Jack Gibson (1929 – 2008)
Australian rugby league footballer.
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They'd boo Santa Claus, this mob.
Talent is secondary to whether players are confident.
Played strong, done good.
There is nothing in the contract that says a football coach has to be sane or a good loser.
They all seem to limp a little extra when they are replaced.
The day that God invented Rugby League he didn't do anything else but sit around and feel good.
The big test in football is how a captain leads under conditions of adversity.
Waiting for Cronulla to win a premiership is like leaving the porch lamp on for Harold Holt.
There's always free cheese in a mousetrap.
Pain only hurts when you feel it.
He is about as big as Clive Churchill was when he played and he owns an ugly dog.
In football, if you are standing still, you're going backwards fast.
To win a championship, you've got to have a nucleus of five or six real tough, hard competitors. To win anything, the team's got to think tough and that infiltrates into the individual. You've got to have a tough leader.
That guy is so quick, he can switch off the light and get into bed before the room is dark.
I think he must have an egg-timer - every four minutes, he blows the whistle.
I realised fairly early that the 'wisdom of the ages' - whether from 3000 years ago or yesterday - often was simply and perfectly adaptable to the context of the football arena, and immensely valuable. From my regular morning habit of reading, I would write down any wise, pragmatic and smart quotes and ideas that struck me, and that I felt could be of use in coaching.
The use of video evidence is not always conclusive, but it sure beats the memory bank of most witnesses.
The game today is entirely different to when I played. But I still think it's pretty smart. Maybe the biggest change lies in the simple fact that if you're a bit slow today, mentally or physically, you're not going to survive.
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