Parenting & Family Quote by Lorrie Fair

There’s a quietly radical kind of discipline in admitting that your worst day at work still belongs, in part, to the people who showed up for you. Lorrie Fair’s line isn’t about hero worship; it’s about the unglamorous labor of being seen as a public figure when you’d rather disappear into the locker room. The phrase “swallow your pride” tells you the real opponent isn’t the other team, it’s the athlete’s own bruised ego - the temptation to make a bad performance everyone else’s problem.

The specificity matters: “sign.” Not “give back,” not “inspire,” but do the small, repetitive ritual that modern sports has turned into a contract between player and fan. Autographs are cheap in effort and expensive in meaning, especially to kids. Fair names the audience directly - “the kids” - which reframes the power dynamic. They’re not critics, not media, not adults with receipts; they’re young fans learning what sportsmanship looks like when the scoreboard hurts.

There’s also a subtle hedge against cynicism. “It takes a little time” acknowledges inconvenience without dramatizing it, as if to say: this is part of the job, like practice or rehab. Then the kicker: “it makes you feel good, too.” That’s not self-congratulation; it’s a candid truth about service. The gesture repairs something inside the athlete: a bad game can shrink you down to failure, but showing up for someone else expands the day back into purpose.