9 Motivational Sports Quotes from Olympic Coaches

Herb Brooks
Herb Brooks

Bring home the gold: Follow the winning advice curated from the country's top Olympic coaches to cross your own personal finish line.

1. "Victory is in having done your best. If you've done your best, you've won." -Bill Bowerman
The team: U.S.A. track and field, 1972. Bowerman, a former University of Oregon coach and co-founder of Nike, is widely credited with turning the town of Eugene into the running capital of the world (Olympic trials for track and field are currently held there).
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2. "The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important." -Bobby Knight
The team: U.S.A. men's basketball, 1984 gold medal; a pre-NBA Michael Jordan was a key player on the team. Knight was also coach of the Indiana Hoosiers from 1971 to 2000.

3. "A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning." -Billie Jean King
The team: U.S.A. women's tennis, gold medal winners in both 1996 and 2000. King was an award-winning tennis player herself, with 39 Grand Slam titles.
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4. "You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours." -Herb Brooks
The team: U.S.A. men's ice hockey, 1980. Coached the team to a gold medal over the Soviet Union, who had won nearly every world championship and Olympic tournament since 1954, which made headlines as a "miracle on ice."

5. "I don't plan on being disappointed. We plan on being really good, and obviously we plan on winning." -Gregg Troy
The team: Head coach U.S.A. men's swimming. Assisted U.S.A. women's swimming, 1996, and U.S.A. men's swimming, 2008. Troy has coached 68 Olympians, most notably Ryan Lochte, who has won six medals.
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6. "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."- Ron O'Brien
The team: U.S.A. diving, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, and 1988. While coaching, O'Brien's athletes collected 12 gold, three silver, and four bronze Olympic medals.

7. "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." -Teri McKeever
The team: U.S.A. women's swimming, 2012. She is the first woman to serve as the head coach of a U.S. Olympic swimming team.
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8. "You have to do something in your life that is honorable and not cowardly if you are to live in peace with yourself." -Larry Brown
The team: U.S.A. men's basketball, 2004. Brown has won over 1,000 professional games as coach in the ABA and NBA over his career.

9."I have a rule on my team: When we talk to one another, we look each other right in the eye, because I think it's tough to lie to somebody. You give respect to somebody." -Mike Krzyzewski
The team: U.S.A. men's basketball, 2008 and 2012. Under Krzyzewski, the U.S. team won gold in Beijing, 2008.
-Kelsey Grad

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