“A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning”
Pittsburgh Steelers head football coach Chuck Noll (1932-2014) believed that preparing for the games—and not necessarily winning them, although Noll coached four Super Bowl-winning teams—was what excited him the most. Winning was important, but teams inevitably lost some games and no team wins the championship every season.
Noll said in January 1980, just before Super Bowl XIV:
“A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning. There simply aren’t enough Sundays—not enough games. And you’re bound to lose a few of those. The most interesting thing about this sport, at least to me, is the activity of preparation—any aspect of preparing for the games. The thrill isn’t in the winning, it’s in the doing.”
Noll’s quotation has been included in many books on coaching.
Wikipedia: Chuck Noll
Charles Henry “Chuck” Noll (January 5, 1932 – June 13, 2014) was a former professional American football player, assistant coach and head coach. His sole head coaching position was for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League from 1969 to 1991. Noll has more Super Bowl wins (4) than any other head coach in NFL history, and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993.
Google News Archive
16 January 1980, Sarasota (FL) Herald-Tribune, “NOLL: The Man Nobody Knows” by Bob Oates (L.A. Times-Washington Post News Service), pg. 1-E, col. 1:
For this man from Pittsburgh—this big winner—is the NFL’s most eloquent exponent of the notion that winning isn’t everything.
What Noll enjoys most about football isn’t winning, he says, it’s the day-in, day-out routine of preparation for the next game, the next practice, the next season.
“A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning,” Noll says, “There simply aren’t enough Sundays—not enough games. And you’re bound to lose a few of those. The most interesting thing about this sport, at least to me, is the activity of preparation—any aspect of preparing for the games. The thrill isn’t in the winning, it’s in the doing.”
Google News Archive
2 November 1988, Miami (FL) News, “Only ingrates desert the coaching greats” by Art Spander (San Francisco Examiner), pg. 3B, col. 6:
It was Noll who once reminded: “A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning.”
Google Books
Coachisms:
Winning Words from the Country’s Finest Coaches
By Randy Howe
Guilford, CT: Lyons Press
2005
Pg. 113:
A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning.
Football coach Chuck Noll, Pittsburgh Steelers
Google Books
Winning Words:
Classic Quotes from the World of Sports
By Michael Benson
Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing
2008
Pg. 177:
“A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning.” —Chuck Noll, football
ABC News
Hall of Fame Coach Chuck Noll Dead at 82
PITTSBURGH June 14, 2014 (AP)
By WILL GRAVES AP Sports Writer
Associated Press
Chuck Noll, the Hall of Fame coach who won a record four Super Bowl titles with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Friday night at his home. He was 82.
(...)
Perhaps not the most colorful coach behind the microphone, Noll could often be counted on for memorable, motivational one-liners that became rallying cries. Phrases like “A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning,” and “Before you can win a game, you have to not lose it,” and “The thrill isn’t in the winning, it’s in the doing,” spoke volumes about what Noll was trying to accomplish. They went over well in a football-crazed region of Pennsylvania.