National Championships Quotes

• Everybody on a championship team doesn't get publicity, but everyone can say he's a champion.

  Magic Johnson

  Inspiring, Basketball, Teamwork

  12 Copy quote

• If short hair and good manners won football games, Army and Navy would play for the national championship every year.

  Bobby Bowden

  Football, Army, Hair

  29 Copy quote

• When you're are playing for the national championship, it's not a matter of life or death. Its more important than that.

  Duffy Daugherty

  Inspirational, Funny, Sports

  8 Copy quote

• Our goal as a team is to keep playing as a group for as long as we can because you will never have that team again. It is like a dying limb, you have to prune it off and let another one grow in its place. That is the way you have to do it, but it still hurts losing these guys and that team because they and you have put so much effort into building a team. Even if you win that last game (and a national championship), it hurts badly because the players know they will never have that same special group of guys together on the same team again. Somebody always goes and somebody new always comes in.

  Don Meyer

  Basketball, Hurt, Team

  11 Copy quote

• I won 1,098 games, and eight national championships, and coached in four different decades. But what I see are not the numbers. I see their faces.

  Pat Summitt

  Eight, Games, Numbers

  1700 Copy quote

• In 1948, I began coaching basketball at UCLA. Each hour of practice we worked very hard. Each day we worked very hard. Each week we worked very hard. Each season we worked very hard. Four fourteen years we worked very hard and didn't win a national championship. However, a national championship was won in the fifteenth year. Another in the sixteenth. And eight more in the following ten years.

  John Wooden

  Basketball, Winning, Eight

  4 Copy quote

• That's the whole goal, to win the national championship. You can't have a legacy without one.

  Seimone Augustus

  Winning, Goal, Legacy

  5 Copy quote

• It's a long, hard, difficult process to make it to a national championship.

  Hale Irwin

  Long, Championship, Process

  4 Copy quote

• I started at a 'learn to swim' scheme when I was about five-years-old. I did it to learn water safety, but it was fun and I loved the water. I went to a club, moved up through the ranks and got better and better before taking part in my first national championships.

  Liam Tancock

  Fun, Years, Safety

  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

  6 Copy quote

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• There is not that many players that really can take over games, signed Candace Parker, I really felt like at that time that a National Championship was certainly in reach.

  Pat Summitt

  Player, Games, Championship

  Source: www.cyinterview.com

  11 Copy quote

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• Look, I won in high school, I won a national championship in college, I want to win one in the NBA. But winning a gold medal, I don't think anything can top that.

  Carmelo Anthony

  School, Winning, College

  4 Copy quote

• My biggest frustration with the Heisman is it's become the MVP of the national champion, or a team going to the National Championship game. That's what it's turned into. If you're not undefeated, you're out of the running.

  Doug Flutie

  Running, Team, Frustration

  4 Copy quote

• The thing I wanted to focus on first was that I wanted to graduate, and (with me) coming back, I knew that I wanted another national championship. Another national championship is everyone's main goal, but we have to take it one game at a time. We can't get ahead of ourselves. We've got Washington first, then we'll see what happens.

  Will Smith

  Games, Goal, Focus

  4 Copy quote

• Searching for funds to continue my skating career when I was 17, I called the Women's Sports Foundation in New York. The intern who answered the phone suggested that I might be a great candidate for the Travel and Training fund, and she sent me an application form. I applied for a grant. With the funds I was awarded, I bought a new pair of skates and a plane ticket to the 1988 National Championships, where I achieved my highest national finish. Four years later, I won the gold medal at the 1992 Olympic Games.

  Kristi Yamaguchi

  Leadership, Sports, New York

  4 Copy quote

• As good as we were, we didn’t win a National Championship until 1993, mainly because we kept losing to Miami on missed kicks. I used to get mad because nobody else would play Miami. Notre Dame would play them, then drop them. Florida dropped them. Penn State dropped them. We would play Miami and lose by one point on a missed field goal, and it would knock us out of the National Championship. I didn’t want to play them, either, but I had to play them. That’s why I said, 'When I die, They’ll say, ‘At least he played Miami.'

  Bobby Bowden

  Winning, Florida, Play

  "The case for FSU's dynasty" by Mark Schlabach, www.espn.com. December 25, 2012.

  26 Copy quote

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• I can honestly say that two weeks after the national championship year, I'd forgotten about it and started laying the groundwork for spring practice. And so every year, that's been the thing that's motivated me. . . .

  LaVell Edwards

  Spring, Years, Practice

  4 Copy quote

• Our dad made everything competitive for me and brother. It always was a world championship, a national championship, Big 10 championship. It was always at stake in everything we did.

  John Harbaugh

  Brother, Dad, World

  Source: www.chicagotribune.com

  4 Copy quote

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• At Alabama, our players don't win Heisman Trophies. Our teams win National Championships.

  Bear Bryant

  Team, Winning, Player

  11 Copy quote

• If the UCLA teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s were subjected to the kind of scrutiny (other schools) have been, UCLA would probably have to forfeit about eight national championships and be on probation for the next 100 years.

  Bill Walton

  Team, School, Eight

  "Seven of the Dirtiest Teams in College Basketball History" By Sean Cunningham, www.esquire.com. March 18, 2010.

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• Everything about my life is about winning a national championship

  Kyle Dake

  Winning, Life Is, Championship

  6 Copy quote

• So, yeah, I'm going to try to win the national championship next year. But I'm not going to kill myself doing it. I'm not going to kill my players either. You really start to realize there's a lot more to what we're trying to do then winning games

  Geno Auriemma

  Basketball, Winning, Player

  75 Copy quote

• People want national championship banners. People want to talk about Indiana being competitive. How do we get there? We don't get there with milk and cookies.

  Bobby Knight

  Basketball, People, Cookies

  5 Copy quote

• The first time I managed to pick up a basketball I knew I was destined to lead the UK to another National championship. ... Even now, so many years later, I still believe Kentucky will go undefeated in March & win everything.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Inspirational, Basketball, Believe

  7 Copy quote

• Once you win a National Championship, how do you do that again? How do you get the passion to do that again? We won it again right away, the next year. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't give myself an opportunity to enjoy the first one.

  Mike Krzyzewski

  Sports, Passion, Winning

  "Duke of the Court". Interview, www.achievement.org. May 22, 1997.

  8 Copy quote

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• During my 40-year coaching career at West Point, Indiana and Texas Tech, my teams reached the Final Four on five occasions, winning the national championship three times.

  Bobby Knight

  Team, Winning, Texas

  6 Copy quote