Top 50 Woody Hayes Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “They may outsmart me, or be luckier, but they can’t outwork me.”

— Woody Hayes

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2. “Paralyze resistance with persistence.”

— Woody Hayes

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3. “Because I couldn’t go for three.”

— Woody Hayes

4. “The only thing even in this world is the number of hours in a day. The difference in winning or losing is what you do with those hours.”

— Woody Hayes

5. “Anything easy ain’t worth a damn!”

— Woody Hayes

6. “You can outwork anybody. Try it, you will find out that you can do it.”

— Woody Hayes

7. “You win with people.”

— Woody Hayes

8. “The height of human desire is what wins, whether it’s on Normandy Beach or in Ohio Stadium.”

— Woody Hayes

9. “We do not pull in and fill up. And I’ll tell you why we don’t. It’s because I don’t buy one goddamn drop of gas in the state of Michigan. We’ll coast and push this goddamn car to the Ohio line before I give this state a nickel of my money.”

— Woody Hayes

10. “The minute I think I’m getting mellow, I’m retiring. Who ever heard of a mellow winner?”

— Woody Hayes

11. “Statistics always remind me of fellow who drowned in a river where the average depth was only three feet.”

— Woody Hayes

12. “Success is the only motivational factor that a boy with character needs.”

— Woody Hayes

13. “Any time you give a man something he doesn’t earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect.”

— Woody Hayes

14. “There’s nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.”

— Woody Hayes

15. “When you’re winning – you don’t need any friends. When you’re losing – you don’t have any friends anyway.”

— Woody Hayes

16. “You’ll find out that nothing that comes easy is worth a dime. As a matter of fact, I never saw a football player make a tackle with a smile on his face. Never.”

— Woody Hayes

17. “Even the best team, without a sound plan, can’t score.”

— Woody Hayes

18. “Indomitable in victory, insufferable in defeat.”

— Woody Hayes

19. “I may not be able to outsmart too many people, but I can outwork ’em.”

— Woody Hayes

20. “To hell with exciting. I’d rather be drab as hell and win.”

— Woody Hayes

21. “You can never really pay back. You can only pay forward.”

— Woody Hayes

22. “You don’t get many chances to pay back what’s been done for you. Take them.”

— Woody Hayes

23. “When I look in the mirror in the morning, I want to take a swing at me.”

— Woody Hayes

24. “I don’t like nice people. I like tough, honest people.”

— Woody Hayes

25. “Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That’s got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach.”

— Woody Hayes

26. “I’ve had smarter people around me all my life, but I haven’t run into one yet that can outwork me. And if they can’t outwork you, then smarts aren’t going to do them much good.”

— Woody Hayes

27. “There’s nothing in this world that comes easy. There are a lot of people who aren’t going to bother to win. We learn in football to get up and go once more.”

— Woody Hayes

28. “I am not very smart, but I recognize that I am not very smart.”

— Woody Hayes

29. “It does not matter the size of the man, rather the amount of effort the man is willing to put forth.”

— Woody Hayes

30. “Football is, after all, a wonderful way to get rid of your aggressions without going to jail for it.”

— Woody Hayes

31. “Winners are men who have dedicated their whole lives to winning.”

— Woody Hayes

32. “Without winners, there would be no civilization.”

— Woody Hayes

33. “A good general always makes you search for his weaknesses.”

— Woody Hayes

34. “It’s never an upset if the so-called underdog has all along considered itself the better team.”

— Woody Hayes

35. “The game of football is one of strategy and tactics.”

— Woody Hayes

36. “I’m not trying to win a popularity poll. I’m trying to win football games.”

— Woody Hayes

37. “Football represents and embodies everything that’s great about this country, because the United States of America is built on winners, not losers or people who didn’t bother to play.”

— Woody Hayes

38. “We control by attitudes-positive mental attitudes-not by rules.”

— Woody Hayes

39. “A man is always better than he thinks.”

— Woody Hayes

40. “No back in the history of football was ever worth two fumbles a game.”

— Woody Hayes

41. “In football we always said that the other team couldn’t beat us. We had to be sure that we didn’t beat ourselves. And that’s what people have to do, too-make sure they don’t beat themselves.”

— Woody Hayes

42. “I recruited a Czech kicker, and during the eye exam, when asked to read the bottom line, the kicker replied, Read it? I know him.”

— Woody Hayes

43. “The players fire the coach, and as long as I’m on the same wavelength with them, I can coach as long as I want to.”

— Woody Hayes

44. “Picking an assistant coach, the first thing I was interested in was the man’s character.”

— Woody Hayes

45. “The most deceptive course in football is straight at the goalposts.”

— Woody Hayes

46. “The only meaningful statistic is number of games won.”

— Woody Hayes

47. “I don’t apologize for anything. When I make a mistake, I take the blame and go on from there. I just despise to lose, and that has taken a man of mediocre ability and made a pretty good coach out of him.”

— Woody Hayes

48. “The only way we’d get beaten was if we got a little fat-headed, if we didn’t train right, if we had dissension on the squad.”

— Woody Hayes

49. “The five big mistakes in football are the fumble, the interception, the penalty, the badly called play, the blocked punt – and most of these originate with the quarterback. Find a mistake-proof quarterback and you have this game won.”

— Woody Hayes

50. “The bowl games are only supposed to be a fun reward.”

— Woody Hayes

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