vince lombardi on commitment

Inspiring words from Vince Lombardi

“I owe most everything to football, in which I have spent the greater part of my life. And I have never lost my respect, my admiration or my love for what I consider a great game.

And each Sunday, after the battle, one group savors victory, another group lives in the bitterness of defeat. The many hurts seem a small price to have paid for having won, and there is no reason at all that is adequate for having lost.

To the winner there is one hundred percent elation, one hundred percent laughter, one hundred percent fun; and to the loser the only thing left for him is a one hundred percent resolution, one hundred percent determination.

And it’s a game, I think, a great deal like life in that it demands that a man’s personal commitment be toward excellence and be toward victory, even though you know that ultimate victory can never be completely won. Yet it must be pursued with all of one’s might. And each week there’s a new encounter, each year a new challenge.

But all of the rings and all of the money and all of the color and all of the display, they linger only in the memory. The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel, these are the things that endure and these are the qualities that are so much more important than any of the events that occasion them.

And I’d like to say that the quality of any man’s life has got to be a full measure of that man’s personal commitment to excellence and to victory, regardless of what field he may be in.”