Top 5 Locker Room Motivational Speeches
It’s half time of the big game, your team is losing, and the locker room is silent. Players are fiddling with their equipment, but there are no conversations happening. Everyone is looking around to see where the desire and motivation to come back and win will come from. Then suddenly, the locker room doors bust open, the head coach comes in and gathers everyone together. He says a couple words. The next thing you know, everyone is on their feet ready to run through a wall to get the W! Congrats, you have fallen for a Motivational Locker Room Speech. After many years of watching sports movie after sports movie, here are my top 5 Locker Room Motivational Speeches!
1. Friday Night Lights
We start with a classic. This speech hits home as these players have two quarters left in their football careers. Coach Gaines says that perfection is not in the number of wins and losses in a season or the score at the end of the game, but how you do all of the little things every day, without giving up. Paying attention to how you treat yourself, your family and your friends is a life lesson that has stuck with me for years.
2. Coach Carter
Samuel L. Jackson is normally an angry, menacing character in his movies. Coach Carter was no different until his touching speech after their final loss. He dropped his scowl and was proud of his team after a loss. He told his team “What you achieved goes way beyond the win loss column or what will be written on the front page of the sports column. What you achieved is that ever-elusive victory within. Gentlemen, I am so proud of you.” Coach Carter is a must watch!
3. Moneyball
Brad Pitt portrayed Billy Beane, the General Manager for the Oakland As, in this 2002 blockbuster. At the time, Oakland was using a computer-generated approach to acquiring players instead of spending big money. In this speech titled “Is Losing Fun?,” Brad Pitt finds his team having a good time in the locker after a big loss. This speech reminds us that losing should not be celebrated and instead learned from. However, this speech motivates you to do and be better as team. From this point on, the team came together and started to win.
4. RUDY
This speech is only about 46 seconds long, but that is all it takes. This speech will get you fired up and ready to take down any opponent in a short amount of time. I am sure you all have heard it before but the famous quote from this speech is, “Remember, no one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around.” I don’t know about you, but that gets me fired up!
5. Miracle On Ice
Coach Brook’s speech is before the U.S.A Hockey team plays the Soviet Union for the Gold Medal at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980. “Great moments are born from great opportunity” is how the speech begins. How could you not hear that and feel excitement? The speech builds, but Coach Brooks doesn’t go over the top with it. He stays calm, which builds even more trust and excitement that what is about to happen is going to change the world. The speech closes with, “This is your time, now go out there and take it!” Chills!
Honorable mention – D2: The Mighty Ducks – Always Remember, Ducks Fly Together. I had to include this as this is one of my most memorable locker room speeches from my childhood. Team USA is down at half time of the Junior Goodwill Games against the bigger, stronger, faster Iceland team. Right before halftime, the USA team was falling for the antics of the Iceland team. Coach Bombay comes in at half time and reminds his team of where they are from and that they must stick together like a flock of ducks to win. Ducks Fly Together!
The overriding theme in all these speeches and movies is that winning comes from within. Each of these coaches pulls on the emotions of their players, and us at home, and reminds them that whatever happens on the field, court or ice that winning in life and sports begins with doing the small details to perfection, letting losses shape how you win, and always working together towards a common goal. Now let’s go run through a wall! LET’S GO!