If you want to be an athlete, there's no way around it: You have to go to the gym. You can't Google your way to it.
Ask the proficient athlete, artist, businessperson, or homemaker what creates excellence and they'll all agree: a commitment to long-term goals - and with a community of mentors and fellow "disciples."
Looking at the championship-winning quarterbacks, Edwards remembered their particular talents: Steve Young: Here's a guy that is really a talent. He's the best athlete we ever had. He could run, he developed into a good thrower. He's smart. He's intense. He could make it in the movies. Really, he's got it all. He was coachable, but he had his own ideas. He never let up, not even in practice. I'd take Steve Young every year.
We tend to look at successful athletes and make them almost bigger than life. I have seen many young men who have achieved greatness. I have also seen those who have come up a little short of their potential. I do know that those who succeed have been able to recognize within themselves the potential to do something well and then work hard to prepare themselves for that eventual opportunity. Others wait for the opportunity to come and then start to work, thus coming up a little short.
What makes a great endurance athlete is the ability to absorb potenial embarrassment, and to suffer without complaint. I was discovering that if it was a matter of gritting my teeth, not caring how it looked, and outlasting everybody else, I won. It didn't seem to matter what sport it was-in a straight-ahead, long-distant race, I could beat anybody. If it was a suffer-fest, I was good at it.
If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.
The important thing is the attitude of the athlete, the desire to get to the top.
You've got to look for tough competition. You've got to want to beat the best.
I love athletics. As an athlete, I like to believe I can still do the things I used to do when I was once young.
As an athlete you've got to watch your hydration and your nutrition, and use the right kinds of fuel to help you perform your best.
The only reason we make good role models is because you guys look up to athletes and we can influence you in positive ways. But the real role models should be your parents and teachers!
I don’t want to get too detailed into it, but when you’re a good high school running back, you can almost be whatever type of runner you want to be. If you’re a good size and a good athlete, you can be whatever type of runner you want.
I think imperfection is beauty. Instead of being insecure about my muscles, I've learned to love them. I don't even think of it as a flaw anymore because it's made me into the athlete that I am.
I'm never satisfied, I always want to do better. That's how it is to be an elite athlete, you're never happy. When you start getting happy and you start feeling satisfied, you're done.
In all of nature structure determines function. Yet many people consider the marathoner and football linebacker all to be just one composite human being, an athlete. The body must be used to determine its role in sport. 'My aim is to develop every individual according to his best potential, protect him from false ambition, the desire to be someone he never can be and, more important, never should be.'
Persecution has come upon us, right honorable brethren, and persecution in the severest form. Shepherds are persecuted that their flocks may be scattered. And the worst of all is that those who are being treated ill cannot accept their sufferings in proof of their testimony, nor can the people reverence the athletes as in the army of martyrs, because the name of Christians is applied to the persecutors. The one charge which is now sure to secure severe punishment is the careful keeping of the traditions of the Fathers.
After a loss like this we just have to go back and work harder. We got outplayed and that's all there is to it. You have to let it go, move on and just work harder.
It's interesting. I've known quite a few good athletes that can't begin to play a beat on the drum set. Most team sport is about the smooth fluidity of hand-eye coordination and physical grace, where drumming is much more about splitting all those things up.
As an Olympic champion gymnast, I have always stayed involved in my sport.
I came up in a small town ghetto and I never did think I'd be a celebrity or famous athlete, I was just loving to play the game of basketball. And I worked hard at everything I did.
The one thing all famous authors, world class athletes, business tycoons, singers, actors, and celebrated achievers in any field have in common is that they all began their journeys when they were none of these things.
Strength is an excellent example of a physical characteristic that drives improvement in other athletic parameters. More strength means more power, more endurance, better coordination, and better everything else. This is why, all other things being equal, the stronger athlete is the better athlete.
A businessman needs a laptop. Athletes need massages and the right diet.
Life's short, you know? Especially as an athlete. Your career is very short, and you use the opportunities that you have because you're not going to have them again.
Body does what mind prefers.
