Sporting Comeback Quotes

It’s Curt Schilling and his bloody sock staring down the Yankees in the Bronx. It’s Derek Lowe taking the mound the very next night to complete the most improbable comeback in baseball history—and then seven days later clinching the World Series. It’s Pedro Martinez and his six hitless innings of postseason relief against the Indians. Yes, it is also Cy Young and Roger Clemens, and the 192 wins in a Red Sox uniform that they share—the perfect game for Young, the 20 strikeout games for Clemens—but it is also Bill Dinneen clinching the 1903 World Series with a busted, bloody hand, and Jose Santiago shutting down Minnesota with two games left in the season to keep the 1967 Impossible Dream alive, and Jim Lonborg clinching the Impossible Dream the very next day, and Jim Lonborg again, tossing a one-hitter and a three-hitter in the 1967 World Series, and Luis Tiant in the 1975 postseason, shutting out Oakland and Cincinnati in back-to-back starts. They are all winners.

The less we choose to need, and the less we rely on comfortable, favorable circumstances for peace of mind, the more control we have over our thoughts, emotions, and behavior. “Pain is the purifier,” he taught. “Walk towards suffering. Love suffering. Embrace it.

That it’s possible. You just have to fight. It will not be easy. But you can manage. Because life is giving you as much pain as you are capable [of living] with. And on the end of that path, the goal will be reachable. You will have suffered to do [it], but it doesn’t matter.” I can think of no better words to encapsulate what it means to accept the reality of a difficult situation. It will not be easy. You will suffer. But it doesn’t matter.

Only the disciplined ones are free in life,” he said in a 2018 speech at England’s Oxford Union. “If you aren’t disciplined, you are a slave to your moods. You are a slave to your passions. That’s a fact.

Self-awareness plays a key role in stopping fear and laziness from standing in the way of accepting a reality that must be accepted in order to make the best of a bad situation.

Science has demonstrated that some athletes have a higher tolerance for pain and suffering than others do, and that those who have a higher tolerance are more accepting of these sensations.

The same willingness to face reality that allows certain athletes to accept a negative turn of events also helps them bear what must be borne to address the bad situation.

His key insight was that yearning, or wishing things were different than they are, is the root of all suffering, and that letting go of this desire is the secret to happiness.

That it’s possible. You just have to fight. It will not be easy. But you can manage. Because life is giving you as much pain as you are capable [of living] with. And on the end of that path, the goal will be reachable. You will have suffered to do [it], but it doesn’t matter.

That desperate tug-of-war between the desire to persevere and the overwhelming temptation to quit. And he loved it.

Achieve complete mastery of his mind by pushing back the limits of his capacity to suffer until those limits disappeared.

This pain and suffering. This was my trophy ceremony.

Frankl focused his psychologist’s eye on ultrarealists he encountered in these awful places, writing that “the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement,” which proved that “any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually.

How interesting it is that the attitude that ultrarealists choose to adopt in situations where their attitude is the only thing they can control is one of finding meaning in their suffering.

As with post-traumatic growth, it’s not the scare itself but the subsequent perspective shift that enhances gratitude.

I’m scared shitless.” Knowing and accepting that a few things were bound to go wrong.

I beat cancer, I had kids, and I did this with a disability. You couldn’t knock me off that mountaintop.

Molly almost goes out of her way to describe how loving and supportive her parents have always been, emphasizing in particular the fact that, while she was growing up, her mom couldn’t have cared less whether Molly ran or didn’t run, and if she ran, whether she ran well or poorly, as long as she was happy.

It was a decision she would not regret, performing well enough right out of the gate that no further persuasion was required to convince Jamie to drop other sports and focus exclusively on running for the next three years.

Our inability to fulfill our (true) needs can sometimes give rise to self-deceptions intended to disguise this painful reality. Most psychotherapeutic methods involve helping patients liberate themselves from self-deception. What makes reality therapy different is the centrality of this project to the method. Reality therapy is all about getting people to stop bullshitting themselves so they can get on with the business of solving the real problem. At no point does the reality therapist ever allow a patient to get away with denying reality, no matter how painful accepting it may be initially.

Even the most talented artists have flaws and limitations that no amount of training can overcome, just as even the most exceptional individuals have hang-ups and quirks that no amount of personal growth can erase. The artists we consider great are those who make their flaws and limitations somehow complement their strengths and contribute to their signature style.

For the ultrarealist, goals exist not to be achieved but to stimulate striving and to drive progress toward the fulfillment of potential. This is why champions set goals that are hard to achieve, and why they welcome opportunities to raise their game.

Ultrarealists have something many of us don’t—an extraordinary readiness to face reality—and if you want to fulfill your own potential, you want that too.

This isn’t how I would have chosen my life to turn out at all, but maybe this is my way of fulfilling my life’s purpose and trying to raise awareness for these rare diseases that really do actually need it.

A girl need not necessarily have the perfect start in life to fulfill such a dream.

The new Rob saw the restoration of his ability to run as a gift, a precious and fragile blessing that he wished to honor by racing not for respect or attention as before but for the inner journey, and by listening to his body and respecting rest, and also by investing himself in the trail running community.

Are you seeing a pattern here? The man with the perfect Super Bowl record was far from perfect in those games. He threw too many interceptions, he missed a lot of passes, he made a lot of mistakes. Yet, he also led his team to epic fourth-quarter comebacks.

I compete in a sport that requires its athletes to develop three different physical abilities. The first one, which we call engine, grows the fastest. The second one, skills, is a catch-all for gymnastics movements, which take longer to master. Strength, the third one, is a lifelong project, by far the slowest and most time-consuming physical ability to build.

This sense of control is the essence of what it feels like to be an ultrarealist. When you've cultivated the ability to fully accept, embrace, and address any situation, you are no longer dependent on external circumstances. While you still want things to go your way, it no longer really matters if they do or don't. In either case, you know you'll be able to make the best of the situation. You're in control of the only thing you truly can control, which is your mind, and it feels like freedom.

What did I discover during my solo—besides learning to unwrap my energy bar ahead of time? That you ask yourself a lot of questions when you're alone on a bike for that long. One question more than others: Why the heck am I doing this? When I was done, I think I had found the answer: For the satisfaction that comes with pushing your body to the breaking point and conquering the unknown.

He is a man of great strength, determination, and resilience, and we truly hope that he will use those qualities to make a moral comeback as complete as the physical comeback he effected from the cancer that nearly killed him. Time will tell.

million-dollar smile. The earnest, all-American niceness of the guy. Not to mention the pure, high, spiraling arc of the thrown football as it zeros in, laser-like, on the expected position of the wide receiver. Never mind that said receiver is flat-out running for his life, dancing, dodging, leaping and spinning in a million directions just inches ahead of several thundering tons of rival linebackers. And never mind that the architect of that exquisite spiral was himself beset, nanoseconds earlier, with similar masses of murderous muscle bearing down on him as he threw. The ball hammers down precisely into the receiver’s arms as he sails across the line, and the fans go wild. TOUCHDOWN! Who could not love Tom Brady? The accomplishments, honors, and accolades go on and on: youngest quarterback ever to win three Super Bowls. Only quarterback ever to win NFL MVP by unanimous vote. As of 2013 he had been twice Super Bowl MVP, twice NFL MVP, nine times invited to the Pro Bowl, twice on the AP All-Pro First Team, five times an AFC Champion, and twice leader of the NFL in passing yards. He had also been (at least once, and in some cases multiple times) Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, Sporting News Sportsman of the year, AP Male Athlete of the Year, NFL Offensive Player of the Year, AFC Offensive Player of the Year, AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year, PFWA NFL Comeback Player of the Year, and the New England Patriots’ all-time leader in passing touchdowns, passing yards, pass completion, pass attempts, and career wins. But Tom Brady didn’t get to be Tom Brady overnight. And he didn’t get there alone.