Quotes from Wilma Rudolph

By the time I was 12 I was challenging every boy in our neighborhood at running, jumping, everything.

Winning is great but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose.

I was six years old before I realized that there was something wrong with me... But I did have this crooked left leg, and my left foot was turned inward.

Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.

I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams.

They would say, 'If you run around too much as a girl, you'll never be able to have children.' The running was supposed to be too much strain for your body, and your body would never be the same again.

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you.

Down South, there was the old 'ladies-don't-do-such-things' way of thinking. You couldn't be a lady and a good athlete at the same time.

I believe in me more than anything in this world.

After the scarlet fever and the whooping cough, I remember I started to get mad about it all... I went through the stage of asking myself, 'Wilma, what is this existence all about? Is it about being sick all the time? It can't be.' So I started getting angry about things, fighting back in a new way with a vengeance.

When I was going through my transition of being famous, I tried to ask God 'Why was I here? What was my purpose?' Surely, it wasn't just to win three gold medals. There has to be more to this life than that.

I tell them that the most important aspect is to be yourself and have confidence in yourself.

My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces.

But when you come from a large, wonderful family, there's always a way to achieve your goals.

The triumph cannot be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is. I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams.

Black women . . . work because their husbands can't make enough money at their jobs to keep everything going. . . . They don't go to work to find fulfillment, or adventure, or glamour and romance, like so many white women think they are doing. Black women work out of necessity.