My Favorite Lines: Champions By Daniel Chambliss

Below are a few of my favorite lines from Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmer by Daniel Chambliss. You can find all my notes HERE.

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“They become champions by doing what needs to be done, by doing everything right, by concentrating on all the silly details that others overlook. What makes them champions is the knowledge -- and action following from that knowledge -- that champions are only real people, not gods, and that all it takes to be a champion is to do what champions do.” - p. 14

“The difference, what makes Schubert and a few others remarkable, is not their knowledge, not something that could be learned from a book, symposium, or clinic, but simply their willingness to do
what is necessary. All the ‘little’ things Schubert began in his first summer at Mission mattered.” - p. 32

“He attracted others who wanted to become great and were willing to pay the price.” - p. 37

“Going to the beach is fine, but if you want to be on this team, you have to come to practice. You see
these guys? They want to be national champions, and as a team we want to be national champions. If you want to be one, you can train with us. If you don’t, you can train somewhere else.” - p. 61

“I just came here to get more guts.” - p. 69

“This is an ‘heroic’ conceit -- a literary device, basically -- and it actually does a terrible injustice to the athletes, for the heroic conceit mystifies excellence, removing it from the routines of daily life where it must, each day, be lived; it looks back over years and years of small events and tries to explain them in a quick phrase: ‘a career of excellence,’ ‘incredible dedication,’ ‘the will to win.’ So it fails, finally to do justice to the drab routine of athletic training, and it presents dedication, too, as a gift -- as something that one day you just ‘have’ (like ‘talent’). In fact, world-class athletes get to the top level by making a thousand little decisions every morning and night. If you make the right choice on each of these -- decide to get up and go to practice, decide to work hard today, decide to volunteer to do an extra event to help you team -- then others will say you ‘have’ dedication. But it is only the doing of those little things, all taken together, that makes dedication. Great swimmers aren’t made in the long run; they are made every day.” - p. 94

“Hard training was the key to success; if the preparation was right, the performance would follow.” - p. 114

“There was no room for being ‘cool,’ for staying even a little bit detached.” - p. 172

“[Meagher] had become excellent, she believed, by doing fairly ordinary things consistently and with care. She was better than most swimmers, she thought, because she worked hard and enjoyed it … and because of a whole series of mundane habits she had developed over the years.” - p. 200

“Doing is the only thing that counts. The truth is simple: Most swimmers choose everyday not to do the little things. They choose, in effect, not to win. They say, ‘I could do this workout if I wanted to’ … In some sense, everyone ‘could’ win the Olympic Games, but ‘could’ doesn’t count. The gold medal is reserved for those who do.” - p. 215