Larry Bird Biography | Motivation Quotes | Inspirational Quotations

Larry Bird Biography:

Larry Bird has been described as one of the greatest basketball players in the basketball history. He was born on December 7, 1956, in West Baden Springs, Indiana to Georgia and Claude Joseph "Joe" Bird.  Larry experienced the difficult childhood but that motivates him "to this day". When Larry was in high school his parents divorced and  about a year later his mother committed suicide.  To escape the family troubles he played the Basketball.

Boston Celtics drafted Larry Bird in the first round in 1978. Larry started at small forward and power forward for 13 seasons, spearheading one of the NBA's most formidable frontcourts that included center Robert Parish and power forward Kevin McHale. Larry was a 12-time NBA (National Basketball Association) All-Star and he was named the league's Most Valuable Player (MVP) three consecutive times in 1984, 1985 and 1986. He played his entire professional career for Boston, winning three NBA championships and two NBA Finals MVP awards. He played on the US Olympic Dream Team in 1992, which won the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics. Thereafter he served as coach of the Indiana Pacers and president of basketball operations for the Indiana Pacers. He is named as Rookie of the Year, Coach of the Year, Executive of the Year, Regular Season MVP and Finals MVP.  In NBA history Larry is the only player to have achieved these honors.

Larry Bird Motivation Quotes:

• “A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.”

• “Push yourself again and again. Don't give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.”

• “I've got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.”

• “I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me.”

• “It doesn't matter who scores the points, it's who can get the ball to the scorer.”

• “Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It's being able to take it as well as dish it out. That's the only way you're going to get respect from the players.”

• “I used to love the feeling of running, of running too far. It made my skin tingle.”

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• “It's been a journey, the NBA. It's taken me a lot farther than I ever expected.”

• “The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.”

• “I wasn't real quick, and I wasn't real strong. Some guys will just take off and it's like, whoa. So I beat them with my mind and my fundamentals.”

• “If there was a payment to the bank due, and we needed shoes, she'd get the shoes, and then deal with them guys at the bank. I don't mean she wouldn't pay the bank, but the children always came first.”

• “Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got.”

• “When it gets down to it, basketball is basketball.”

• “When I was a kid, I never thought about anything. Never had to think about where I was going to school or what I was going to do. I just lived minute to minute.”

• “As far as playing, I didn't care who guarded me - red, yellow, black. I just didn't want a white guy guarding me, because it's disrespect to my game.”

• “Once you are labeled 'the best' you want to stay up there, and you can't do it by loafing around.”

• “What's better? Dogs or broomsticks? I mean will the world really ever know?”

• “I've been around a while. I kinda know these things.”

• “The best player I ever played with was Dennis Johnson.”

• “But it is a black man's game, and it will be forever.”

• “When I was a kid, like 14 or 15, I played with the waiters from the hotel, 'cause that was the best game. And these guys, they'd let me play. And they were black guys.”

• “While day by day the overzealous student stores up facts for future use, he who has learned to trust nature finds need for ever fewer external directions. He will discard formula after formula, until he reaches the conclusion: Let nature take its course.”

• “I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.”