“
You settle for less, you get less.
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”
Brandi L. Bates (Remains To Be Seen)
“
You don't even who know I am." "The hell I don't," Wymack said. "You're Neil Josten, nineteen year-old recruit from Millport, Arizona. Born March 31st, five-foot-three, right-handed, stick size three. Starting striker for my Foxes and most improved freshman striker in NCAA Class I Exy. "No," Wymack said, getting louder when Neil started to interrupt. "Look me in the eye and tell me if you think I care who you used to be. Hm?
”
”
Nora Sakavic (The King's Men (All for the Game, #3))
“
Stevie Wonder could make one of 23 shots." - On North Carolina missing 22 of its last 23 shots in losing to Georgetown in the NCAA tournament.
”
”
Charles Barkley
“
I have no idea how I’m going to survive NCAA, where this sport is ten percent gymnastics, ninety percent yelling. Like
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Lauren Hopkins (When It Counts (2016 Book 2))
“
Neil Josten, good morning. I suppose you've already heard the good news? As of eleven o'clock last night, your name is the third-highest search string for NCAA Exy strikers. That puts you right after Riko and Kevin.
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Nora Sakavic (The Foxhole Court (All for the Game, #1))
“
Playing off the NCAA basketball tournament’s “March Madness” theme, Mr. Lemoncello declared the first Saturday in March “Library Lunacy Day.
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Chris Grabenstein (Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics (Mr. Lemoncello's Library, #2))
“
Studies show that the fear of public humiliation is a potent force. During the 1988-89 basketball season, for example, two NCAA basketball teams played eleven games without any spectators, owing to a measles outbreak that led their schools to quarantine all students. Both teams played much better (higher free-throw percentages, for example) without any fans, even adoring home-team fans, to unnerve them.
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Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
“
When my son speaks of playing sports, I've always told him: playing on the team is great, but aspire to be the guy who owns the team. I've always told my son: most of the guys on the team will end up bankrupt with bum knees, but not the guy who owns that franchise.
”
”
Brandi L. Bates
“
My “Kentucky NCAA Champions” shirt was by now so bloodstained, you would think I had worn it to a North Carolina game. Also, I had feathers sticking to my hair.
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”
Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle)
“
now that he’d escaped the NCAA exploitation machine,
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”
Ali Hazelwood (Not in Love)
“
As the incidence and fear of rape on college campuses have increased, the term rape has been generalized to mean 'misuse; diminish the effects of; steal; defeat': "I just went to the mall and raped my VISA." "My dad phoned this morning and raped my buzz." "She raped my coat." "Michigan got raped by Carolina in the NCAA final." The extension of the term rape to such contexts ameliorates the word and appears a denial on the part of college students of the seriousness of the crime.
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”
Connie C. Eble (Slang and Sociability: In-Group Language Among College Students)
“
It's common to think of people in the military as conformists. But that's far from the truth in our community. Some pretty capable and colorful types join the SEAL teams, looking for bigger challenges than their high-flying careers or other interesting backgrounds can offer. Whether doctors, lawyers, longshoreman, college dropout, engineer or NCAA Division I superathlete, they were more than just good special operators. They were a cohesive team whose strength came from their widely diverse talents, educational backgrounds, upbringings, perspectives, and capabilities. They're all-American and patriotic, with a combination of practical intelligence and willpower that you don't want to get crossways with. Streetwise, innovative, adaptable, and often highly intellectual--these are all words that apply to the community. And the majority are so nice that it can be hard to envision their capacity for violent mayhem. BUD/S filters out four of five aspirants, leaving behind only the hardest and most determined--the best. I was so proud and humbled to be part of the brotherhood.
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”
Marcus Luttrell (Service: A Navy SEAL at War)
“
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.
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John McPhee (A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton)
“
Whenever a college athletic program got itself in trouble with the law - big trouble - the NCAA usually steered clear, sticking to how many minutes a week student-athletes are allowed to stretch, the distance they can travel in a car with an alumnus, and whether they are allowed to put cream cheese or jam on their free breakfast bagel. (They are not).
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”
John U. Bacon (Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football)
“
studie prokazují, že strach z ponížení na veřejnosti je mocná síla. Například během basketbalové sezony 1988/1989 sehrály dva basketbalové týmy NCAA jedenáct zápasů bez diváků, bylo to následkem epidemie spalniček, která vedla ke karanténě pro všechny studenty na jejich univerzitách. Oba týmy hrály mnohem lépe (například vyšší procentuální úspěšnost volných hodů) bez fanoušků, dokonce i bez zbožňujících domácích fandů, kteří by je znervózňovali.
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”
Susan Cain (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking)
“
Have Candace bring the ball up,” she said urgently. It was totally counterintuitive: Candace was our go-to player, on whom we counted when we needed a score. If Candace brought the ball up the court, that meant she’d have to pass it off. It meant someone else would take the last shot of the game. It meant that if we lost, everyone in the country would want to know why we hadn’t gone to the best player in the game. I nodded. It was a high-stakes decision. But I loved being the trigger puller. Loved it. I went into the huddle—and made the last critical call I would ever make in an NCAA Final Four. I looked at Lex, who would be our inbounder. “Get the ball in to Candace,” I said. I turned to Candace. “They will converge on you. Find the open player.” They all nodded and took their places. What happened next is a credit to the culture of a program in which players are taught to commit, to play all out, to attend to every detail no matter how seemingly unimportant, to never go through the motions, no matter how routine seeming, to finish with as much energy as they started with.
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Pat Summitt (Sum It Up: A Thousand and Ninety-Eight Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective)
“
We spilled onto the court to celebrate, but most of the guys were confused about how excited they were supposed to be. I mean, sure we won the tournament, but at the end of the day it was the NIT and being the best team in the NIT is like being the most attractive Michigan cheerleader.
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Mark Titus (Don't Put Me In, Coach: My Incredible NCAA Journey from the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench)
“
your team is ranked first? congratulations and big deal. maintaining a top position is far easier than starting over from the gutters. kevin is doing that right now. he’s facing entirely new schools and learning to play with his less dominant hand. when he masters it, and he will, he’ll be better than you could ever have made him. do you know why? it’s not just his natural talent. it’s because he’s with us. there are only ten foxes this year. that’s one sub for every position. think about it. last night we played blackenridge. they have twenty-seven people on their roster. they can burn through players as fast as they want because they have a pile of replacements. we don’t have that luxury. we have to hold our ground on our own.”
“you didn’t hold your ground, you lost. your school is the laughingstock of the ncaa. you’re a team with no concept of teamwork.”
“lucky for you. if we were a unified front, you wouldn’t have a chance against us.”
“you cannot last and your unfounded arrogance is offensive to everyone who actually earned a spot in first class. everyone knows the only reason palmetto qualified for this division is because of your coach.”
“funny, i’m pretty sure that’s how edgar allan qualified.”
- neil & riko
”
”
Nora Sakavic (The Foxhole Court (All for the Game, #1))
“
Title IX opened a door fifty years ago that can never be closed again, but equality doesn’t end at the equal right to play. True equality in sports, like any other industry, requires rebuilding the systems so there’s an equal chance to thrive. I’m just one person telling a story to bring an embodied experience of the female athlete to life. I can’t create policy or NCAA best practices, or medical guidelines, but I have some ideas of where to start. We need policies like those created around concussions that specifically protect the health of the female body in sport. We need to create a formal certification to work with female athletes that mandates education on female physiology, puberty, breast development, menstrual health, and the female performance wave.
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Lauren Fleshman (Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man's World)
“
Regardless of right or wrong, to own your actions means you are conscious of why you chose them in the first place.
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”
Valorie Kondos Field (Life Is Short, Don't Wait to Dance: Advice and Inspiration from the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame Coach of 7 NCAA Championship Teams)
“
However, the biggest disappointment was Klay getting pulled over by a cop for a busted car light. The officer smelled marijuana in the vicinity and eventually found some in his car. The aforementioned event led to Klay’s arrest as well as a suspension for a game against the Bruins near the end of the season. Klay’s costly mistake ended up ruining the Cougars’ chance to make it to the NCAA tournament. His father was extremely disappointed in him since he had always taught him to stay away from such things not only in school, but as well as in his professional life. Mychal thought he had made a big enough impact to prevent his son from making foolish choices. Klay quickly regretted the situation and learned from his mistake. The team did qualify for the NIT, which was an exciting opportunity in itself.
”
”
Clayton Geoffreys (Klay Thompson: The Incredible Story of One of Basketball's Sharpest Shooters (Basketball Biography Books))
“
While Jordan collected several NBA Championships in his career, along with one NCAA title with the North Carolina Tar Heels, Jordan also holds two gold medals from the Summer Olympics,
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Clayton Geoffreys (Michael Jordan: The Inspiring Story of One of Basketball's Greatest Players (Basketball Biography Books))
“
On February 1, 2005, Michael Oher held a press conference to announce where he intended to go to college. He faced a bank of microphones and explained how he’d decided he’d go to Ole Miss, as that’s where his family had gone. To hear him talk, you’d have thought he’d descended from generations of Ole Miss Rebels. He answered a few questions from reporters, without actually saying anything, and then went home and waited for all hell to break loose. Up in Indianapolis, the NCAA was about to hear a rumor that white families in the South were going into the ghetto, seizing poor black kids, and adopting them, so that they might play football for their SEC alma maters. But it was still weeks before the NCAA investigator would turn up in the Tuohy living room.
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Michael Lewis (The Blind Side)
“
Sean didn’t trust these people. They didn’t think in terms of right and wrong. All they cared about was keeping up appearances. The NCAA rules existed, in theory, to maintain the integrity of college athletics. These investigators were meant to act as a police department. In practice, they were more like the public relations wing of an inept fire department. They might not be the last people on earth to learn that some booster or coach had bribed some high school jock, but they weren’t usually the first either. Some scandal would be exposed in a local newspaper and they would go chasing after it, in an attempt to minimize the embarrassment to the system. They didn’t care how things were, only how they could be made to seem.
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Michael Lewis (The Blind Side)
“
The NCAA needed its proof of Michael’s new and improved grade point average by August 1. On July 29 Michael took his final BYU test—another Character Course. Sean sent the test to Utah by Federal Express, and the BYU people promised to have the grade ready by two o’clock the following afternoon. “The Mormons may be going to hell,” said Sean. “But they really are nice people.” With Michael’s final A in hand, Sean rushed the full package to the NCAA’s offices in Indianapolis. The NCAA promptly lost it. Sean threatened to fly up on his plane with another copy and sit in the lobby until they processed it—which led the NCAA to find Michael’s file. On August 1, 2005, the NCAA informed Michael Oher that he was going to be allowed to go to college, and play football.
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Michael Lewis (The Blind Side)
“
Instead of jumping into summer vacation like so many of my friends, I began work with a series of online courses offered through Brigham Young University that were approved by the NCAA for core course requirements for athletes trying to improve their GPAs. The grades earned there can be used to replace older, failing grades on the transcript, and it was an exciting series of courses for me. Subjects covered a wide range, including foreign languages, math, social studies, business, and English. It was a wonderful program for kids like me to go back and redo some of the courses we didn’t get right the first time.
”
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Michael Oher (I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond)
“
Meanwhile, biological men in women’s clothing have increasingly encroached on celebrity, sports, and politics. TIME magazine’s “Woman of the Year” Caitlyn Jenner, the first “female” four-star admiral in the Commissioned Corps Rachel Levine and the NCAA “female” swimming champion Lia Thomas are all lauded as examples of female achievement, despite their radically distinct hormonal baselines, higher testosterone levels, and greater physical strength, especially in the upper body.
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Carrie Gress (The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us)
“
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.
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Rus Bradburd (Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson)
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NCAA basketball proposal includes 30-second shot clock
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Anonymous
“
All of our phones were blowing up. It was ridiculous. It was just hard to focus in," Moseley said. "I didn't even want my phone anymore. It was just too much." So Frese asked players what they thought about giving up their phones for the entire length of their NCAA tournament road trips. The locker room agreed. Parents were given contact information for the team's director of basketball operations in case there was an emergency. Terps players told their friends they were going to be unreachable. And then they disappeared into, like, 1995 or something. "To live without your phone that long is really hard, especially for us; we live by our phones," Alyssa Thomas, the star forward who graduated last year, said of her generation. "At first we would all be checking our pockets, thinking we lost our phones or something." But then a weird thing happened,
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Anonymous
“
But Brian has become a great, great, great friend. He’s super talented obviously, which is evident to anybody who watches him do NCAA Tournament games or NFL games.
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Bill Schroeder (If These Walls Could Talk: Milwaukee Brewers: Stories from the Milwaukee Brewers Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box)
“
As a married man, though, ugly was what Aidan had told himself anytime the sinfully handsome two-time NCAA champion crossed his path. “Fine.
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Layla Reyne (Single Malt (Agents Irish and Whiskey, #1))
“
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.
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C. Vivian Stringer (Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph)
“
Many scholars understand the NCAA as a cartel,” court of appeals judge Frank Easterbrook wrote, allowing that Walters was a “nasty and untrustworthy fellow” but pointing out that reality didn’t exempt college sports from legal scrutiny. “The NCAA depresses athletes’ income—restricting payments to the value of tuition, room, and board, while receiving services of substantially greater worth. The NCAA treats this as desirable preservation of amateur sports; a more jaundiced eye would see it as the use of monopsony power to obtain athletes’ services for less than their competitive value.” The word monopsony said it all: the term describes monopoly powers on the buyer side of the market. In this case, the NCAA was the lone competitor for the purchase of the players’ services, contriving to leave young athletes—many of them Black—like sharecroppers on a plantation, only able to sell their yields to the landowner and compensated in goods sold at the landowner’s store in the form of scholarships.
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Guy Lawson (Hot Dog Money: Inside the Biggest Scandal in the History of College Sports)
“
I remember Gable putting his arm around me as I walked off the stage of the NCAA final. I wanted that win so badly. I was so close. How could I have allowed my mind to drift during the biggest moment and event of my life? I didn’t come to Iowa for Big Ten titles. I didn’t even consider them. I came for NCAA Titles and fell short. There was an emptiness in me. Though I wasn’t lost, I was hurting. What I came to Iowa for alluded me. A last-second loss as a junior and an injury-riddled senior year left me in an empty place. So much went into winning. What would college leave me hungry for? It would leave me so close but never attaining what I deeply longed for.
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Tom Ryan (Chosen Suffering: Becoming Elite In Life And Leadership)
“
I faced Pat Smith in the finals, the man who I had previously beaten. This time, I lost 7-6. Pat became the first four-time NCAA champion. I was winning with less than thirty seconds to go when we went out of bounds. To this day, I remember every thought and every second of every position. A few nights before the NCAA finals, I had dinner with my technical coach, Jimmy Zalesky. Jimmy was a three-time NCAA champ who helped me, as did his older brother, Lenny. These brothers were tough and technical. They’re great men who are both college head coaches and good friends. When I went out of bounds, I remembered the conversation between Jimmy and me the week before. I asked him what it felt like to win his first title. As my opponent and I walked back to the center, I allowed my brain to recall that previous evening’s conversation. As soon as my foot was on the line in the center of the mat, the referee blew the whistle. Pat shot and got to my ankle. A scramble ensued, and he came out on top with twelve seconds to go. I fought hard to get out, which sent the match into a tough back and forth battle in the final seconds. Ultimately, I couldn’t escape and lost the NCAA final match. That was the biggest loss of my life. I squared up with my foot on the line, thinking I was seconds away from winning. I had the mindset of protect and defend. Simultaneously, Pat squared up, thinking he was seconds away from also winning. He had the mindset of attack and score. It was a battle of mindsets, and his prevailed.
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Tom Ryan (Chosen Suffering: Becoming Elite In Life And Leadership)
“
Let's spend more time deciding who we want to be, because how we act in our communities is even more important than any job we will ever hold.
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Maggie Nichols (Unstoppable!: My Journey from World Champion to Athlete A to 8-Time NCAA National Gymnastics Champion and Beyond)
“
After the NCAA’s my senior year, I worked in the Amana colonies on an assembly line where I shaved down parts for refrigerators. Working eight hours on the night shift felt like I was punishing myself for not winning. I was angry and empty for a while, numbing myself with work that was simple and repetitive. Every thirty-seconds I received a part on my spot on the assembly line. I grabbed it, shaved down any sharp edges, and placed it back on the line.
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Tom Ryan (Chosen Suffering: Becoming Elite In Life And Leadership)
“
Consistent actions build respect, not words. I worked to develop my mass—that sense of who you are—into something that pulled others in. Since I was attracted to those who were tough and real, my roommates were Terry Brands, one of the more ferocious competitors in NCAA history, and Travis Fisher, a hard-nosed, small town Iowa boy. They asked me to room with them, and I jumped at the opportunity. I based every decision on principles that would lead me to greatness on the mat. Terry and Travis were blessings to live with as both had jumped the gap from believing to committing. I’ve learned Elite people have a bias toward action.
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Tom Ryan (Chosen Suffering: Becoming Elite In Life And Leadership)
“
My identity was so wrapped up in who I was as a wrestler and my vision quest to become an NCAA champ. I calculated most of my life around practice times and being prepared physically and mentally for them. I planned when and what I ate and every partner I’d train with and why. I learned to control all the things I could. The margin of error between good and great and attaining the goal or missing it was so narrow.
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Tom Ryan (Chosen Suffering: Becoming Elite In Life And Leadership)
“
Galen Rupp matriculated as a freshman at the University of Oregon in 2004 and was performing well. There was only one problem—Salazar didn’t have any faith that the head track-and-field coach was the right collegiate mentor for his young protégé. So Salazar and Cook helped orchestrate the firing of coach Martin Smith, a quirky leader who many of the Nike loyalists didn’t think was the right fit for Rupp. In this effort they came to loggerheads with Bill Moos, the university’s athletic director. Knight and Nike had had a long and mutually prosperous twelve-year run with Moos in which the school’s athletic budget grew from $18.5 million to $41 million. But he didn’t want to fire his head coach, who was objectively good at his job. Knight threatened to withhold funding for the construction of the school’s new basketball arena until both coach and director were gone. Less than a week after he led the team to a sixth-place finish at the NCAA indoor championships, Smith was replaced by former Stanford coach Vin Lananna, a devout “Nike guy.” Moos would retire a year later, saying, “I created the monster that ate me.” Knight then made a donation of $100 million—the largest donation in Oregon history—to the university.
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Matt Hart (Behind the Swoosh)
“
Listen Granny, we unhitchin’ or we bitchin’?
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”
Spencer Hall (The Sinful Seven: Sci-fi Western Legends of the NCAA)
“
We steal one thing at a time, split our spoils, and share with some in
need. The Sheriff and his masters seek to steal it all forever for themselves.
Their crime will become the way. The way will become something like the
law, but above it.
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”
Spencer Hall (The Sinful Seven: Sci-fi Western Legends of the NCAA)
“
In 1970, NCAA News described the formation of NOCSAE as part of an article announcing the jury decision—a victory, from the NCAA’s perspective—to clear Rawlings of any legal responsibility for a catastrophic football injury. It was the case of Ernie Pelton, the high school player who had been left quadriplegic “from a violent twisting of the head” after being tackled.17
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Kathleen Bachynski (No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis (Studies in Social Medicine))
“
Another study showed that since 1940, the color of NCAA uniforms for teams who won was rarely black, where red was the top color for winning teams. Not only is black the color that leads to loss, it is the leading color that can result in aggression and depression — a loss in grounding and joy that is critical to true success and inner wealth.
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Cary G. Weldy (The Power of Tattoos: Twelve Hidden Energy Secrets of Body Art Every Tattoo Enthusiast Should Know)
“
Trust is like a vase; once it’s broken, you can fix it, but the vase will never be the same again.
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Maggie Nichols (Unstoppable!: My Journey from World Champion to Athlete A to 8-Time NCAA National Gymnastics Champion and Beyond)
“
Pete Carroll isn’t a saint; he’s a coach. After losing his job as an NFL head coach in the 1990s, Carroll stopped imitating what others did and followed his own path. It may sound like he’s an easygoing “player’s coach” who is “soft” on his team, but Carroll is one of only three coaches in history to win both an NCAA championship and a Super Bowl. He also believes in toughness.
”
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Steve Magness (Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness)
“
When researchers at Eastern Washington University compared coaches utilizing either servant (supportive) or power (thwarting) styles in sixty-four NCAA track teams, the athletes under the servant leader scored higher on measures of mental toughness and ran faster on the track.
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Steve Magness (Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness)
“
There are national championship banners, Final Four banners, ACC Tournament championship banners, ACC regular season championship banners, NCAA Tournament banners, NIT banners, and “honored”—not retired—numbers. It appears that about half the players who ever put on a Carolina uniform are “honored.” Valvano looked at all the banners and pointed at one that said “ACC Champions” in huge letters. “What’s that writing at the bottom?” he asked. “I can’t read it.” The writing at the bottom said “Regular Season Tie.” “So let me get this straight,” Valvano said. “They tie for a regular season title and they put up a banner?” When this was confirmed, Valvano smiled. “Okay, now I’ve figured out what I’m going to do. I’m going to put up a banner for 1985 that says ‘National Champions!’ Then at the bottom, in tiny little letters, I’ll put ‘almost.’ After that, I’ll do the same thing for 1986. Damn, I just won my third national championship…almost.
”
”
John Feinstein (The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry)
“
Guys like Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon that were so dominant don’t exist anymore. Instead, 7-footers are judged on how well they can run the floor, handle the ball and shoot from the outside. Look at Durant. Look at Nowitzki. Back in the 80s, guys like that would be parked in the paint and taught post moves. Maybe Magic Johnson started the revolution of guys not being pigeon holed to positions because of size, but now positions are almost interchangeable.
”
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Nino Frostino (Throwing Back the Chair: Legendary Official Phil Bova shares his untold stories and memories from three decades working Big Ten and NCAA Basketball)
“
Now it’s three frontcourt guys and two guards. The stereotypical center is like Bigfoot. You hear he’s out there, but you can’t see him anywhere.
”
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Nino Frostino (Throwing Back the Chair: Legendary Official Phil Bova shares his untold stories and memories from three decades working Big Ten and NCAA Basketball)
“
I wanted to have a career in sports when I was young but I had to give up the idea. I’m only six feet tall, so I couldn’t play basketball. I’m only 190 pounds, so I couldn’t play football, and I have 20/20 vision so I couldn’t be a referee.” -Jay Leno
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Nino Frostino (Throwing Back the Chair: Legendary Official Phil Bova shares his untold stories and memories from three decades working Big Ten and NCAA Basketball)
“
Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.
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Valorie Kondos Field (Life Is Short, Don't Wait to Dance: Advice and Inspiration from the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame Coach of 7 NCAA Championship Teams)
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The gift of Rav Ashlag, the founder of The Kabbalah Centre, was that he synthesized this knowledge and brought it down to a level of understanding where we could use it to achieve the purpose of life and the birthright of humanity—happiness. The six dimensions that lie just beyond our perception are known collectively as the Upper World. The Upper World is the 99 Percent Realm that we spoke about earlier (see the illustration on page 95). •It is this 99 Percent Realm that we touch during those rare moments of clarity, rapture, insight, expanded consciousness, epiphany, or even the revelation that allows us to pick the winning numbers in the lottery. •When Michael Jordan sank the winning shot to win the NCAA National Championship and launch his career, the joy he experienced emanated from this realm. •When your heart beats like a drum and something overwhelms you as you catch a glimpse of your soul mate, you’re touching the 99 Percent. •When you’re on the beach with the sun caressing you and
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Yehuda Berg (The Power of Kabbalah: 13 Principles to Overcome Challenges and Achieve Fulfillment)
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The Lost Boys had hardly unpacked by the time they started appearing in local newspaper headlines for their exploits on high school track teams. “Only months after settling in Michigan, two Sudanese refugees are finding that they are among the fastest high school runners in the state,” went the lead of one AP article. Another, in the Lansing State Journal, noted that Abraham Mach, a Lost Boy who had no competitive running experience before arriving at East Lansing High, was the most outstanding performer in the thirteen-to-fourteen age group at the 2001 National AAU Junior Olympic Games, medaling in three events. Mach, who had been living in a Kenyan refugee camp just one year earlier, went on to become an NCAA All-American at Central Michigan in the 800-meters.
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David Epstein (The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance)
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The case set another precedent: amateur athletes, often ones who weren't even involved in a scandal, facing far worse punishments than the professional suits who presided over it.
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Alex Kirshner (The Sinful Seven: Sci-fi Western Legends of the NCAA)
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I considered it my job and responsibility to work as hard as I needed to work to satisfy the demands of being competitive in NCAA basketball. And I took that responsibility seriously. In my mind, however, it was not connected to fame and riches and success. I just wanted to be a really good college player, and to know that no one in any program anywhere would outwork, out-prepare, or out-execute me.
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Andre Iguodala (The Sixth Man)
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Juniper Falls, Minnesota might be a small town, but we've produced 18 NHL players, 5 NCAA All-Americans and three Olympians, including a member of the 1980 Miracle on Ice team. Hockey is almost everyone's blood and NHL games are only for people like us; the Olympics are only once every four years. Juniper Falls High School Hockey is a town event. No, it's the town event which is why, outside of the team and our coach, we're all treated like royality.
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Julie Cross (On Thin Ice (Juniper Falls #3))
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If the NCAA ran local law enforcement, whenever they pulled over a drunk driver, they would impound the car and let the driver hop in another one and drive off.
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John U. Bacon (Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football)
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March is the perfect month for a wedding. Just make sure it’s after the NCAA tournament. I think we’ll go far this year. Go Big Blue!
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Kathleen Brooks (Bluegrass Undercover (Bluegrass Brothers, #1))
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Goss, his wrestling coach, and other experts came up with sensible reforms to end the long-standing practice of extreme weight cutting, then told the Big Ten and the NCAA that Michigan would only wrestle under those rules, and would only wrestle against other teams that abided by them, too. Such a stand might have gotten another program blackballed from the wrestling community. But when it came from the Michigan athletic director, it proved to be the lever needed to reform the sport at every level, with the Big Ten adopting Michigan’s reforms, followed by the NCAA, and the high schools—a sequence of events that Yost, Crisler, or Canham would have readily recognized as Michigan’s influence at its best. Those rules are still in effect today.
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John U. Bacon (Endzone: The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football)