athletes running into each other, play after play, at high speeds. And this is something that I love and I enjoy.

When you're young, you develop ways to win, and you think they will always work, but then you get to the top, competing against the other top athletes, and sometimes things don't work.

Athletes, coaches and parents today are increasingly aware of the danger of concussion, and this awareness influences decisions about buying new and reconditioned football helmets.

We are like highly trained athletes, who never run a race.

There are things about some professional athletes that I cannot stand-the pretense, the egos, the pomposity, the greed.

Personally, I think SmackDown! has to be a little spicier than it is, a little more electrifying than it is. It's got great athletes and they've got great action, they've done some tremendous stuff, but I want it to knock you off the couch when it opens up. And I think we as a group have the ability to do that.

Stop saying athletes do it for the love of the game. They do it for the love of their 32-room mansion with the live shark tank in the living room. If pro sports paid minimum wage, Shaquille O'Neal would be a bouncer at Scores, and Anna Kournikova would be a mail-order bride from Minsk.

Common decency demands that [NCAA athletes] should be paid, but the only way it will happen is the same way workers got paid throughout American history, through a strong union.

I feel sorry sometimes for these sportsmen and women who put in just as much effort as the footballers. For example, athletes train at least as hard as footballers but have to be happy if they can earn enough to finance a decent education.

Many dedicated endurance athletes don’t need to be told what to do – they need to be told what not to do.

I don't believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models.... It's not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn't like it, they said, Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Parents have to take better control.

Whether I'm on the road or off the road it's really important for me mentally and physically. Physically, when I'm on the road, I work with men that love to eat - I work with former athletes, with men who love to indulge on the road, so I eat like a guy. I have four appetizers, I try their entrees, I eat mine, I like dessert. So I have to make sure that physically, I try to stay in shape. I'm always doing some sort of a workout, and then mentally it just helps a lot with the stress.

We tend to look at successful athletes and make them almost bigger than life. I have seen many young men who have achieved greatness. I have also seen those who have come up a little short of their potential. I do know that those who succeed have been able to recognize within themselves the potential to do something well and then work hard to prepare themselves for that eventual opportunity. Others wait for the opportunity to come and then start to work, thus coming up a little short.

As a little kid, not only is my dad Jo-Jo White, but M. L. Carr is involved in the family, Red Auerbach is my godfather, and my stepmother was an Olympic-caliber sprinter. Athletes were all around. I happened to be a natural athlete. If I wasn't, it might have been hell. But I never got any pressure from my mom and dad to be an athlete.

I have never heard a doping offender say he felt good about doing it. Not a single one. Some athletes justify their actions by saying it enabled them to afford a bigger house or a better car. But they are never really happy. They know that they are not real winners.

Very few athletes have the chance to be brought into the White House.

After I suffered a labral tear in my hip while playing soccer, I realized that many sports-related injuries can be prevented and I dedicated myself to helping young athletes learn more about injury prevention.

Meeting sports athletes that are the best in the world is a thrill to this day.

The Olympic games should be a matter between individual athletes and the gods. Noisy flag-waving dishonors gods and men alike.

These athletes can be considered the gods in certain ways and the fans can be considered parishioners.

Actors are athletes of the heart.

Truthfully, this is how I approach my workout: I want to be the best athlete I can possibly be. If I can out-perform some of the better athletes then I'm happy. When I look at the NFL or the NBA, these guys look how I want to look - it's useable, functional muscle.