Sophie McDonald
Sports Editor
I’ll admit it: I could be obsessed with quotes. And by “could be” I mean I definitely am.
A quote from someone with more experience or who has tapped into a fountain of insight can offer a quick burst of wisdom, inspiration and motivation for athletes and non-athletes alike and can serve to push them to the next level of whatever goal they’re reaching for.
The following are a few of my favorites from some familiar and not so familiar names.
“You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself.” – Harry Firestone
“Discipline yourself and others won’t have to.” – John Wooden
“Our biggest thing is having a great season, having great success and winning a championship but to get these guys ready to compete, whether it’s in the professional world athletically after this or if it’s the professional world from a business standpoint, you do that by talking to them – whether it’s about their Christian walk, or helping them make the right decisions with integrity or representing the program the right way, because at the end of the day everything is bigger than just the game of basketball.”– Steve Prohm
“Life is 10 percent of what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it.” – John Maxwell
“Essential to leadership isn’t that a man has followers but that he’s thinking, doing and saying something worth following.” – Burk Parsons
“(Coach Prohm) is the one who recruited me out of high school and we’ve been through a lot together. When things wasn’t going good for me here and wasn’t going my way, he was the one that talked to me to see if I was OK and when he became the head coach you could tell he wanted the best for every body. He treated you like he’s known you his whole life and when you have a coach like that you don’t want to do anything but make him look good and wish the best for everything he could do.” – Jewuan Long
“I always tell kids, you have two eyes and one mouth. Keep two open and one closed. You never learn anything if you’re the one talking.” – Gordie Howe
“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong
“I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” – Martha Washington
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six 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.” – Michael Jordan
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” – J.K. Rowling
“Work for a cause, not for applause. Live life to express, not to impress. Don’t strive to make your presence known, but your absence felt.” – Unknown
“Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.” – John Wooden
“He loves his players like we was all his sons. He probably cares about us more than he cares about himself and that makes us want to play even harder so we won’t let him down and show that we always have his back.” – Isaiah Canaan on Head Coach Steve Prohm
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” – John Wooden
“We constantly change the world, even by our inaction. Therefore, let us change it responsibly.” – Benjamin Franklin
“You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
“I look at my (NCAA Final Four) ring all the time and think about what life would be like after that. But, just like the Murray State guys, once this is over you can look in the mirror and you can smile and say, ‘Hey, we did something real special here.’ Because what they have done is special.” – Carl Nicks, member of the 1978-79 Indiana State basketball team, NBA scout for the Indiana Pacers