Quotes from Joe Paterno

In every life, there have to be some shadows. Look at me. My life has been filled with sunshine. A beautiful and caring wife. Five healthy children. I got to do what I loved. How many people are that lucky?

Mostly I want to talk positive; I wanna talk about a bunch of great kids that I coached and made me look good and the university that I've seen grow from a cow college, which it was, only 12,000 people, and when I came here, we weren't at Pennsylvania State University, we were at Penn State College.

Some things I thought were important for a young man to know.

All coaches are thinking men, or else they wouldn't survive.

The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.

Keep hustling, something good will happen.

Failure is not getting beat. Failure is when you don't do a good job preparing.

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.

I really enjoyed coaching.

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.

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.

My name, I have spent my whole life trying to make that name mean something. And now it's gone.

Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.

Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.

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.

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.

What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle.

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.

You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you'll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.

Success is best measured by the achiever.

Believe deep down in your heart that you're destined to do great things.

Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.

Success without honor is an unseasoned dish it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.