“I’ve been in football all my life, gentlemen, and I don’t know whether I’m particularly qualified to be a part of anything else, except I consider it a great game, a game of many assets, by the way, and I think a symbol of what this country’s best attributes are: courage and stamina and a coordinated efficiency or teamwork.”
“After all the cheers have died down and the stadium is empty, after the headlines have been written, and after you are back in the quiet of your room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser and after all the pomp and fanfare have faded, the enduring thing that is left is the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.”
“Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he’s got to play from the ground up — from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That’s OK You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second.”
“The first hit of the game. Leaving it all on the field. Team first. A battlefield. A street fight. The feeling inside when you lay someone out. The silence before the storm. The storm. Self-discipline. 9,000 fans for a school with 800 students. Football is everything. An entire year in the weight room. Working through the pain. Doing it for all the players who wore the uniform before you. Manhood. 2-a-days in 103 degree heat. Sacrifice. What you think about 24/7/365. The silence on the bus. The crowd so loud you can’t hear yourself think. State. No excuses.”
“We’re out there. The ones who push you. Then try to push past you. Get you up before the alarm and out sweating. Dark or rain. We give you our best to get the best from you. Scoring against us tastes sweeter. Fighting us makes you fiercer. We’re not the many. But the few close enough to get under your skin. And that’s exactly why we take you further. Move with us or against us. Together we will make it count.”
“When you’ve battled for every point. When you’ve made every bone-crunching tackle and every grinding scrum count. When you’ve believed in every single man around you and dug deep into the reserves of your soul, you can look each other in the eye and know your crown may have been taken away but not without a fight.”