Welcome to our collection of quotes by Knute Rockne. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Knute Rockne
Knute Kenneth Rockne ( kə-NOOT ROK-nee; March 4, 1888 – March 31, 1931) was a Norwegian-American player and coach of American football at the University of Notre Dame.
Rockne is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in college football history. His biography at the College Football Hall of Fame identifies him as "without question, American football's most-renowned coach". Rockne helped to popularize the forward pass and made the Notre Dame Fighting Irish a major factor in college football.
It's my show.
Yes, I know that you feel you are not strong enough. That's what the enemy thinks too. But we're gonna fool them.
Show me a gracious loser and I'll show you a failure.
Never tell 'em how many lettermen you've got coming back. Tell 'em how many you lost.
Make the present good, and the past will take care of itself.
At home we're the hosts, and I never liked the idea of being embarrassed in front of our friends.
Yes, I know that you feel you are not strong enough. That's what the enemy thinks, too. But we're gonna fool them.
The only qualifications for a lineman are to be big and dumb. To be a back, you only have to be dumb.
The secret of winning is working more as a team, less as individuals.
If winning isn't everything why bother to keep the score?
Show me a gracious loser and I'll show you a failure.
All the world loves a winner and has no time for a loser.
An automobile goes nowhere efficiently unless it has a quick, hot spark to ignite things, to set the cogs of the machine in motion. So I try to make every player on my team feel he's the spark keeping our machine in motion.
On the road we're somebody else's guests and we play in a way that they're
not going to forget we visited them.
I don't like to lose, and that isn't so much because it is just a football game, but because defeat means the failure to reach your objective.
The best thing I ever learned in life was that things have to be worked for. A lot of people seem to think there is some sort of magic in making a winning football team. There isn't, but there's plenty of work.
Leaders are like eagles... they don't flock. You'll find them one at a time.
It isn't necessary to see a good tackle. You can hear it.
Generalities don't count and won't help you in football.
If I flop, let 'em pan me.
If we're a hit, let 'em say anything they want.
We can all be geniuses because one definition of genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains.
On the road we're somebody else's guests -- and we play in a way that they're not going to forget we visited them.
At home we're the hosts, and I never liked the idea of being embarrased in front of our friends.
We count on winning. And if we lose, don't beef. And the best way to prevent beefing is -- don't lose.
Winning to often is as disastrous as losing too often. Both get the same results, the falling off of the public's enthusiasm.
I've found that prayers work best when you have big players.
The essence of football was blocking, tackling, and execution based on timing, rhythm and deception.
When you were riding on the crest of a wave, youwere most likely to be missing out on something.
Play like you're positive on the victory, even though they're leading big now.
Yes, I now that you feel you are not strong enough. That's what the enemy thinks too. But we're gonna fool them.
You know, I've been attending so many banquets that I know what they're going to serve before I get there.
There is no need for me continuing unless I'm able to improve.
I enjoy talking to my football men and my chemistry classes and I feel sure that they are quite interested in what I have to say.
Show me a good and gracious loser and I'll show you a failure.
Drink the first. Sip the second slowly. Skip the third.
A coach's greatest asset is his sense of responsibility -- the reliance placed on him by his players.
Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points.
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.
Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices.
One loss is good for the soul, Too many losses is not good for the coach.
Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up.
Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.
Let's win one for the Gipper.
Win or lose, do it fairly.
I'm getting sick and tired of doing anything half-way.
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than 50 preaching it.
The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.