Dick Vitale quotes: the voice of college basketball speaks his mind.
“Life is simple. Life is all about decisions. Make good decisions and good things happen. Make bad decisions and bad things happen.”
“Life has good and bad times. And to get through them you have to battle. Life is not all smooth. I’ve had my bumps and bruises, like anybody, but I’ve always tried to look at life like a glass that’s half full.”
“Life is not as as painful as you think it is. All you need to do is make the right choices and then things will go the right way.”
“It is all about your decision—that will decide what place you will be in.”
“Time is the key. If you give something your time, things bloom beautifully. Things happen beautifully when they are given time.”
“Your every plan may not work. You may always not be the best. The idea is to give the best.”
“Give it your best. They will call you a winner.”
“A winner is someone who can look in the mirror at the end of the day and say, ‘In pursuit of my goal and dreams, I gave my best.'”
“A loser is someone who makes excuses and alibis and blames everyone else for their losses and failures.”
“Your failure is your own. Wear it as if you have a crown. Learn from it. Don’t blame it on others like a loser.”
“Your mistakes are your own. Learn from them. Be the ideal individual. When you start making excuses for them, then you become a real loser.”
“An All-American is an ordinary person with an extraordinary desire to excel. You don’t get to the top of the mountain by just dreaming. It’s nice to dream. But it’s the work ethic and pride that makes you get to that mountain top and that level of success.”
“I learned from my mom and dad, who didn’t have a formal education but had doctorates of love. They told me that if you gave 110% all the time, a lot of beautiful things will happen. I may not always be right, but no one can ever accuse me of not having a genuine love and passion for whatever I do.”
“Even if you have a degree, it is of no use if you don’t know about life. Your real learning will not take place in class. It will take place on your dinner table.”
“It was not about having a degree. It was about real learning about life. That doesn’t happen in class. That happens in [the] world outside.”
“My perfect day is to wake up with all kinds of energy and enthusiasm for the day, have a list of what I want to achieve, and at the end of the day look in the mirror and think, ‘Man, this has been perfect. Everything I planned became a reality.'”
“Today in coaching, it’s a two-way street. They can fire you whenever they want. Bottom line: it’s all about what you can do to better yourself professionally. This is a better move.”
“It was tough getting fired by the NBA. I really didn’t know where I was going, until ESPN called me. I said, ‘Hey, ESPN? Never heard of it. It sounds like a disease.’ Now I have that same disease as a sports fanatic. All this sports madness we didn’t have years ago, now I’m very blessed and fortunate to be part of it.”
“I took a deep breath and told myself that all this failure is not important. What is important is that I am giving my hundred percent to reach my goal.”
“When a coach gets that opportunity to observe, he’s going to look. Because he wants to create a contract that is strong and gives his family the kind of security that guys really seek in anything, whether it be the corporate world, whether it be sports.”
“The clothes do not match my personality. I’m more of a very conservative, blue-blazer kind of guy. But as far as my personality, it’s a lot of hot dog-mustard: have a lot of a fun and a lot of excitement. I feel like I’m 68; I act like I’m 12, talking about a game of basketball.”
“My parents were my heroes and my role models. So I thought long and hard over decisions that I would make because I never wanted to disappoint them and break their hearts.”
“When I was growing up, I wanted to be a coach. I had people telling me, ‘You can’t do this, you’re not a great player. Be realistic.’ When I got rejection letters from colleges where I wanted to coach, my mom would say, ‘You are going to make it someday. You have something special within you and that is your spirit for life which will help you get to the top.'”
“I have my master’s degree but I learned more at my dinner table than any class I ever took. My dad would come home from the sweat factory and put the money on the table and say, ‘Mea, here is some money for insurance and food,’ and we always had that little extra for Friday night pizza at Barcelona’s.”
“Looking back, I remember telling my daughters that we didn’t have money, pizzazz and a lot of the things we have today, but we had so much love and we lived like millionaires.”
“It is only people around you that are going to be your best teachers.”
“People that don’t know me think that basketball is my life 24/7. Trust me, there is much more to my life. My number one priority in my life is my family.”
“The biggest thing in my life—the biggest—is raising dollars to help kids battle cancer. One day to see that headline, not that someone won a basketball championship, but to see that a cure for cancer has been found, will be a great day for mankind.”
“I’m a basketball guy. No sitcom guy. I don’t care about all that jazz. I care about basketball. It’s not me. And I stayed with what I did, and I’m very proud that I did that because I make a great living and I’m lucky and I get to be involved with the thing I truly love, and that’s the game of basketball.”
“I want to keep going until I’m 100. I’m serious, baby.”
“It was flat-out scary, baby. Scary has come to mean ‘amazing’ or ‘unbelievable.'”
“This is awesome, baby! Awesome, baby, with a capital ‘A.'”
“I’m living the American dream.”
