My favorite words of wisdom from Chuck Knox
My favorite words of wisdom from Chuck Knox
"Remember your six P's - Perfect Practice Prevents Piss Poor Performance"
"The Difference between a Champ and a Chump is U"
At the first training camp meeting with all players - "Today everyone is a rookie. No one has a starting job. Today, and every day forward, you earn a starting position on this team. No one cares about what you did last year, all I care about is what are you going to do for this team today?"
After losing a few games..... "Right now everyone hates you. The Press hates you. The Fans hate you. Hell, even the cheerleaders hate you. To them, you are like Whale Dung......and that's the lowest thing on Earth" They all put on their life preservers and jumped ship." Then he told us that what they thought didn't really matter. What mattered most were the men in the room and what we are all going do to right this ship.
After winning a few games..... "It would easy if each team could just take a wheelbarrow full of their positive press clippings out to the 50 yard line before the game and dump them out and whichever team had the biggest pile would win the game. It doesn't work that way. Remember, you're never as good as the press makes you out to be and you're never as bad as they make you out to be."
Chuck knew how to motivate us. He would find newspaper articles from other cities and post them on our Billboard in the locker room – usually a quote from a player from a team we were getting ready to play or an editorial about why they would win and we would lose. Chuck always told us "You can talk all you want about yourself, but don't talk negatively about other players. Don't give the press, or another team, Billboard material" and he would follow that up by saying "What you do speaks so well, there's no need for anyone to hear what you say!"
On the prospect of being fined for missing curfew because you were out chasing women "It better be gold-lined" - You can use your imagination on what that means.
Chuck liked to have a good time and he knew that we had to blow off some steam too, but he warned us "Don't throw the ball so far over the fence that you can't find it the next day"
One time Chuck came into the team meeting room Monday morning after we had lost a game. He had a cut under his eye and few bruises on his face. The room was dead silent....you could hear a pin drop. He casually walked up to the podium and said "If you think I look bad, you should see the three guys I fought." The room erupted in laughter, but it didn't last long. He ripped us a new one for playing like whale dung.
Chuck taught us how to be winners on and off the football field.
I'm glad I had an opportunity to have him as my head coach........but he was more than that......he was a life coach too.
Ckuck is recuperating from back surgery. Get well soon Coach!
PS: Little known fact: In 2005, Knox donated $1 million to his alma mater, Juniata, to endow a chair in history, his major at the school. The donation was the largest of many contributions by Knox, with the institution renaming the school's football stadium in his honor in 1998. Quaker Valley High School in Knox's hometown of Sewickley, Pennsylvania has also named its football stadium in his honor.
In reporting about Knox's $1 million donation, the Seattle Times noted that Knox has been extremely generous in donating substantial money to Juniata and his old high school. The Times also noted that Knox left the games before coaches were paid the large sum of salaries common today and reporters asked whether he was donating away a substantial amount of his retirement fund.
Knox answered the reporters this way: "sure it is (a lot of money).....that's what it was going to take to do it"
On September 25, 2005 at age 73, Knox was inducted into the Seattle Seahawk's Ring of Honor at Qwest Field in Seattle and is regularly under consideration for nomination into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, OH.
What he does speaks so well.....
