#sportsman

This is what it means to be a fanatic - but a fanatic, that is to say, in a very special sense. It has little in common with the obsession of the politician or the artist, for instance, for both of these understand in a greater or lesser degree the impulse which drives them. But the sportsman fanatic - that is another matter entirely. His thoughts fixed solely on a vision of that mounted trophy against the wall, the eyes now dead that were once living, the tremulous nostrils stilled, the sensitive pricked ears closed to sound at the instant when the rifle shot echoed from the naked rocks, this man hunts his quarry through some instinct unknown even to himself. Stephen was a sportsman of this kind. It was not the skill needed that drove him, nor the delight and excitement of the stalk itself, but a desire, so I told myself, to destroy something beautiful and rare. Hence his obsession with chamois. ("The Chamois") ↗

— Daphne du Maurier

#hunting #sportsman #trophy #beauty

Tactics, fitness, stroke ability, adaptability, experience, and sportsmanship are all necessary for winning. ↗

— Fred Perry

#ability #adaptability #experience #necessary #sportsmanship

Technique is the basis of every pursuit. If you're a sportsman or you're a singer or a swimmer, well that comes under sport but you have to develop a basic technique to know what you're doing at any given time. ↗

— Joan Sutherland

#basic #basis #comes #develop #doing

The finest of athletes have, along with skill, a few more essential qualities: to conduct their life with dignity, with integrity, with courage and modesty. All these, are totally compatible with pride, ambition, determination and competitiveness ↗

— Donald Bradman

#athletes #dignity #sportsman #courage

After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases. ↗

— Mickey Mantle

#home

We old athletes carry the disfigurements and markings of contests remembered only by us and no one else. Nothing is more lost than a forgotten game. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#basketball #game #sports #sports-inspirational #sportsmanship

I tell the players: You'll hear a lot of applause in your life, fellas, but none will mean more to you than that applause-from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end. ↗

— Andre Agassi

#tennis #life

The day when a sportsman stops thinking above all else of the happiness in his own effort and the intoxication of the power and physical balance he derives from it, the day when he lets considerations of vanity or interest take over, on this day his ideal will die. ↗

— Pierre de Coubertin

#balance #considerations #day #derives #die

I was a keen sportsman, and became school captain in soccer and cricket. ↗

— John E. Walker

#captain #cricket #i #keen #school

I think sportsmanship is knowing that it is a game, that we are only as a good as our opponents, and whether you win or lose, to always give 100 percent. ↗

— Sue Wicks

#game #give #good #i #i think