Joseph Vincent Paterno sometimes referred to as JoePa, was an American college football player, athletic director, and coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions from 1966 to 2011. With 409 victories, Paterno is the most victorious coach in NCAA FBS history. He recorded his 409th victory on October 29, 2011; his career ended with his dismissal from the team on November 9, 2011, as a result of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. He died 74 days later, of complications from lung cancer. These Joe Paterno quotes will motivate you.
Best Joe Paterno Quotes
- “Today, you’ve got a decision to make. You’re gonna get better or you’re gonna get worse, but you’re not gonna stay the same. Which will it be?” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Believe deep down in your heart that you’re destined to do great things.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Success and excellence are not the same. Excellence grows within a person, is largely within that person’s control, and its meaning lasts. Success is measured externally, by comparison to others, is often outside our control, and is perishable.” ~ Joe Paterno
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“Its the name on the front of the jersey that matters most, not the one on the back.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Keep hustling, something good will happen.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “A hard-fought, well-fought, hairline-close game is as classical in sports as tragedy is in the theater. Victory is contained within defeat, and defeat is contained within victory. That’s the way it is in the best of games. What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.” ~ Joe Paterno
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“The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “They ask me what I’d like written about me when I’m gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won’t taste good.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “We need people who influence their peers and who cannot be detoured from their convictions by peers who do not have the courage to have any convictions.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “My name, I have spent my whole life trying to make that name mean something. And now it’s gone.” ~ Joe Paterno
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“Failure is not getting beat. Failure is when you don’t do a good job preparing.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Don’t just stand back and play the way you’re coached. A great player must rise to the occasion and turn the game around on his own.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “What is a coach? We are teachers. Educators. We have the same obligations as all teachers, except we probably have more influence than anybody but their families. And, in a lot of cases, more than their families.” ~ Joe Paterno
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“The minute you think you’ve got it made, disaster is just around the corner.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “We play with enthusiasm and recklessness. We aren’t afraid to lose. If we win, great; but win or lose, it is the competition that gives us pleasure.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “If I had to do it over again, I’d probably play the game the same way.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Publicity is like poison; it doesn’t hurt unless you swallow it.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “I had a great bunch of kids. They all hung with us. The coaching staff hung with us. And we played tough every game. If you’ve got kids that want to play and react to you, it’s fun. I’m having a good time.” ~ Joe Paterno
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“You can’t have a great university without a great library.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “To teach an academic subject is certainly not easy, but compared to coaching, it is. We can say two plus two is four to every kid and be sure that we are right. But in coaching, we have to literally get to the soul of the people we are dealing with.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Sport is a product of human culture. America seems to need football at this state of our social development. When you get ninety million people watching a single game on television, it … shows you that people need something to identify with.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Right now I’m trying to figure out what I’m gonna do, ’cause I don’t want to sit around on my backside all day. If I’m gonna do that I’ll be a newspaper reporter.” ~ Joe Paterno
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“Success is best measured by the achiever.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “In hindsight, I wish I had done more.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “There’s never been a greater game than football.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “I stayed on the track I wanted to stay on. I don’t think I deviated from what I’m all about and what I thought was important. Whether you want to call that a legacy, or whatever you want to call it.” ~ Joe Paterno
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“Everybody likes to win. It sure beats the devil out of losing.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “When a kid plays football before he attends a class, something is wrong.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “You must relate athletic experiences to life.” ~ Joe Paterno Quotes
- “SMU: ‘It’s unbelievable to think that kind of corruption came right from the top of the power structure. The NCAA did what it had to do’ in canceling SMU’s 1988 football season.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “I still haven’t gotten that little something out of my system that I’m still not a kid going to a football game. I’m excited.” ~ Joe Paterno
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“Connfidence, excellence becomes a reality.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “There has to be some self-denial.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “Some things I thought were important for a young man to know.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “My father said about money: ‘You have to have some. But you don’t have to have all of it. Just be honest with yourself.'” ~ Joe Paterno
- “All coaches are thinking men, or else they wouldn’t survive.” ~ Joe Paterno
- “The kids that were the victims … I think we all ought to say a prayer for them.” ~ Joe Paterno
