Joe Gibbs

“I'm a phys ed major: that's ballroom dancing and handball.”

“A winning effort begins with preparation.”

“If you're on God's team, you can't lose.”

“The key to being a good manager or a good entrepreneur is to pick the right people. Pick the right people, and they'll make you look good.”

“Failures are expected by losers, ignored by winners.”

“If I keep God first in my life, if I keep my family and friends as second, and then I keep my occupation third, that's when I've found success.”

“I can't remember if it was in the third grade in school, I was being told that two amoeba happened to hit in a muddy puddle of water two billion years ago, and I was an accident. I was the result. I wasn't real smart, but I said, 'I don't like the sound of that.'”

“This isn't an easy lifestyle for a coach's wife. The coach is the guy who stands up and hears everyone tell him how great he is. The wife is the one waiting at home alone while the coach is spending every night at the office.”

“The further you go in life, the more you realize what you're going to leave this Earth. It's not going to be, 'It was a great platform. It was great to win the Super Bowl,' but really and truly what you're going to leave on this Earth is the influence on others.”

“To me, life is so exciting. To me, life is always trying to beat someone in something competitive. It's kinda been my whole life.”

“My mother and grandmother had me in church, and I was the kid that played in church. But pastor was telling me something totally different that there was a God. He knit me together in my mother's womb. He made me special. He wanted to have a personal relationship with me.”

“All of us that have teams want to pick the right people. I've thought a lot about that. In the NFL, we've got 13 scouts traveling the country. We're trying to pick 22 year-olds coming out of college who will be successful in the NFL. It's very hard to do. What I've learned is it's always character first.”

“Part of playing the game of life is you're going to have some losses.”

“I had a basketball net that my dad had put up outside. I went out there and dribbled all day long. I wanted to play basketball. Then I'd go baseball, and then I'd go to football. I remember playing football in a plowed field. I grew up going from one thing to the next wanting to play something.”

“I wound up through a wild set of circumstances getting into coaching. I went in and volunteered with Don Coryell, who was a big part of my past, great coach. A lot of people say he was one of the greatest coaches ever. He was very good in high school, college and pro. Another guy on that staff was named John Madden.”

“I love coaching my grandkids, but I love working with my two sons. J.D. is the head coach, and I'm the assistant - you believe that? I missed so much of them growing up. I really messed up there. So I like working with J.D. and Coy. I'm trying not to do the same thing again. With J.D. and Coy, I missed so much.”

“I coached in Washington - and in Washington, you lose the ballgame, it's a bad Monday, I just want to tell you that.”

“Everybody needs a coach.”

“You and I are the players, God's our head coach, and we're all playing the biggest game of all.”

“I had great football players. To be quite truthful, my great football players, the ones who wanted the ball at the end of the games, they weren't focused on money. They want to do something great. They want to go to Pro Bowls. They want to win Super Bowls. Those are the people that succeed in sports - or in business.”