"Winning isn’t everything; it's the only thing" is a well-known quotation in sports. It is attributed to UCLA Bruins football coach Red Sanders. He is on record with at least two different versions of the quotation during his coaching career. Sanders is reputed to have used this quote even as far back as the 1930s.
Red Sanders
In 1950, at a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo physical education workshop, Sanders told his group: "Men, I'll be honest. Winning isn't everything", then following a long pause, "Men, it's the only thing!" In a three-part article, December 7, 1953, on Red Sanders, by Bud Furillo of the Los Angeles Herald and Express, the phrase is quoted in the sub head. Furillo said in his unpublished memoirs Sanders first made the statement to him after UCLA's loss to USC in 1949. In 1955, in a Sports Illustrated article preceding the 1956 Rose Bowl, he was quoted as saying "Sure, winning isn't every thing; it's the only thing."
While at UCLA, another famous quote was attributed to Sanders regarding the UCLA–USC rivalry, "Beating 'SC is not a matter of life or death, it's more important than that." A form of this quote was later widely attributed to Bill Shankly, Liverpool FC coach from a 1981 television interview.
Others
The phrase is quoted in the 1953 film Trouble Along the Way by Sherry Jackson's character, Carol Williams. However, Lombardi is on record repeating the original version of the quotation on several occasions.
Other related quotations
This credo has served as counterpoint to the well known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice that, "it's not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and to the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing. . . is not winning but taking part".