Sports & Teamwork: Sports Quotes

"I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up"

Jesse Owens, Athlete

"Tennis has given me soul"

Martina Navratilova, Athlete

"The street to obscurity is paved with athletes who can perform great feats before friendly crowds"

George Allen, Sr., Coach

"When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But when I'm hitting, I hit anybody"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"When I was in Birmingham I used to go to a place called Redwood Field. I used to get there for a two o'clock game. Where can you make this kind of money playing sports? It was just a pleasure to go out and enjoy myself and get paid for it"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"When I got to professional ball, I used to play 150 games every year. It depends on how many games there was"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"That's how easy baseball was for me. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I had the knowledge before I became a professional baseball player to do all these things and know what each guy would hit"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"If you can do that - if you run, hit, run the bases, hit with power, field, throw and do all other things that are part of the game - then you're a good ballplayer"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"I think I was programmed to do good things when I came into the majors. I knew how to play"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"Defense to me is the key to playing baseball"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"At ten I was playing against 18-year-old guys. At 15 I was playing professional ball with the Birmingham Black Barons, so I really came very quickly in all sports"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"Maybe I was born to play ball. Maybe I truly was"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"I played with the Birmingham Black Barons. I was making 500 at 14. That was a lot of money in those days"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"Baseball is a game, yes. It is also a business. But what is most truly is, is disguised combat. For all its gentility, its almost leisurely pace, baseball is violence under wraps"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"And my father didn't have money for me to go to college. And at that particular time they didn't have black quarterbacks, and I don't think I could have made it in basketball, because I was only 5' 11". So I just picked baseball"

Willie Mays, Athlete

"It was all I lived for, to play baseball"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"As far as I'm concerned, Aaron is the best ball player of my era. He is to baseball of the last fifteen years what Joe DiMaggio was before him. He's never received the credit he's due"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"When I hit a home run, I usually didn't care where it went. So long as it was a home run, was all that mattered"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"Well, baseball was my whole life. Nothing's ever been as fun as baseball"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"Sometimes I think, if I had the same body and the same natural ability and someone else's brain, who knows how good a player I might have been?"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"I always loved the game, but when my legs weren't hurting, it was a lot easier to love"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"Heroes are people who are all good with no bad in them. That's the way I always saw Joe DiMaggio. He was beyond question one of the greatest players of the century"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"You don't realize how easy this game is until you get up in that broadcasting booth"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"To play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"The biggest game I ever played in was probably Don Larsen's perfect game"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"The only thing I can do is play baseball. I have to play ball. It's the only thing I know"

Mickey Mantle, Athlete

"Of course, most people remember that I received the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics competition"

Nadia Comaneci, Athlete

"I had pro offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, who were pretty hard up for linemen in those days. If I had gone into professional football, the name Jerry Ford might have been a household word today"

Gerald R. Ford, President

"I adore the game of golf. I won't ever retire"

Lee Trevino, Athlete

"Michael Jordan was a tremendous basketball player"

Lee Trevino, Athlete

"I use an Arnold Palmer putter that was probably built back in 1954"

Lee Trevino, Athlete

"I never played much golf as a kid. I caddied quite a bit but never got serious into golf until about age 15"

Lee Trevino, Athlete

"The pressure people put on themselves and the rivalry between the teams is much more marked. And I think that's a good thing. As long as that rivalry remains within the spirit of competition, it con only spur everyone on"

Eric Cantona, Athlete

"If you have only one passion in life - football - and you pursue it to the exclusion of everything else, it becomes very dangerous. When you stop doing this activity, it is as though you are dying. The death of that activity is a death in itself"

Eric Cantona, Athlete

"The most interesting guy I've ever played with was King Hassan of Morocco. I went over there on a trip in the early 1970s, and the King and I played five holes. I've never been that nervous in my life"

Lee Trevino, Athlete

"Even as a footballer, I was always being creative"

Eric Cantona, Athlete

"I think a lot of Jim Thorpe, the Olympian, and his accomplishments"

Lee Trevino, Athlete

"Living in Dallas, I root for the Mavericks and the Stars and the Cowboys, but I've always pulled for the Chicago Cubs. I enjoy watching them play"

Lee Trevino, Athlete

"Golf isn't just my business, it's my hobby"

Lee Trevino, Athlete

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