Woody Hayes - Notable Quotes

Notable Quotes

• "There is a force that makes us all brothers, no one goes his way alone, all that we send into the life of others comes back into our own."
• "Even the best team, without a sound plan, can't score."
• "Show me a gracious loser, and I'll show you a bus boy."
• "You can never really pay back. You can only pay forward."
• "A guy from Ohio can make it in life if he works hard enough."
• "You win with people."
• "That will take care of you, you son of a bitch."
• "Paralyze resistance with persistence."
• "There are three things that can happen when you throw a pass, and two of them are bad." — This quote is often attributed to Hayes, but some contend General Robert Neyland of the University of Tennessee first said it.
• "If you throw a pass and one of the bad things happens, it could cost you your job."
• "I never saw a football player make a tackle with a smile on his face."
• "Discipline is 95 percent anticipation."
• "It does not matter the size of the man, rather the amount of effort the man is willing to put forth"
• "Without winners, there wouldn't even be any god damned civilization."
• Upon running low on gas in southern Michigan returning from a recruiting trip "Stop for gas?! We'll push the damn car all the way to the Ohio state line before I contribute one penny to any business in the state of Michigan!"
• "Football represents and embodies everything that's great about this country, because the United States of America is built on winners, not losers or people who didn't bother to play."
• "One thing you cannot afford ever to do is to feel sorry for yourself."
• "There was no one who had better people than I did, or better football players. And, we outworked the other teams."
• "The only way we'd get beaten was if we got a little fat-headed, if we didn't train right, if we had dissension on the squad."
• "So many times I've found people smarter than I was ... But you know what they couldn't do? They couldn't outwork me. They couldn't outwork me!"
• "You can outwork anybody. Try it, you will find out that you can do it."
• "Anything easy ain't worth a damn!"
• "To hell with exciting. I'd rather be drab as hell and win."
• When asked why he went for two despite a 36-point lead against Michigan, Hayes quipped, "Because I couldn't go for three."
• "There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."
• "If anybody congratulates you, you kick them in the shin, unless it's an old lady over 80."
• "I've had smarter people around me all my life, but I haven't run into one yet that can outwork me. And if they can't outwork you, then smarts aren't going to do them much good. That's just way it is."
• "He's a better young man than he is a football player, and he's the best football player I've ever seen." — about two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin