FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: sportsfanmagazine.com

Top: George Allen Image: judicial-inc.biz

.

Middle: Don Shula Image: archive.managernewz.com

.

Bottom: Joe Gibbs Image: communities.canada.com

.

NFL QUOTES

Quotes by and about 3 NFL Hall of Fame coaches

.

Many times Allen was seen staring into a deep and mysterious distance on the sidelines with tears running down his face. Later he had no recollection of weeping.

.

He once called out the owner of the Rams saying that a man who goes out and parties after a loss is twice a loser. He's a loser once for having lost and a loser twice for going out and having fun as though losing didn't matter.

.

His practices were often closed to the press and public. He hired private-eyes and helicopters to search for spies.

.

Deacon Jones once said in an interview with SportsFan Magazine that "George Allen had a way to make a man want to reach into his very soul, even at a moment of great personal despair, and pull out a game!"

.

Coach Allen operated on that level. He was the epitome of the modern coach, he didn't wear a suit on the sidelines like everyone else, and he wore sweat pants and Redskins gear and his lucky Redskins ball cap with the scripted "R" on the crown.

.
Understand, George Allen never had a losing season. Even when he coached high school in his 70's. The loss to the undefeated, forever undefeated, Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VII wasn't just one game, one loss. It was the culmination of decades of dedication, blood, sweat and tears, finagling, haggling, fighting the establishment, being given horridly moribund teams and turning them around almost over night. His innovations from the nickel defense to redesigns of team practice facilities altered the way every team approached the game of football from that time onward. But in the end, the same stubbornness that made him so unique, denied him entry to the Promised Land, and delayed his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame by 25 years.
.
Sonny Jurgensen sat at the bar at Don Shula's restaurant in Miami next to the coach himself and surveyed the pictures of players on the wall from Miami's undefeated season in 1972, and quipped, "You know Don, if I had played in that game, (Super Bowl VII), none of those pictures would be up there." And Shula answered, "You're probably right."

.

Shula wasn't humoring the Redhead, he was sincere. The greatest pure passer of his generation, according to none other than Vince Lombardi, had a habit of calling his own plays, and he was a master at it. The Redskins offense generated not a single point during Super Bowl VII, yet Sonny watched the game in his street clothes from George Allen's doghouse.

.

Why? Earlier in the season, Allen deliberately insulted the Hall of Fame quarterback by inserting him into a game to take a knee on the last play of the first half. Instead, Sonny got into the huddle and called his own play, a 42 yard touchdown to Charley Taylor that sent the crowd into a delirium. But you and I both know a universal truth don't we? You don't show up the boss. That was the end of Sonny Jurgensen.
.
When Allen was at last inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002, Billy Kilmer's voice broke with emotion over the phone when he told SportsFan Magazine. "I wouldn't have been nothin' without George Allen. I can't say it any better'n that. He stuck with me for years and years. I only wish I had played better in that Super Bowl, 'cause it meant everything to George, and it meant the world to me."
.
George Allen and Don Shula were Hall of Fame coaches who bridged the gap between old school and new. When they were through, quarterbacks had been diminished to the role of functuaries.
.
Shula remembers his first year coaching the Colts. He says that the first time he sent in a play the quarterback called time out and trotted to the sideline. When he met the coach on the sideline the quarterback patted him on the head and said, "Look Donny, I call the plays around here," and trotted back to the huddle.

.

To my mind, the league would be a lot better today if the young coach had slapped his own forehead and muttered, "What was I thinking? That's Johnny Unitas!"
.
Joe Gibbs, the devoted stepchild of Allen and Shula, won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks, neither of which are in the Hall of Fame, and haven't even had their numbers retired.

.

Why? Because Joe Gibbs is really the quarterback. The man under center today is, by and large, a flesh and blood conduit of the coaches wills, a video game curser, if you will.

.

"If things go wrong, the coach is the one who's going to lose his job, not the quarterback," Gibbs once said, "I'd rather have my fate in my own hands."

.

In a locker room interview after a 38 - 9 blow-out loss to the Raiders in Super Bowl XVIII, Theismann explained the philosophy perfectly when he said, "I had a good game. I did everything I was supposed to do, everything I was asked."

=======================