20th-century Basketball Player Quotes

I don't think being an athlete is unfeminine. I think of it as a kind of grace.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

In putting together your standards, remember that it is essential to involve your entire team. Standards are not rules issued by the boss; they are a collective identity. Remember, standards are the things that you do all the time and the things for which you hold one another accountable.

Mike Krzyzewski

Complacency is the last hurdle standing between any team and its potential greatness.

No matter how far life pushes you down, no matter how much you hurt, you can always bounce back.

Group discipline produces a unified effort toward a common goal.

In a team sport like basketball, every time you help somebody else, you help yourself.

Admiting to using steroids:

It is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust. I want you to know that I have been dishonest and you have the right to be angry with me. I have let them [my family] down, I have let my country down and I have let myself down.

I think I'll stick to what I'm used to, my principles, and that is team Number 1 and individual Number 2.

No matter how strong a condom is, it won't protect you from a broken heart.

I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.

Winston Bennett

Larry Bird is overrated in a lot of areas.... Why does he get so much publicity? Because he's white. You never hear about a black player being the greatest.

You create shots for yourself by what you do without the ball more than what you do after you get it

Some guys smoke. Some guys drink. Some guys chase women.
I'm a big barbecue-sauce guy.

God blessed me with a lot of heart and no height, and I'll take that any day,

One night I was in the players' parking lot at the Fleet Center in my Celtics warm-ups about a half hour before a game, waiting for one of my dealers to come up from Fall River, because if I didn't get my stuff I was too sick to even go through the pre-game layup line, never mind actually play in the game.

Yes, it's true - I love the roar of the crowd. When the fans are with you, their voices come together in a big booming rush of sound that you can actually feel in your body - almost like a wave that lifts you and carries you past your own limits.

My uniqueness reveals something of Christ that no one else does.

I'm in better condition [after going vegan]. My endurance has gone up, and I haven't gotten tired at all during the whole season. … I don't think you should eat something that had a mother.

Salim Stoudamire

I haven't seen one guy beat five people yet. It needs to be done collectively.

If there's no fire, there's no scream. If there's no scream, then no one hears you and no one comes to help you in the first place. The depth of my struggle has definitely determined the height of my success. To be able to teach my kids not just about success but about the struggle that comes with it.

When you struggle, that's when you realize what you're made of, and that's when you realize what the people around you can do. You learn who you'd want to take with you to a war, and who you'd only want to take to lunch.

Chamique Holdsclaw

Good people are happy when something good happens to someone else.

To live fully your well-read life -at any age- it is essential to take your selection of books seriously. When you drift from book to book, you're lulled into thinking that this lack of focus is right and natural - but it's as wrong as can be. Some serendipity in your reading is delightful, but if you wanted to build a house, would you wait for the materials to assemble themselves? - Steve Leveen

Pat Williams (basketball)

Science will never be able to reduce the value of a sunset to arithmetic. Nor can it reduce friendship or statesmanship to a formula. Laughter and love, pain and loneliness, the challenge of accomplishment in living, and the depth of insight into beauty and truth; these will always surpass the scientific mastery of nature.