JIM VALVANO

I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.

I’ve never lost a game. I just ran out of time.

Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.

Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.

Most talented players don’t always succeed. Some don’t even make the team. It’s more what’s inside.

Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.

Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.

For me, winning isn’t something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream.”

Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it.

Passion first and everything will fall into place.

I tell the kids, somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose. Just don’t fight about it. Just try to get better.

You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.

Competitive sports are played mainly on a five-and-a-half inch court, the space between your ears.

Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.

You might not be able to outthink, out market or outspend your competition, but you can outwork them.

What keeps me going is not winning, but the quest for reaching potential in myself as a coach and my kids as divers. It’s the pursuit of excellence.

The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day, that I never dog it.

Champions keep playing until they get it right.

To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them.

There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.

Today, you have 100% of your life left.

I’ve failed over & over & over again in my life & that is why I succeed.

Just be patient. Let the game come to you. Don’t rush. Be quick, but don’t hurry.

Life is gonna throw you curve balls and it’s how you deal with them and your attitude and your work ethic.

Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.

Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.

A champion is someone who does not settle for that day’s practice, that day’s competition, that day’s performance. They are always striving to be better. They don’t live in the past.

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.

Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything that comes in second.

Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.

Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.

Show me a gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.

I think sports gave me the first place where this awkward girl could feel comfortable in my own skin. I think that’s true for a lot of women—sports gives you a part of your life where you can work at something and you look in the mirror and you like that person.

Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.

Never say never because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way.

You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.

I don’t plan on being disappointed. We plan on being really good, and obviously, we plan on winning.

The hardest skill to acquire in this sport is the one where you compete all out, give it all you have, and you are still getting beat no matter what you do. When you have the killer instinct to fight through that, it is very special.

It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.

Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.

Gold medals aren’t really made of gold. They’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.

One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.

Do not let what you can not do interfere with what you can do.

It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.

You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.

Age is no barrier. It’s a limitation you put on your mind.

If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.

If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.

A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.

Nothing is black-and-white, except for winning and losing, and maybe that’s why people gravitate to that so much.

Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.

I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.

There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There is no such thing as life in-between.

You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.

You can motivate by fear, and you can motivate by reward. But both those methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self motivation.

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.

Winning solves everything.

If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.

At a young age winning is not the most important thing… the important thing is to develop creative and skilled players with good confidence.

You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is tem...

I don’t have to wait for nobody, I move when I wanna move.

When you’re riding, only the race in which you’re riding is important.

If you are afraid of failure you don’t deserve to be successful!

The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.

95. “You’re never a loser until you quit trying.

Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.

If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win.

A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning.

If you have everything under control, you’re not moving fast enough.

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.

What do you do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.

In the end, the game comes down to one thing: man against man. May the best man win.

My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.”

An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.

The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose.

The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.

It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.

Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.

Victory is in having done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won.

If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.

Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.

You have to do something in your life that is honorable and not cowardly if you are to live in peace with yourself.

An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.

Some people say I have attitude – maybe I do…but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there.

It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.