Knute Rockne Quotes to Make You Think and Motivate You

Notre Dame wouldn’t be Notre Dame if it weren’t for Knute Rockne. The near-mythical figure in college football history took over in South Bend when Notre Dame was still a young program with a very brief history in the sport. During his time there, he built the program up by welcoming the media and embracing the university’s Catholic and immigrant roots. It worked, and legends of the sport would go on to play under Knute Rockne, like George Gipp and the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame.

Ultimately, Rockne won three National Championships and had a 105-12-5 record at Notre Dame. Had it not been for Knute Rockne’s untimely death, there’s no telling what he could have accomplished. As it stands, he’s a legend.

Top-10 Knute Rockne Quotes

1. “Build up your weaknesses until they become your strong points.”
2. “Courage means being afraid to do something, but still doing it.”
3. “Make the present good, and the past will take care of itself.”
4. “The best thing I ever learned in life was that things have to be worked for. A lot of people seem to think there is some sort of magic in making a winning football team. There isn’t, but there’s plenty of work.”
5. “On the road, we’re somebody else’s guests — and we play in a way that they’re not going to forget we visited them.”
6. “All the world loves a winner and has no time for a loser.”
7. “I have to get the most energy out of a man and have discovered that it cannot be done if he hates another man. Hate blocks his energy and he isn’t up to par until he eliminates it and develops a friendly feeling… (toward all his teammates.)”
8. “There is no need for me continuing unless I’m able to improve.”
9. “The essence of football was blocking, tackling, and execution based on timing, rhythm and deception.”
10. “One loss is good for the soul. Too many losses is not good for the coach.”

Inspirational Quotes From Rockne

• “Yes, I know that you feel you are not strong enough. That’s what the enemy thinks, too. But we’re gonna fool them.”
• “Let’s win one for the Gipper.”
• “I’m getting sick and tired of doing anything halfway.”

Leadership Quotes From Knute Rockne

• “Leaders are like eagles… they don’t flock. You’ll find them one at a time.”
• “An automobile goes nowhere efficiently unless it has a quick, hot spark to ignite things, to set the cogs of the machine in motion. So, I try to make every player on my team feel he’s the spark keeping our machine in motion.”
• “One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.”
• “Win or lose, do it fairly.”
• “A coach’s greatest asset is his sense of responsibility — the reliance placed on him by his players.”

Funny Quotes From Rockne

• “If winning isn’t everything, why bother to keep the score?”
• “I’ve found that prayers work best when you have big players.”
• “Drink the first. Sip the second slowly. Skip the third.”
• “The only qualifications for a lineman are to be big and dumb. To be a back, you only have to be dumb.”

Team Attitude Quotes From Knute Rockne

• “The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my 11 best, but my best 11.”
• “Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up.”
• “The secret of winning is working more as a team, less as individuals.”
• “Play like you’re positive on the victory, even though they’re leading big now.”

Success Quotes From Rockne

• “I don’t like to lose, and that isn’t so much because it is just a football game, but because defeat means the failure to reach your objective.”
• “Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.”
• “Show me a gracious loser and I’ll show you a failure.”
• “We count on winning. And if we lose, don’t beef. And the best way to prevent beefing is — don’t lose.”
• “If I flop, let ’em pan me.”