Championship Game Quotes

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.

The most crucial element of a successful board meeting is the same as in any championship game: teamwork.

Neil didn't care how many hearts they broke that night. They'd beaten USC. When the Trojans lost to the Ravens next week they'd be eliminated from championships. The Foxes were going to finals, and that was the only thing that mattered. -

Times of terror and the deepest misery may arrive, but if there is to be any happiness in this misery it can only be a spiritual happiness, related to the past in the rescue of the culture of early ages and to the future in a serene and indefatigable championship of the spirit in a time which would otherwise completely swallow up the material.

Yet there was no doubt that Theodore Roosevelt was peculiarly qualified to be President of all the people. Few, if any Americans could match the breadth of his intellect and the strength of his character. A random survey of his achievements might show him mastering German, French, and the contrasted dialects of Harvard and Dakota Territory; assembling fossil skeletons with paleontological skill; fighting for an amateur boxing championship; transcribing birdsong into a private system of phonetics; chasing boat thieves with a star on his breast and Tolstoy in his pocket; founding a finance club, a stockmen's association, and a hunting-conservation society; reading some twenty thousand books and writing fifteen of his own; climbing the Matterhorn; promulgating a flying machine; and becoming a world authority on North American game mammals. If the sum of all these facets of experience added up to more than a geometric whole - implying excess construction somewhere, planes piling upon planes - then only he, presumably, could view the polygon entire.

Even when you have three strikes, you're still not out. There is always something else you can do.

Just because you're down to your last strike, you're not out yet. You can always do more. You'll always have more at-bats to take. That's true in baseball, in rescuing animals, and in life generally.

So, she sings like an angel, plays like the devil, pitches championships, and slays amusement park games. Is there anything you can't do?

Bill Russell, the Boston Celtics great who won more championship rings as a player than anyone else (eleven), revealed in his memoir, Second Wind, that he sometimes secretly rooted for the opposing team during big games because if they were doing well, it meant he would have a more heightened experience.

To me, we must learn to spell the word RESPECT. We must respect the rights and properties of our fellowman. And then learn to play the game of life, as well as the game of athletics, according to the rules of society. If you can take that and put it into practice in the community in which you live, then, to me you have won the greatest championship.

My short-term factual memory can be like water; events are a brief disturbance on the surface and then it closes back up again, as if nothing ever touched it. But it’s a strange fact that my long-term memory remains strong, perhaps because it recorded events when my mind was unaffected. My emotional memory is intact too, perhaps because feelings are recorded and stored in a different place than facts. The things that happened deeper in the past, and deeper in the breast, are still there for me, under the water. 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 should get a tattoo!' The kids laughed. 'What kind should she get?' 'A heart. She should get a heart.' Little did they know. They are the tattoos.

When it comes to signing up new talent, that's what I'm looking for-- not just someone who has the skill, but someone built for this life. Someone who has the work ethic, the drive. The gift that Jordan had wasn't just that he was willing to do the work, but he loved doing it, because he could feel himself getting stronger, ready for anything. He left the game and came back and worked just as hard as he did when he started. He came into the game as Rookie of the Year, and he finished the last playoff game of his career with a shot that won the Bulls their sixth championship. THAT'S THE KIND OF CONSISTENCY THAT YOU CAN ONLY GET BY ADDING DEAD-SERIOUS DISCIPLINE TO WHATEVER TALENT YOU HAVE.

THE AMERICAN League Championship was so hotly contentious that year, I could barely stand to watch the games. The tension of being a Red Sox fan as they battled back from 0–3 made my stomach hurt, and my surroundings didn’t make it any easier. The running joke in the Camp was that half the population of the Bronx was residing in Danbury, and of course they were all ferocious Yankees fans. But the Red Sox had plenty of partisans too; a significant percentage of the white women were from Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and the always-suspect border state of Connecticut. Daily life was usually racially peaceful in the Camp, but the very obvious racial divide between Yankees and Sox fans made me nervous. I remembered the riot at UMass in 1986 after the Mets defeated the Sox in the World Series, when black Mets fans were horribly beaten.

If basketball was going to enable Bradley to make friends, to prove that a banker's son is as good as the next fellow, to prove that he could do without being the greatest-end-ever at Missouri, to prove that he was not chicken, and to live up to his mother's championship standards, and if he was going to have some moments left over to savor his delight in the game, he obviously needed considerable practice, so he borrowed keys to the gym and set a schedule for himself that he adhereded to for four full years—in the school year, three and a half hours every day after school, nine to five on Saturday, one-thirty to five on Sunday, and, in the summer, about three hours a day.

Individuals play the game, but teams win championships.

The crowd started going crazy. Like even crazier than when Romeo got up from the hit. I was clinging to the railing, wondering if I would like prison, when Ivy sighed. "I swear. You have all the luck." Confused, I glanced around. Romeo was jogging toward us, helmet in his hands. Quickly, I glanced at the big screen and it was showing a wide shot of me clinging onto the rails and him running toward us. When he arrived, he slapped the guard on his back and said something in his ear. The guard looked at me and grinned and then walked away. Romeo stepped up to where I was. At the height I was at one the railing, for once I was taller than him. "You're killing me, Smalls," he said. "I had to interrupt a championship game to keep you from going to the slammer." "I was worried. You didn't get up." "And so you were just going to march out on the field and what?" God, he looked so… so incredible right then. His uniform stretched out over his wide shoulders and narrow waist. The pads strapped to his body made him look even stronger. He had grass stains on his knees, sweat in his hair, and ornery laughter in his sparkling blue eyes. I swear I'd never seen anyone equal parts of to-die-for good looks and boy-next-door troublemaker. "I was going to come out there and kiss it and make it better." He threw back his head and laughed, and the stadium erupted once more. I was aware that every moment between us was being broadcast like some reality TV show, but for once, I didn't care how many people were staring. This was our moment. And I was so damn happy he wasn't hurt. "So you're okay, then?" I asked. "Takes a lot more than a shady illegal attack to keep me down." Behind him, the players were getting back to the game, rushing out onto the field, and the coach was yelling out orders. "I'll just go back to my seat, then," I said. He rushed forward and grabbed me off the railing. The crown cheered when he slid me down his body and pressed his lips to mine. It wasn't a chaste kiss. It was the kind of kiss that made me blush when I watched it on TV. But I kissed him back anyway. I got lost in him. When he pulled back, I said, "By the way, You're totally kicking ass out there." He chuckled and put me back on the railing and kept one hand on my butt as I climbed back over. Back in the stands, I gripped the cold metal and gave him a small wave. He'd been walking backward toward his team, but then he changed direction and sprinted toward me. In one graceful leap, he was up on the wall and leaning over the railing. "Love you," he half-growled and pressed a swift kiss to my lips. "Next touchdown's for you.

championships, and went on to break the U.S. record in distances from three miles to the marathon. At the 2004 Athens Games, Deena outlasted the world-record holder, Paula Radcliffe, to win the bronze, the first Olympic medal

I love to sketch but am too embarrassed to show anyone. I won a national championship my senior year, the Heisman when I was a junior. I’m actually . . . shy. Dwight Schrute from The Office makes me laugh until I cry. And recently, I’ve discovered I have an insatiable penchant for hot librarians.

Bradley is one of the few basketball players who have ever been appreciatively cheered by a disinterested away-from-home crowd while warming up. This curious event occurred last March, just before Princeton eliminated the Virginia Military Institute, the year's Southern Conference champion, from the NCAA championships. The game was played in Philadelphia and was the last of a tripleheader. The people there were worn out, because most of them were emotionally committed to either Villanova or Temple-two local teams that had just been involved in enervating battles with Providence and Connecticut, respectively, scrambling for a chance at the rest of the country. A group of Princeton players shooting basketballs miscellaneously in preparation for still another game hardly promised to be a high point of the evening, but Bradley, whose routine in the warmup time is a gradual crescendo of activity, is more interesting to watch before a game than most players are in play. In Philadelphia that night, what he did was, for him, anything but unusual. As he does before all games, he began by shooting set shots close to the basket, gradually moving back until he was shooting long sets from 20 feet out, and nearly all of them dropped into the net with an almost mechanical rhythm of accuracy. Then he began a series of expandingly difficult jump shots, and one jumper after another went cleanly through the basket with so few exceptions that the crowd began to murmur. Then he started to perform whirling reverse moves before another cadence of almost steadily accurate jump shots, and the murmur increased. Then he began to sweep hook shots into the air. He moved in a semicircle around the court. First with his right hand, then with his left, he tried seven of these long, graceful shots-the most difficult ones in the orthodoxy of basketball-and ambidextrously made them all. The game had not even begun, but the presumably unimpressible Philadelphians were applauding like an audience at an opera.

I didn’t fuck around with her. I love her. I’ll keep loving her through everything, no matter what you or anyone else says, or whatever you try to do to break us up. It’s insulting for you to even think I’d be with Maya to fuck around with your racing. She’s the end game. I don’t hook up with her for a shitty trophy, and sure as fuck not for a Championship win. I want everything with her. Everything after this.

The rise of the western crews may have shocked eastern fans, but it delighted newspaper editors across the country in the 1930s. The story fit in with a larger sports narrative that had fueled newspaper and newsreel sales since the rivalry between two boxers—a poor, part-Cherokee Coloradoan named Jack Dempsey and an easterner and ex-Marine named Gene Tunney—had riveted the nation’s attention in the 1920s. The East versus West rivalry carried over to football with the annual East-West Shrine Game and added interest every January to the Rose Bowl—then the nearest thing to a national collegiate football championship. And it was about to have additional life breathed into it when an oddly put together but spirited, rough-and-tumble racehorse named Seabiscuit would appear on the western horizon to challenge and defeat the racing establishment’s darling, the king of the eastern tracks, War Admiral.

There are a number of subjective and objective criteria that I use as a way to rank players. The subjective ones include their ability with both feet; their sense of balance; the disciplined fashion in which they take care of their fitness; their attitude towards training; the consistency between games and over multiple seasons; their demonstrated mastery in several different positions; and the way they add flair to any team for which they play. The objective ones that are impossible to dispute are: the number of goals they have scored; the games they have played for several of the best club teams in the world; the number of League championship and cup medals they have won, and their appearances in World Cups. When you employ this sort of measurement approach, it becomes far easier to define the very highest levels of performance. The people who are least confused about this are other players.

That was some shady shit out there, Rome,” Braeden said once the total chaos of winning the game had gone down to a considerable roar. We were finally in the locker room, and I was stripping off my sweat and grass-stained gear. “Total douche move.” I agreed. It wasn’t the first time a team had tried to take me out of a game. It was pretty much common practice, especially when something like a title and championship was at stake. Still, I’d never quite had anyone come at me like that before. The play was already in progress. Sacking me wouldn’t have changed the touchdown I’d just thrown. Except of course to keep me from throwing another one. That guy deliberately came in like a freight train and plowed me down. I lay there stunned for long moments, waiting for the air to come back in my lungs and for my body to process the shock of the hit. Thankfully, he wasn’t that good at tackling and it did nothing more than stun me. And it got him thrown out of the game. It really hadn’t been a big deal. Like I said, it happened a lot. But it was the first time it happened in front of Rimmel. I couldn’t help but notice how the large screen on the field had zeroed in on the girl in number twenty-four’s hoodie, who was climbing over the railing and preparing to leap down onto the field. The security guard was yelling at her, but she barely noticed him. Her eyes were trained out on the field, where I was. It was almost laughable that her tiny ass was going to rush out onto a field full of men more than double her size to make sure I was okay. G**damn. I loved her even more just then. When the guard put his hand on her ankle, trying to stop her from going back to her seat, something happened. Something that never had in my entire life of playing football. The game faded away. For once, I was out on the field and unable to focus on only the game. It took a backseat to the girl teetering on the edge of the railing.

But as a Christian, let me say Merry Christmas on a national holiday called Christmas and you’d think Satan incarnate himself just showed up. I’m sorry that is a bad example because if Satan did show up, he would get more respect than Christians, Jews, Tea Partiers, patriots and conservatives. Thus all the forenamed groups, and any like them, must stand and fight for their equal rights that are disappearing faster than San Antonio fans after game seven of the NBA championship in Miami.

i think the timing is too convenient for it to be an accident. riko broke kevin’s hand for being better. he crossed districts because kevin picked up a racquet and got back on the court. what do you think he’s willing to do to you for calling him useless on national tv? you said our greatest strength is in our small size. how strong do you feel now that you’ve been bumped to our starting line? you think you and kevin are ready to carry us to championships?” “and you called me paranoid.” - andrew & neil

When the Knicks won the championship in 1970, our fans rallied behind us and became our sixth man because they saw a group of five distinct personalities come together and play as one seamless unit. Winning takes a game plan and that's where a great coach comes in. He has to have the vision. He has to be the architect and design a particular style of play that his players can work together and excel at. The great Celtics teams that won 11 championships in the span of 13 seasons ( 1957-69) never changed their system. They played the same game regardless of who their cast was.

Neil felt a half-second from losing his mind, but then Andrew said his name and Neil's thoughts ground to a startled halt. He was belatedly aware of his hand at his ear and his fingers clenched tight around his phone. He didn't remember pulling it from his pocket or making the decision to dial out. He lowered it and tapped a button, thinking maybe he'd imagined things, but Andrew's name was on his display and the timer put the call at almost a minute already. Neil put the phone back to his ear, but he couldn't find the words for the wretched feeling that was tearing away at him. In three months championships would be over. In four months he'd be dead. In five months the Foxes would be right back here for summer practices with six new faces. Neil could count his life on one hand now. On the other hand was the future he couldn't have: vice-captain, captain, Court. Neil had no right to mourn these missed chances. He'd gotten more than he deserved this year; it was selfish to ask for more. He should be grateful for what he had, and gladder still that his death would mean something. He was going to drag his father and the Moriyamas down with him when he went, and they'd never recover from the things he said. It was justice when he'd never thought he'd get any and revenge for his mother's death. He thought he'd come to terms with it but that hollow ache was back in his chest where it had no right to be. Neil felt like he was drowning. Neil found his voice at last, but the best he had was, "Come and get me from the stadium." Andrew didn't answer, but the quiet took on a new tone. Neil checked the screen again and saw the timer flashing at seventy-two seconds. Andrew had hung up on him. Neil put his phone away and waited. It was only a couple minutes from Fox Tower to the Foxhole Court, but it took almost fifteen minutes for Andrew to turn into the parking lot. He pulled into the space a couple inches from Neil's left foot and didn't bother to kill the engine. Kevin was in the passenger seat, frowning silent judgment at Neil through the windshield. Andrew got out of the car when Neil didn't move and stood in front of Neil. Neil looked up at him, studying Andrew's bored expression and waiting for questions he knew wouldn't come. That apathy should have grated against his raw nerves but somehow it steadied him. Andrew's disinterest in his psychological well-being was what had drawn Neil to him in the first place: the realization that Andrew would never flinch away from whatever poison was eating Neil alive.

My parents have always worried that I’d take Amy too personally — they always tell not to read too much into her, And yet I can’t fail to notice that whenever I screw something up, Amy does it right: When I finally quit violin at age twelve, Amy was revealed as a prodigy in the next book. (“Sheesh, violin can be hard work, but handwork is the only way to get better!”) When I blew off the junior championship at age sixteen to do a beach weekend with friends, Amy recommitted to the game. (“Sheesh, I know it’s fun to spend time with friends, but I’d be letting myself and everyone else down if I didn’t show up for the tournament.”) This used to drive me mad, but after I wend off to Harvard (and Amy correct those my parents’ alma mater), I decided it was all too ridiculous to think about. That my parents, two child psychologists, chose this particular public form of passive-aggressiveness toward their child was not just fucked up but also stupid and weird and kind of hilarious.

Even when you're keeping score, golf is all about focusing on the shot at hand, the total score being a sum of those shots. On magic mushrooms, each shot was an act of self-expression - a karate kick, a pirouette, a paintbrush stroke. The course was an aren, a stage, and a canvas. That's the way it felt playing in the backcountry, too. Going beyond the simple visual appreciation of a landscape and interacting with it beyond the reach of the physical body. Launching shots across canyons and rivers and down mountainsides and beaches. The motion of the body determining the motion of the ball - its flight an extension of the body like a spider riding the wind on a silken thread or a perfectly cast fly arcing down onto the surface of the water. This is the part of the game that is hard for nongolfers to see. You have to play to feel it. It isn't visible through the TV screen or from outside the picket fences and privet hedges. The forest gets lost in tress of tartan and argyle, visors and V-necks. Golf seems to be one thing but is very much another, and backcountry golf and mushroom night golf are as true to the nature of the game as any stuffy country club championship or Saturday Nassau or fourball.

In the chaos of sport, as in life, process provides us a way. It says: Okay, you’ve got to do something very difficult. Don’t focus on that. Instead break it down into pieces. Simply do what you need to do right now. And do it well. And then move on to the next thing. Follow the process and not the prize. The road to back-to-back championships is just that, a road. And you travel along a road in steps. Excellence is a matter of steps. Excelling at this one, then that one, and then the one after that. Saban’s process is exclusively this—existing in the present, taking it one step at a time, not getting distracted by anything else. Not the other team, not the scoreboard or the crowd. The process is about finishing. Finishing games. Finishing workouts. Finishing film sessions. Finishing drives. Finishing reps. Finishing plays. Finishing blocks. Finishing the smallest task you have right in front of you and finishing it well. Whether it’s pursuing the pinnacle of success in your field or simply surviving some awful or trying ordeal, the same approach works. Don’t think about the end—think about surviving. Making it from meal to meal, break to break, checkpoint to checkpoint, paycheck to paycheck, one day at a time. And when you really get it right, even the hardest things become manageable. Because the process is relaxing. Under its influence, we needn’t panic. Even mammoth tasks become just a series of component parts.

Suddenly, Coach Spinks’s face mellowed. There was a dissociation of form and substance. His eyes glistened; his gaze became beatific. “Let us pray,” he said and all the heads on the team dropped floorward as though they were puppets strung to the same wire. “O sweet Jesus, we come again to ask your blessings and your forgiveness for our many trespasses against you and our fellow neighbor. We are playin’ West Charleston High School tonight, Lord, but there’s no need to tell you that since you knew about it two or three million years before I did. We ask, good Jesus, not that we beat West Charleston High but that we do our best before our God, our family, and our country. We do ask, Lord, if you see it befitting, that we score a point or two more than West Charleston even though I know that Coach Warners is a God-fearin’ man and a deacon in the Baptist Church besides. But you know as well as I, Lord, he’s one of the mouthiest so-and-so’s that ever wore socks. I’m also aware, dear Jesus, that their players are all clean cut boys and also pleasant to your sight. We don’t want to ask for anything special, Lord, but help my rebounders get off their feet. Help Pinkie and Jim Don control their tempers. Give Philip and Art a little more temper. And get Ben to quit throwin’ those big city behind-the-back passes. And, Lord, please help this high school if I got to make any substitutions. My scrubs is good boys but they’ve been havin’ a devil of a time puttin’ that ball into the hole. The real thing I want to ask, Lord, is that all these boys make the first team in that great game of life. If they make mistakes, Lord, blow the whistle because you’re the great referee. Call time out and bring them to center court for another jump ball. Don’t let them go out of bounds, Lord. If they bust a play, make ’em run wind-sprints and figure eights but stay with ’em, Lord. Coach ’em all the way to the championship of life. A-men.” “A-men,” the team echoed in relief.

But there were problems. After the movie came out I couldn’t go to a tournament without being surrounded by fans asking for autographs. Instead of focusing on chess positions, I was pulled into the image of myself as a celebrity. Since childhood I had treasured the sublime study of chess, the swim through ever-deepening layers of complexity. I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insight about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art. The game was exhilarating and also spiritually calming. It centered me. Chess was my friend. Then, suddenly, the game became alien and disquieting. I recall one tournament in Las Vegas: I was a young International Master in a field of a thousand competitors including twenty-six strong Grandmasters from around the world. As an up-and-coming player, I had huge respect for the great sages around me. I had studied their masterpieces for hundreds of hours and was awed by the artistry of these men. Before first-round play began I was seated at my board, deep in thought about my opening preparation, when the public address system announced that the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer was at the event. A tournament director placed a poster of the movie next to my table, and immediately a sea of fans surged around the ropes separating the top boards from the audience. As the games progressed, when I rose to clear my mind young girls gave me their phone numbers and asked me to autograph their stomachs or legs. This might sound like a dream for a seventeen-year-old boy, and I won’t deny enjoying the attention, but professionally it was a nightmare. My game began to unravel. I caught myself thinking about how I looked thinking instead of losing myself in thought. The Grandmasters, my elders, were ignored and scowled at me. Some of them treated me like a pariah. I had won eight national championships and had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search for excellence, let alone for happiness. At a young age I came to know that there is something profoundly hollow about the nature of fame. I had spent my life devoted to artistic growth and was used to the sweaty-palmed sense of contentment one gets after many hours of intense reflection. This peaceful feeling had nothing to do with external adulation, and I yearned for a return to that innocent, fertile time. I missed just being a student of the game, but there was no escaping the spotlight. I found myself dreading chess, miserable before leaving for tournaments. I played without inspiration and was invited to appear on television shows. I smiled.

Chapter One Vivek Ranadivé “IT WAS REALLY RANDOM. I MEAN, MY FATHER HAD NEVER PLAYED BASKETBALL BEFORE.” 1. When Vivek Ranadivé decided to coach his daughter Anjali’s basketball team, he settled on two principles. The first was that he would never raise his voice. This was National Junior Basketball—the Little League of basketball. The team was made up mostly of twelve-year-olds, and twelve-year-olds, he knew from experience, did not respond well to shouting. He would conduct business on the basketball court, he decided, the same way he conducted business at his software firm. He would speak calmly and softly, and he would persuade the girls of the wisdom of his approach with appeals to reason and common sense. The second principle was more important. Ranadivé was puzzled by the way Americans play basketball. He is from Mumbai. He grew up with cricket and soccer. He would never forget the first time he saw a basketball game. He thought it was mindless. Team A would score and then immediately retreat to its own end of the court. Team B would pass the ball in from the sidelines and dribble it into Team A’s end, where Team A was patiently waiting. Then the process would reverse itself. A regulation basketball court is ninety-four feet long. Most of the time, a team would defend only about twenty-four feet of that, conceding the other seventy feet. Occasionally teams played a full-court press—that is, they contested their opponent’s attempt to advance the ball up the court. But they did it for only a few minutes at a time. It was as if there were a kind of conspiracy in the basketball world about the way the game ought to be played, Ranadivé thought, and that conspiracy had the effect of widening the gap between good teams and weak teams. Good teams, after all, had players who were tall and could dribble and shoot well; they could crisply execute their carefully prepared plays in their opponent’s end. Why, then, did weak teams play in a way that made it easy for good teams to do the very things that they were so good at? Ranadivé looked at his girls. Morgan and Julia were serious basketball players. But Nicky, Angela, Dani, Holly, Annika, and his own daughter, Anjali, had never played the game before. They weren’t all that tall. They couldn’t shoot. They weren’t particularly adept at dribbling. They were not the sort who played pickup games at the playground every evening. Ranadivé lives in Menlo Park, in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. His team was made up of, as Ranadivé put it, “little blond girls.” These were the daughters of nerds and computer programmers. They worked on science projects and read long and complicated books and dreamed about growing up to be marine biologists. Ranadivé knew that if they played the conventional way—if they let their opponents dribble the ball up the court without opposition—they would almost certainly lose to the girls for whom basketball was a passion. Ranadivé had come to America as a seventeen-year-old with fifty dollars in his pocket. He was not one to accept losing easily. His second principle, then, was that his team would play a real full-court press—every game, all the time. The team ended up at the national championships. “It was really random,” Anjali Ranadivé said. “I mean, my father had never played basketball before.” 2. Suppose you were to total up all the wars over the past two hundred years that occurred between very large and very small countries. Let’s say that one side has to be at least ten times larger in population and armed might

Whatever he may have done or had yet to achieve, on the night of 26 November 2003 David Beckham confirmed a special place for himself among the myths and legends of Real Madrid's history. In the 35th minute of Real Madrid's Championship League group match against Olympique Marseille, Beckham took one of his trademark free-kicks, bending it over the wall and into the net. It was his first for the Spanish team in a competitive European game, and the club's six hundredth goal in the European Cup - the one hundredth was scored by Alfredo Di Stefano.

with highlights of the national championship game. The sports section article indeed

The entire family came out for Mike’s last game of the season. If they won today, it would ensure their spot in the championship.

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Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.

Success isn’t about how many games you win or how much prestige you attain. Winning a state championship has nothing to do with your true legacy. What matters most are the lessons you teach, the impact you have on your community, and the types of men your players eventually become.

Two of Africatown’s sons, Cleon Jones and Tommie Agee, were stars on the World Series–winning New York Mets of 1969 known as the “Miracle Mets.” Cleon made the game-winning catch that clinched the championship for New York. All of Africatown crowded around radios during the game and erupted in cheers when they heard their hometown hero had won the game.

A great example was the AFC Championship Game. When the Jacksonville Jaguars had a four-point lead on New England and had the ball with fifty-five seconds left in the first half, they took a knee and ran the clock out. I was watching the game from our locker room at Lincoln Financial Field as we were getting ready to play Minnesota. I sat there thinking, “You have got to be kidding me right now.” They had two time-outs and close to a minute left. They could have at least tried for a field goal. They took it out of their quarterback’s hands, and they didn’t give it to their big back, Leonard Fournette. I thought, “If they lose this game, this is why.” Sure enough, they would go on to lose the game. It made me mad because Jacksonville had New England right where they wanted them.

Exercise, as it currently exists in most of our lives, sucks. Like most care tasks, when they function only to fulfill external standards of what we should be doing, it actually moves us further away from real care for self. But when I look back at my life and ask myself, “What memories of movement do I have that are joyful?” I well up with tears. I remember cheerleading in the eighth grade and feeling so happy as my body hit every beat on point and in sync with the rest of my team. I remember jumping higher than I think any human has as we won second place in a championship. I remember how strong I felt that I could throw a girl in the air. I remember youth soccer games and the absolute rush it gave me to feel my foot connect with power to the ball. I remember dancing stoned out of my mind at a Bob Marley festival, barefoot and uncaring that my body moved like a jellyfish, oblivious to the beat or how it should be moving. I remember, at ten years sober, when my wedding DJ dedicated “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse to all of us who had come through hell and survived and an entire dance floor of little sober assholes absolutely went nuts on the dance floor. I remember Josh splitting his pants. I remember my husband looking at me like no other woman existed. I remember being carried over the threshold of our hotel that night, not out of tradition, but because I had worn the bottoms of my feet raw dancing. When did movement lose its pleasure? When did my adult life stop including activities that made movement joyful? Can I get it back? Can you? Can we try together?

I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons, and played a championship tournament game between Gortchakoff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a

Fear [perhaps the most potent form of stress] is there for me in every aspect of kayaking, whether I’m preparing for a run on the biggest waterfall or before my final ride at the world championships. I don’t hide from it or try to ignore it. I feel the sensation and channel it to help me focus, to nail the line or to put up the biggest ride I can.

I believe that when we give the game back to our children we demonstrate the highest level of love for these great young spirits. When I ask kids why they play sports, they almost never mention scholarships, going pro, or winning a championship. They usually couldn’t care less about such lofty goals. They want to have fun, feel challenged, and make friends.

Verily, life is a series of championships and the joy is to be found in playing the game.

Tom King, the chief operating officer of U.S. Soccer, said that the federation invested $4.4 million on the women's team in 1999 and lost $2.7 million. The federation receives about $3 million from FIFA, soccer's world governing body, for qualifying for the men's World Cup, and $700,000 to $1 million per game, American officials said. The federation receives no money from FIFA for qualifying for the Women's World Cup. The men's team also receives guarantees from other countries when it travels of up to $140,000, King said, compared with zero for the women. 'I don't see the WNBA players asking for the same salaries as the NBA players,' Contiguglia said. In the case of soccer, however, the women are the NBA. It is the women's team that is more popular and higher achieving. And to suggest the men's team is a cash cow is incorrect. The men's team didn't pay for itself either in 1999, King said, losing $700,000 on a budget of $5.9 million. An argument could be made that the American women deserve more money than the men, not just equal pay. They have won two world championships and an Olympic gold medal, while the men have won nothing. The biggest men's home crowds often come at matches where the ethnic population is cheering for the other team.

What she revealed was not sexy lingerie, but a supportive piece of athletic equipment. After the consolation match that preceded the championship game, both Brazilian and Norwegian players removed their jerseys and exchanged them on the floor of the Rose Bowl. Chastain had previously removed her jersey after regulation to air it out. While training in Florida, the players frequently doffed their shirts after practice in the smothering heat, and they sometimes gave interviews in their sports bras, which were items of utility, not titillation. Chastain 'has brought instant attention to a piece of clothing that is humble and practical, not a traditional bra of shine and lace and cleavage, but a sturdy compression garment,' wrote Ann Gerhart of the Washington Post. 'The sports bra is the cloth symbol of Title IX's success.

The Razorbacks would play Duke, the NCAA champs in 1991 and 1992. Duke had a host of great players, but their star was Grant Hill, a consensus pick for national Player of the Year honors. The day before the championship, Richardson grew pensive. He was reasonably proud of his accomplishments, but something was nagging him. Richardson had been the underdog so long that despite his team’s yearlong national ranking, he still felt dispossessed. He found himself pondering one of Arkansas’s little-used substitutes, a senior named Ken Biley. Biley was an undersized post player who was raised in Pine Bluff. Neither of his parents had the opportunity to go to college, but every one of his fifteen siblings did, and nearly all graduated. “I had already learned that everybody has to play his role,” Biley says of his upbringing. As a freshman and sophomore, Biley saw some court time and even started a couple of games, but his playing time later evaporated and he lost faith. “Everyone wants to play, and when you don’t you get discouraged,” he says. On two occasions, he sat down with his coach and asked what he could do to earn a more important role. “I never demanded anything,” Biley says, “and he told me exactly what I needed to do, but we had so many good players ahead of me. Corliss Williamson, for one.” Nearly every coach, under the pressure of a championship showdown, reverts to the basic strategies that got the team into the finals. But Richardson couldn’t stop thinking about Biley, and what a selfless worker he had been for four years. The day before the championship game against Duke, at the conclusion of practice, Richardson pulled Biley aside. Biley had hardly played in the first five playoff games leading up to the NCAA title match—a total of four minutes. “I’ve watched how your career has progressed, and how you’ve handled not getting to play,” Richardson began. “I appreciate the leadership you’ve been showing and I want to reward you, as a senior.” “Thanks coach,” Biley said. He was unprepared for what came next. “You’re starting tomorrow against Duke,” Richardson said. “And you’re guarding Grant Hill.” Biley was speechless. Then overcome with emotion. “I was shocked, freaked out!” Biley says. “I hadn’t played much for two years. I just could not believe it.” Biley had plenty of time to think about Grant Hill. “I was a nervous wreck, like you’d expect,” he says. He had a restless night—he stared at the ceiling, sat on the edge of his bed, then flopped around trying to sleep. Richardson had disdained book coaches for years. Now he was throwing the book in the trash by starting a benchwarmer in the NCAA championship game.

I would tell players to relax and never think about what’s at stake. Just think about the basketball game. If you start to think about who is going to win the championship, you’ve lost your focus.

The night before the last round, the leaders of the Soviet team tried to persuade me not to play in that match. The conversation took place on various levels, from ‘the possibilities of obtaining entry visas to our country are not unlimited’, to ‘don’t forget that you still have a sister in Leningrad’. They did not manage to convince me. ‘I am playing for Holland, not against the Soviet Union’, I repeated, which was not entirely true. A short line from a Soviet newspaper – ‘in the USSR-Holland match, Polugaevsky’s game on board two ended in a draw’ – was my reward: after my departure, my name could not appear in the Soviet press. A report in the Leningrad sports paper, about how 1st-3rd places in the 1973 Dutch Championship were shared by Enklaar and Zuidema, is something that I retain to this day.

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.

Her disposition toward life was that of an elite athlete who knows the opponent is dirty and the refs are on the take, but also knows the championship is one game away.

One of the misconceptions in minor hockey is a belief that players have to get on “big city” teams as young as possible to gain exposure when being identified by major junior clubs. For example, the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL) has long been considered a strong breeding ground, with three or four elite AAA teams each year producing some of the top players for the OHL draft. However, on the list of players from Ontario since 1975 who have made the NHL, only 16.8 percent of those players came from GTHL programs while the league itself represents approximately 20 percent of the registered players in the province—that means the league has a per capita development rate of about –3 percent. What the research found was that players from other Ontario minor hockey leagues who elevated to the NHL actually had an edge in terms of career advancement on their GTHL counterparts by the age of nineteen. Each year several small-town Ontario parents, some with players as young as age eight, believe it’s necessary to get their kids on a GTHL superclub such as the Marlboros, Red Wings, or Jr. Canadiens. However, just twenty-one GTHL “import” players since 1997 have played a game in the NHL in the last fifteen years. This pretty much indicates that regardless of where he plays his minor hockey from the ages of eight through sixteen, a player eventually develops no matter how strong his team is as a peewee or bantam. An excellent example comes from the Ontario players born in 1990, which featured a powerhouse team in the Markham Waxers of the OMHA’s Eastern AAA League. The Waxers captured the prestigious OHL Cup and lost a grand total of two games in eight years. In 2005–06, when they were in minor midget (age fifteen), they compiled a record of 64-1-2. The Waxers had three future NHL draft picks on their roster in Steven Stamkos (Tampa Bay), Michael Del Zotto (New York Rangers), and Cameron Gaunce (Colorado). One Waxers nemesis in the 1990 age group was the Toronto Jr. Canadiens of the GTHL. The Jr. Canadiens were also a perennial powerhouse team and battled the Waxers on a regular basis in major tournaments and provincial championships over a seven-year period. Like the Waxers, the Jr. Canadiens team also had three future NHL draft picks in Alex Pietrangelo (St. Louis), Josh Brittain (Anaheim), and Stefan Della Rovere (Washington). In the same 1990 age group, a “middle of the pack” team was the Halton Hills Hurricanes (based west of Toronto in Milton). This club played in the OMHA’s South Central AAA League and periodically competed with some of the top teams. Over a seven-year span, they were marginally over the .500 mark from novice to minor midget. That Halton Hills team produced two future NHL draft picks in Mat Clark (Anaheim) and Jeremy Price (Vancouver). Finally, the worst AAA team in the 1990 group every year was the Chatham-Kent Cyclones—a club that averaged about five wins a season playing in the Pavilion League in Southwestern Ontario. Incredibly, the lowly Cyclones also had two future NHL draft picks in T.J. Brodie (Calgary) and Jason Missiaen (Montreal). It’s a testament that regardless of where they play their minor hockey, talented players will develop at their own pace and eventually rise to the top. You don’t need to be on an 85-5-1 big-city superclub to develop or get noticed.

Joe Gordon, the team’s longtime public relations director, said he would be right over. The Rooneys had hired Gordon in 1969, the same year they had hired Chuck Noll, in an effort to upgrade the previously dismal franchise. Gordon was a Pittsburgh native who had played varsity baseball at Pitt and whose hard-knuckle attitude fit perfectly with the brawling team. In the days preceding the 1976 AFC Championship Game against the hated Raiders, Gordon decked an Oakland TV reporter. Asked the next day if his team was ready, Noll said, “I don’t know, but Joe Gordon is.

This might sound like a dream for a seventeen-year-old boy, and I won’t deny enjoying the attention, but professionally it was a nightmare. My game began to unravel. I caught myself thinking about how I looked thinking instead of losing myself in thought. The Grandmasters, my elders, were ignored and scowled at me. Some of them treated me like a pariah. I had won eight national championships and had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search for excellence, let alone for happiness. At a young age I came to know that there is something profoundly hollow about the nature of fame. I had spent my life devoted to artistic growth and was used to the sweaty-palmed sense of contentment one gets after many hours of intense reflection. This peaceful feeling had nothing to do with external adulation, and I yearned for a return to that innocent, fertile time. I missed just being a student of the game,

We were the fans’ friends,” Artie says now, and Berry agrees: “It really was a unique relationship that was built between the team and the city.

Her disposition toward life was that of an elite athlete who knows the opponent is dirty and the refs are on the take, but also knows the championship is one game away. She

I set out the chess board. I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen, and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons, and played a championship tournament game between Gortcha-koff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle without armour, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.

So how about we just say Neighbor Bae has killed the entire game?” Tammy asked, looking over my shoulder at the note. “Neighbor bae won the championship.” Quaya remarked. “He had your place cleaned up and replaced all of your stuff. You better be nice to that man.” They

Ten months after Jamie’s death, the 2006 football season began. The Colts played peerless football, winning their first nine games, and finishing the year 12–4. They won their first play-off game, and then beat the Baltimore Ravens for the divisional title. At that point, they were one step away from the Super Bowl, playing for the conference championship—the game that Dungy had lost eight times before. The matchup occurred on January 21, 2007, against the New England Patriots, the same team that had snuffed out the Colts’ Super Bowl aspirations twice. The Colts started the game strong, but before the first half ended, they began falling apart. Players were afraid of making mistakes or so eager to get past the final Super Bowl hurdle that they lost track of where they were supposed to be focusing. They stopped relying on their habits and started thinking too much. Sloppy tackling led to turnovers. One of Peyton Manning’s passes was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Their opponents, the Patriots, pulled ahead 21 to 3. No team in the history of the NFL had ever overcome so big a deficit in a conference championship. Dungy’s team, once again, was going to lose.3.36 At halftime, the team filed into the locker room, and Dungy asked everyone to gather around. The noise from the stadium filtered through the closed doors, but inside everyone was quiet. Dungy looked at his players. They had to believe, he said. “We faced this same situation—against this same team—in 2003,” Dungy told them. In that game, they had come within one yard of winning. One yard. “Get your sword ready because this time we’re going to win. This is our game. It’s our time.”3.37 The Colts came out in the second half and started playing as they had in every preceding game. They stayed focused on their cues and habits. They carefully executed the plays they had spent the past five years practicing until they had become automatic. Their offense, on the opening drive, ground out seventy-six yards over fourteen plays and scored a touchdown. Then, three minutes after taking the next possession, they scored again. As the fourth quarter wound down, the teams traded points. Dungy’s Colts tied the game, but never managed to pull ahead. With 3:49 left in the game, the Patriots scored, putting Dungy’s players at a three-point disadvantage, 34 to 31. The Colts got the ball and began driving down the field. They moved seventy yards in nineteen seconds, and crossed into the end zone. For the first time, the Colts had the lead, 38 to 34. There were now sixty seconds left on the clock. If Dungy’s team could stop the Patriots from scoring a touchdown, the Colts would win. Sixty seconds is an eternity in football.

The Patriots’ quarterback, Tom Brady, had scored touchdowns in far less time. Sure enough, within seconds of the start of play, Brady moved his team halfway down the field. With seventeen seconds remaining, the Patriots were within striking distance, poised for a final big play that would hand Dungy another defeat and crush, yet again, his team’s Super Bowl dreams. As the Patriots approached the line of scrimmage, the Colts’ defense went into their stances. Marlin Jackson, a Colts cornerback, stood ten yards back from the line. He looked at his cues: the width of the gaps between the Patriot linemen and the depth of the running back’s stance. Both told him this was going to be a passing play. Tom Brady, the Patriots’ quarterback, took the snap and dropped back to pass. Jackson was already moving. Brady cocked his arm and heaved the ball. His intended target was a Patriot receiver twenty-two yards away, wide open, near the middle of the field. If the receiver caught the ball, it was likely he could make it close to the end zone or score a touchdown. The football flew through the air. Jackson, the Colts cornerback, was already running at an angle, following his habits. He rushed past the receiver’s right shoulder, cutting in front of him just as the ball arrived. Jackson plucked the ball out of the air for an interception, ran a few more steps and then slid to the ground, hugging the ball to his chest. The whole play had taken less than five seconds. The game was over. Dungy and the Colts had won. Two weeks later, they won the Super Bowl. There are dozens of reasons that might explain why the Colts finally became champions that year. Maybe they got lucky. Maybe it was just their time. But Dungy’s players say it’s because they believed, and because that belief made everything they had learned—all the routines they had practiced until they became automatic—stick, even at the most stressful moments. “We’re proud to have won this championship for our leader, Coach Dungy,” Peyton Manning told the crowd afterward, cradling the Lombardi Trophy. Dungy turned to his wife. “We did it,” he said.

She coached every day like it was the national championship game. Every practice was coached like that. It was never a letup. I can’t ever remember a day where she was tired, ever. —MICKIE DEMOSS

You don’t win championships by being a bunch of individual all-stars,” I told them. “You do it by being a team—doing all the intangibles and playing together and really trying to help one another in chasing your goals.

Andujar, Joaquin, 183 Anheuser-Busch, 181–82 Animal Rescue

Between 1999 and 2002, the Yankees paid over three times what the A’s paid for the average player on their roster. The Yankee payroll was $130 million in 2002; that of the A’s, just $40 million. Yet the difference in performance between the two teams was surprisingly small considering the vast difference in salaries. The Yankees made the championship playoffs in 2000, 2001, and 2002, but so did the A’s. The Yankees did go all the way to the World Series in 2000 and 2001, and won it in 2000. But during the 2002 regular season, the A’s and the Yankees each won 103 games. Just think what the A’s might have accomplished with the combination of evidence and unlimited budget.

While every coach and every startup manager has to make decisions on the fly, there are tricks that can help you in managing through the chaos. The first is to make brutally efficient use of your time, and figure out a way to get as much of it as you can. In the last minutes of a tied championship game, with thousands of fans yelling and all your players desperately looking to you for the right play, managing the clock is critical. Every coach caught up in a tight game knows that the best weapon can be a “time out,” where she can change the flow of the game, disrupt the other team’s momentum, and re-establish her own strategy.

It takes all of my strength to stay standing. I’ve won a lot of football games. Thrown the winning touchdown in my high school state championship. Just won a national college championship. But I’m not sure anything has felt as good as when Roxy, who’s still impaled on me, opens her sleepy eyes, takes my face in her small hands, and kisses me long and slow under the hot water. It’s in this moment I realize how much I’ve been lying to myself. About everything. Because this thing with Roxy? It’s anything but fake. Now I just need to prove to her I’m the kind of man she can count on.

As I told my players a hundred times, it doesn't matter where you come from, but where you're going; it doesn't matter where you start, but where you finish. And where we finished was at the NCAA championship game, the very first in women's basketball history.

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.

mathematical constant pi, which he planned to recite at the Mind Sports Olympiad, a weeklong festival of board games to be held a week after the World Memory Championship.

Queen always seemed to me to be manufactured championship music—designed to be played in stadiums to get fans hyped up about paying money to watch other men play a child’s game. With songs like We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions, they were the pep rally of pop rock.

The ability to self-regulate is important when dealing with stress. The demands of competition, the noise from the stands, and the team dynamics will cause stress for athletes. These stressors will be compounded by the athlete’s personal life and the stress they carry into these performance situations. Overall, athletes will get gripped by stress, whether in a championship game or a mundane practice.

Something’s off with Bobby,” Edmondson said. Benson didn’t think that Edmondson was referring to Fischer’s legendary eccentricities. Edmondson had once mentioned with a laugh that Bobby was afraid of Soviet agents tracking him, but this probably wasn’t it either. “In what sense?” Something was off with the majority of people Benson dealt with, so he needed further clarification. “Psychiatric.” Evidently, Edmondson was serious, but for now, Benson approached it with skepticism. “Is it a problem? Since he’s winning grandmaster tournaments.” “Imagine he wins the Candidates Matches, and then something happens to him before the World Championship match. Or during it. There is big money and the future of chess in America at stake. Not to mention settling scores with the Soviets. You know that the chess championship is the apple of their eye. We’re going to pluck it out from them. I just need to know where I stand and what to expect. After all, I can’t send Bobby for an examination.

As a twelve-year-old, Boris Spassky gained the nickname Little Scoundrel. At the Russian Junior Championship in Zelenogorsk near Leningrad, Moscow juniors proposed blitz matches to Boris. The loser would buy a bottle of lemonade. They conspired and all lost to him. After an hour, five bottles of lemonade stood in front of Boris. “Now drink!” They surrounded him, blocking his escape. They were bigger than him. “Drink it all! Come on, now!” Scared, Boris drank, but after the second bottle, he had had enough. They didn’t let up. After the third, he vomited. Only then did they leave him alone.

The System would tolerate these harmless activities as a means to allow people to go through the Power Process to meet contrived needs which pose no threat to its dominance. For example, rather than directly work towards obtaining food and shelter, one would occupy one’s time with innocuous pastimes like building model ships or cheering for a particular football team, despite the fact that one’s quality of life would not be improved at all even by seeing one’s favourite team win the top championship game. Kaczynski of course calls these surrogate activities.

Be where your feet are. Don’t look behind you. The past is out of your control now. Don’t look ahead. The future will give you anxiety. Put all your concentration on the present moment. In football, as in life, it’s easy to get ahead of yourself. Players start thinking about the SEC Championship instead of the game they’re in. That kind of thinking is a trap, and it will lead you into serious trouble. It’s so easy to assume your current opponent isn’t going to be tough to beat, and you find yourself in an upside-down situation on the field. I

His disappointment at not buying the team didn’t diminish his affection for the local nine. Eight years later Fitzgerald was serving his second term as mayor when the Red Sox opened its doors to its new home, Fenway Park. In the first game of the park’s inaugural season, Mayor Fitzgerald christened the stadium by throwing out the first pitch in the field’s history. The opening of the stadium proved to be good luck. It was in that same season that the Red Sox earned their first visit to the World Series. Their opponent was the New York Giants. Before the games began, New York Mayor William Gaynor invited his Boston contemporary, Honey Fitz, to be his guest in New York for the first games of the championship. Fitzgerald boldly replied, “It will give me great pleasure to be your guest as the Red Sox begin their onward march to the World Championship.” The Red Sox won the series in eight games, in a thrilling extra-inning victory-clinching World Series, their first one. In Boston crowds flocked

Prejudice,” Rickey told the table. “It reflects an attitude of a great many people in this country who don’t introspect themselves very closely about their own prejudices. . . . You can’t meet it with words. You can’t take prejudice straight on. It must be done by proximity. Proximity! The player alongside you. No matter what the skin color or language. Win the game. Win all. Get the championship and the check that goes with it.

Let the record show that KG played one of his better games to clinch a championship.

Whether you are working on a game plan or a business plan, there’s no doubt that being an effective leader requires independent thought. You need to think in order to have clarity of purpose, to understand what your priorities are, and what you need to do to help your players maximize their potential.

Another great coach, Bill Walsh (who oversaw three Super Bowl Championship teams at the San Francisco 49ers), emphasized the importance of personal and positive encouragement. Walsh would shake hands and say a positive personal word of encouragement to every player just before each game. He also asked his assistant coaches to acknowledge each player, shake his hand, and offer supportive thoughts.

There was a wonderful example of gaming a human system in the career of Victor Niederhoffer in the Economics Department of Harvard. Victor Niederhoffer was the son of a police lieutenant, and he needed to get A's at Harvard. But he didn't want to do any serious work at Harvard because what he really liked doing was, one, playing world-class checkers; two, gambling in high-stakes card games, at which he was very good, all hours of the day and night; three, being the squash champion of the United States, which he was for years; and, four, being about as good a tennis player as a part-time tennis player could be. This did not leave much time for getting A's at Harvard. So he went into the Economics Department. You'd think he would have chosen French poetry. But remember, this was a guy who could play championship checkers. He thought he was up to outsmarting the Harvard Economics Department. And he was. He noticed that the graduate students did most of the boring work that would otherwise go to the professors, and he noticed that because it was so hard to get to be a graduate student at Harvard, they were all very brilliant and organized and hardworking, as well as much needed by grateful professors. And, therefore, by custom, and as would be predicted from the psychological force called "reciprocity tendency," in a really advanced graduate course, the professors always gave an A. So Victor Niederhoffer signed up for nothing but the most advanced graduate courses in the Harvard Economics Department, and, of course, he got A, after A, after A, after A, and was hardly ever near a class. And, for a while. Some people at Harvard may have thought it had a new prodigy on its hands. That's a ridiculous story, but the scheme will work still. And Niederhoffer is famous: They call his style "Niederhoffering the curriculum.

Scientists from Plymouth University and Durham University found that red also boosted the football players’ confidence, where the 68 top English teams from 1946 to 2013 won more games than they lost when they wore this winning color. Famed golf star Tiger Woods, who has won many games and golf championships wearing a red shirt, missed the cut at the May 2019 PGA Championship. Unsurprisingly, he was wearing a black shirt that day.

When Solo got back to her own hotel room, all her emotions were unleashed. As one player puts it now: “All the sudden, we were seeing furniture fly into the hallway.” Several players who decline to speak on the record say Solo trashed her room and punched a hole in the wall. Nicole Barnhart, the backup goalkeeper who was her roommate at the time, picked up the furniture and put the room back together. Later, Aly Wagner, Cat Whitehill, and Angela Hucles went to Solo’s room to check on her. She was crying. The trio understood why Solo was so upset. The decision to change a goalkeeper in the middle of a World Cup was unprecedented, and everyone knew it. The players tried to support her and give her a pep talk to be ready, just in case. “We get it,” the players told her one by one. “This is an awful thing to go through. We’ve all been there. But you are still part of this team, and we still need you. You never know what’s going to happen in the game.” The press corps in China was small, but once reporters there learned about Ryan’s decision, it was all they could ask about. Would it shake Solo’s confidence? “That’s not our concern,” Ryan said. “We came here trying to win a world championship and put the players on the field that we thought could win each game.” Was Ryan concerned that Scurry would be rusty? “She’ll be ready—wait and see,” he said. Julie Foudy and Tony DiCicco were now both working as broadcast analysts for ESPN. On air, they expressed astonishment at Ryan’s decision and both said, in no uncertain terms, that it was a bad move.

There was still another 75 minutes left to play. It didn’t matter. Those 75 minutes would end up as a footnote on Carli Lloyd’s stunning performance—one of the most dominant displays in a championship game anywhere, ever. The Americans won the World Cup, 5–2, but it was the performance of a lifetime for Lloyd. When the whistle blew, Lloyd dropped to her knees and cried. Heather O’Reilly ran from the bench straight to Lloyd and slid into her. Soon all the players found their way to one another for a frantic mishmash of hugs. Afterward, in the post-match press conference, Japanese coach Norio Sasaki told reporters: “Ms. Lloyd always does this to us. In London she scored twice. Today she scored three times. So we’re embarrassed, but she’s excellent.” Lloyd, for her part, almost downplayed the performance. She believed she could’ve scored one more goal. “I visualized playing in the World Cup final and visualized scoring four goals,” Lloyd said. “It sounds pretty funny, but that’s what it’s all about. At the end of the day, you can be physically strong, you can have all the tools out there, but if your mental state isn’t good enough, you can’t bring yourself to bigger and better things.

We reminisced about games from last season, our championship win, and predictions for the new season. When I called it a night, knowing I had to get up early, they were genuinely gutted I was leaving again, which made me not want to leave at all. Mattie and Bobby crashed in Robbie’s and JJ’s rooms, with Kris losing five consecutive games of rock paper scissors and ending up on the couch Henry violated. They were awake, albeit slightly hungover, before the sun was up to make breakfast and coffee so I could have something decent to eat before getting on the road. Having real friends has shown me I don’t need to quietly blend into the background anymore. Telling my dad exactly how I feel has freed me from whatever has been holding me back this entire time. Don’t get me wrong, nobody changes overnight, but I’m arriving at Honey Acres again feeling like a brand-new guy.

Bertie became a tennis ace, who played in the doubles of the 1926 Wimbledon championships. And he held a unique cricketing hat-trick, dismissing in three consecutive balls, in a game of garden cricket, three consecutive English kings: his grandfather ( Edward VII), his father (George V), and his brother (Edward VIII).

on a seagull poo–like texture when mixed into cold water. Amelia saved my palate and joints by introducing me to the Great Lakes hydrolyzed version (green label), which blends easily and smoothly. Add a tablespoon of beet root powder like BeetElite to stave off any cow-hoof flavor, and it’s a whole new game. Amelia uses BeetElite pre-race and pre-training for its endurance benefits, but I’m much harder-core: I use it to make tart, low-carb gummy bears when fat Tim has carb cravings. RumbleRoller: Think foam roller meets monster-truck tire. Foam rollers have historically done very little for me, but this torture device had an immediate positive impact on my recovery. (It also helps you sleep if used before bed.) Warning: Start slow. I tried to copy Amelia and did 20-plus minutes my first session. The next day, I felt like I’d been put in a sleeping bag and swung against a tree for a few hours. Rolling your foot on top of a golf ball on the floor to increase “hamstring” flexibility. This is infinitely more helpful than a lacrosse ball. Put a towel on the floor underneath the golf ball, lest you shoot your dog’s eye out. Concept2 SkiErg for training when your lower body is injured. After knee surgery, Amelia used this low-impact machine to maintain cardiovascular endurance and prepare for the 2014 World’s Toughest Mudder, which she won 8 weeks post-op. Kelly Starrett (page 122) is also a big fan of this device. Dry needling: I’d never heard of this before meeting Amelia. “[In acupuncture] the goal is not to feel the needle. In dry-needling, you are sticking the needle in the muscle belly and trying to get it to twitch, and the twitch is the release.” It’s used for super-tight, over-contracted muscles, and the needles are not left in. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t have this done on your calves. Sauna for endurance: Amelia has found using a sauna improves her endurance, a concept that has since been confirmed by several other athletes, including cyclist David Zabriskie, seven-time U.S. National Time Trial Championship winner. He considers sauna training a more practical replacement for high-altitude simulation tents. In the 2005 Tour de France, Dave won the Stage 1 time trial, making him the first American to win stages in all three Grand Tours. Zabriskie beat Lance Armstrong by seconds, clocking an average speed of 54.676 kilometers per hour (!). I now use a sauna at least four times per week. To figure out the best protocols, I asked

It's very easy to find happiness. Just grab a bottle of your favorite drink, devour foods that give you so much comfort and stress-relief, go for a run (happy hormones), or watch an NBA championship game at ringside! It's as instant as microwaveable foods! But joy is a different thing. Joy takes time to build, but it's worth the time. And one of the best ways to find joy in life is by discovering and living out our purpose - the reason why we've been put on this Earth! There's something about being in one's purpose and living it out.

Team members are playing to stay on the team with every game. For people who value job security over winning championships, Netflix is not the right choice, and we try to be clear and nonjudgmental about that. But for those who value being on winning teams, our culture provides a great opportunity.

In the morning, I spent ten minutes thinking about all the things I was grateful for. I repeated positive, empowering phrases again and again. I feel great. Today is going to be a great day. Good things are coming my way. I visualized facing several scenarios—good and bad—on the golf course and then executing the perfect shot in each situation. I imagined winning the Gateway Championship—seeing myself with the trophy in hand.

The Warriors ended up beating the Vikings in the league championship game on a sweet feed from Danny to Ty at the buzzer.

A week passed after the weekend of our big championship win and our kiss, and didn't speak to Phil at all. Since hockey was over, we didn't see each other at practices or games, and he seemed to be avoiding me at school. And I really missed him.

Wow, I had just scored the winning goal in a championship game! If that wasn't a dream come true, I didn't know what would be.

Permian had established itself as perhaps the most successful football dynasty in the country—pro, college, or high school. Few brands of sport were more competitive than Class AAAAA Texas high school football, the division for the biggest schools in the state. Odessa was hardly the only town that nurtured football and cherished it and went crazy over it. But no one came close to matching the performance of Permian. Since 1964 it had won four state championships, been to the state finals a record eight times, and made the playoffs fifteen times. Its worst record in any season over that time span had been seven and two, and its winning percentage overall, .825, was by far the best of any team in the entire state in the modern era of the game dating back to 1951. All this wasn’t accomplished with kids who weighed 250 pounds and were automatic major-college prospects, but with kids who often weighed 160 or 170 or even less. They had no special athletic prowess. They weren’t especially fast or especially strong. But they were fearless and relentlessly coached and from the time they were able to walk they had only one certain goal in their lives in Odessa, Texas. Whatever it took, they would play for Permian.

what I like to call the spiritual nature of the game. I can’t pretend to be an expert in leadership theory. But what I do know is that the art of transforming a group of young, ambitious individuals into an integrated championship team is not a mechanistic process. It’s a mysterious juggling act that requires not only a thorough knowledge of the time-honored laws of the game but also an open heart, a clear mind, and a deep curiosity about the ways of the human spirit.

Ahead of his 1961 World Championship rematch against reigning champion Mikhail Tal, Mikhail Botvinnik put in hours of work, going over his opponent’s games and trying to look for ways around it so he didn’t feel totally helpless later. The barrier for Botvinnik was largely psychological. At the board, Tal’s moves were not about difficulty of calculation; rather, they revolved around intimidating the opponent’s mind. His approach involved posing a plethora of tactical problems.

That’s enough, Leonis! I’m an honorable man—Kelio and Sina can play tomorrow, but they’re out by the championship game. I’ll let the two of you decide how to break it to them.

A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they’re not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. They’re players, but they think life is a practice game and they’ll save themselves for later. So they sit on the bench, and the only championship they’ll ever see goes on before them. The clock ticks away the quarters. At any moment they can join in.