Lou Holtz

“You must have dreams and goals if you are ever going to achieve anything in this world.”

“After winning, most teams become individuals; most teams become complacent.”

“The way you motivate a football team is to eliminate the unmotivated ones.”

“Whenever you give up something, you must replace it with something.”

“Successful people will always tell you you can do something. It's the people who have never accomplished anything who will always discourage you from trying to achieve excellent things.”

“Don't let failure get you down. Babe Ruth struck out over 1,300 times.”

“I was born January 6, 1937, eight years after Wall Street crashed and two years before John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the plight of a family during the Great Depression.”

“No one has ever drowned in sweat.”

“You will never be indecisive if you know your purpose.”

“All winning teams are goal-oriented. Teams like these win consistently because everyone connected with them concentrates on specific objectives. They go about their business with blinders on; nothing will distract them from achieving their aims.”

“When I die, and people realize that I will not be resurrected in three days, they will forget me. That is the way it should be.”

“No matter how bad someone has it, there are others who have it worse. Remembering that makes life a lot easier and allows you to take pleasure in the blessings you have been given.”

“You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.”

“The answers to these questions will determine your success or failure. 1) Can people trust me to do what's right? 2) Am I committed to doing my best? 3) Do I care about other people and show it? If the answers to these questions are yes, there is no way you can fail.”

“If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today.”

“Everybody is looking for instant success, but it doesn't work that way. You build a successful life one day at a time.”

“What's important now? - To evaluate the past, focus on the future, and tell you what you have to do in the present”

“Remember that adversity presents us with numerous possibilities for success, if we are just willing to see them.”

“Remember this. Bear Bryant retired at age 69, and he died 28 days after he stopped coaching. If you don't have something, and a purpose in your life, you're gonna die.”

“We aren't where we want to be; we aren't where we ought to be; but thank goodness we aren't where we used to be.”

“If you try to fight the course, it will beat you.”

“I've never seen the yellow light, umm the yellow line be wrong.”

“Everything ends badly, otherwise it would not end.”

“No, but you can see it from here.”

“When I work a game as an analyst, all I do is look at the game like a coach. Why was something successful? What makes it work? I just try to use my expertise and whatever insight I have to the game.”

“It's always better to face the truth, no matter how uncomfortable, than to continue coddling a lie.”

“It's good to be successful but it's great to be significant”

“If you are killing time, it's not murder. It's suicide.”

“I believe - we all pay taxes. I'm happy to pay it, but I hate to have it abused, money wasted, no accountability. That's going to bother you.”

“Behind every successful person, stands a very successful mother-in-law.”

“At age nine, I got a paper route. Sixty-six papers had to be delivered to sixty-six families every day. I also had to collect thirty cents a week from each customer. I owed the paper twenty cents per customer per week, and got to keep the rest. When I didn't collect, the balance came out of my profit. My average income was six dollars a week.”

“The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.”

“Don't tell your problems to people: eighty percent don't care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.”

“I'm no genius.”

“We are not going to win because you have a new head coach, any more than you are going to fix a flat tire by changing the driver. We will win the minute all of us get rid of excuses as to why we can't win and stop wallowing in self-pity.”

“Never settle for second when first is available”

“My wife told me if there is any rumors about me, it better be about politics and not about my social life.”

“I don't exercise.”

“Don't tell me how rocky the sea is, just bring the ship in.”

“We will use some kind of option and we will throw the football. I hope it will be at our people.”

“I look at athletes in all sports and try to picture what kind of football player they'd be, what position they'd play and so on.”

“One day you are drinking the wine, and they next day you are picking the grapes.”

“The team that's on defense first (in overtime) has the advantage because they know whether they need a touchdown a field goal or just a score.”

“I asked you to pack your headgear and shoulder pads, but more importantly your defense and your kicking game, because that's what wins game like this.”

“Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”

“The only people who aren't going to be criticized are those who do absolutely nothing”

“Momentum is whatever your attitude determines it to be.”

“Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity.”

“You've got to have great athletes to win, I don't care who the coach is. You can't win without good athletes but you can lose with them. This is where coaching makes the difference.”

“If you continually ask yourself, "What's important now?", you won't waste time on the trivial.”