25 Great Quotes from Bad Sports Movies
Great sports movies are a very rich source of memorable quotes. From the inspirational to the comic relief, classics like Major League, The Mighty Ducksย and Varsity Blues remain endlessly quotable even decades after their release.ย
Of course, thatโs to be expected. Great movies tell great stories through great dialogue and usually produce great quotes.ย
Bad movies, on the other hand, arenโt expected to produce anything beyond the regret about those two hours weโll never get back. Which is exactly why they can actually surprise, benefiting greatly from low expectations.ย
Although short on the inspirational variety, there are plenty of bad sports films with at least one or two standout lines. Here are 25 greatโwell, maybe great is overselling itโquotes from bad sports movies.ย
Kicking and Screaming
1 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 41 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: An unhinged youth soccer coach, played by Will Ferrell, brings in an equally unhinged Mike Ditka so he can finally beat his rival, his own father!
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs true, duh.ย
Ladybugs
2 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 14 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: In order to impress his boss, Chester Lee, played by Rodney Dangerfield, offers to coach the bossโ daughterโs soccer team and enlists the help of his girlfriendโs son, whom he convinces to play...as a girl.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because it sums up the great Dangerfield pretty aptly and is one of those good one-liners that is easily tucked away for personal use at a later date.ย
The Scout
3 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 22 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: A baseball scout, played by Albert Brooks, loses his job with the Yankees and finds a new job babysitting a mentally unstable minor league pitcher, and there are almost no laughs along the way.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because The Mighty Ducksโ Coach Reilly, played by actor Lane Smith, is effortlessly mean, and the rest of the characters in this movie all deserved to be yelled at.ย
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
The Benchwarmers
4 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 11 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Having been bullied their whole lives, a couple of Adam Sandlerโs friends get together with Napoleon Dynamite to form a three-man baseball team and successfully challenge some of the best kidsโ teams around, making them the hero of every nerdlinger, outcast and geekburger in town.
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because agoraphobic people with irrational sun phobias who stay home most days to eat sunscreen are hilarious, right?
The Legend of Bagger Vance
5 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 43 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: A white war hero turned golfer glosses over the intense racism of segregation-era Georgia in the 1930s by befriending Bagger Vance, a mysterious black caddy with a perfect swing, who basically becomes the Chubbs to his Happy Gilmore, but with terribly boring results.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs simplistic but oddly profound. Not to mention, it's one of the only pieces of dialogue in the whole film that comes off sincere.ย
Juwanna Mann
6 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 10 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: An NBA player with a bad temper and a worse attitude finds himself kicked out of the league and takes the only obvious course of action to get back onto the basketball courtโhe plays for a womanโs team dressed in stunningly bad drag and, of course, finds love along the way.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because remember how bad the Clippers used to be? Heh heh.ย
Necessary Roughness
7 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 32 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Based on the infamous recruiting scandals at SMU in the 80s, fictional TSU gets busted for breaking the rules and is forced to rely (gasp!) on its actual students to play football.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Is there any other kind of kick to the facemask?
Semi-Pro
8 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 21 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: A one-hit-wonder singer named Jackie Moon, played by the endlessly quotable Will Ferrell, owns and starts for a fantastically terrible basketball team but has to loosen the reins a little when a former NBA champion comes to coach in hopes the team will improve enough to be elevated to the NBA.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote:ย Because telling everybody not to panic is a surefire way to make sure everybody panics. So why bother sugarcoating?
Ready to Rumble
9 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 23 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Two surprisingly ambitious sewage truck drivers, played by David Arquette and Scott Caan, get proactive when their favorite wrestler is brought down by his own manager and sinks into a very dark, very boozy place.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because timely reality checks are often fodder for comedy. ย
My Giant
10 of 25
[This isnโt technically a sports movie, but it starred a professional athlete, so itโs very loosely in the same cinematic realm.]
Tomato Meter Ranking: 19 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: A struggling talent agent, played by Billy Crystal, who doesnโt have much of an eye for talent, is involved in a car accident overseas and ends up being saved by a giant, played by former pro basketball player Gheorghe Muresan, who he then takes back to America to exploit for personal gain.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs a funny example of just how necessary context and perspective are.ย
The Fan
11 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 38 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Robert De Niro really goes slumming by playing an obsessed baseball fan from planet "Iโm Gonna Murder You," much to the chagrin of Wesley Snipes, a baseball player who finds himself caught in the fanโs psychotic gaze.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because the catcher tells Snipesโ character that he should be complimented by the fact that he walked him and then calls him a d**khead, which is obviously not a compliment.ย
Kicking and Screaming
12 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 41 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: An unhinged youth soccer coach, played by Will Ferrell, brings in an equally unhinged Mike Ditka so he can finally beat his rival, his own father!
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because what the hell is a whirling dervish? Itโs something weโve all wondered about but never cared enough to actually Google it.ย
The Benchwarmers
13 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 11 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Having been bullied their whole lives, a couple of Adam Sandlerโs friends get together with Napoleon Dynamite to form a three-man baseball team and successfully challenge some of the best kidsโ teams around, making them the hero of every nerdlinger, outcast and geekburger in town.
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because delusions of grandeur are funny, but swiftly squashing them is even funnier.ย
Major League II
14 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 5 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: In this ill-conceived sequel to a comedy classic, the Indians get too complacent in their unlikely success and quickly end up right where they started to begin withโthe bottom.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because of all the recycled garbage in this sequel, Harry Doyle is one of the only characters the audience can count on for a laugh.ย
Mr. Baseball
15 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 13 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Tom Selleck, and his mustache, plays an American baseball player who is underwhelmed after being signed by a Japanese team, but ultimately they teach him to love the game again, while he teaches them a little something about baseless American bluster and arrogance.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because everyone knows that baseball players, while skilled, arenโt always perfect physical specimens.
Ladybugs
16 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 14 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: In order to impress his boss, Chester Lee, played by Rodney Dangerfield, offers to coach the bossโ daughterโs soccer team and enlists the help of his girlfriendโs son, who he convinces to play...as a girl.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because โSo youโre telling me thereโs a chance!โ jokes never get old. This one actually predates Dumb and Dumber.ย
The Waterboy
17 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 35 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: A mentally challenged water enthusiast Forrest Gumps his way onto a college football team, where he uses the rage triggered by his mommy issues to become a success and even get the girl.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor actually did crack! So itโs funny because heโs being self-deprecating and because this is kind of an obvious lesson most kids learn well before college. ย
Days of Thunder
18 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 39 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Tom Cruise plays a cocky stock-car driverโfollowing up his turns as a cocky pilot in Top Gun and a cocky bartender in Cocktailโwho learns how to channel his talent into racing success and gets hot and heavy with future wife Nicole Kidman along the way.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs probably the last time Randy Quaid made a lick of sense.ย
Major League II
19 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 5 percent
One Sentence Synopsis: In thisย ill-conceived sequel to a comedy classic, the Indians get too complacent in their unlikely success and quickly end up right where they started to begin withโthe bottom.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because a ridiculous non sequitur is a comic well that never runs dry.
Necessary Roughness
20 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 32 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Based on the infamous recruiting scandals at SMU in the 80s, fictional TSU gets busted for breaking the rules and is forced to rely (gasp!) on its actual students to play football.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs the exact opposite of what most locker-room speeches, at least in movies, tend to be. So much for having fun and giving it your all.ย
The Benchwarmers
21 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 11 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Having been bullied their whole lives, a couple of Adam Sandlerโs friends get together with Napoleon Dynamite to form a three-man baseball team and successfully challenge some of the best kidsโ teams around, making them the hero of every nerdlinger, outcast and geekburger in town.
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs making fun of a movie that takes itself way too seriously.ย
Rocky IV
22 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 43 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: After battling it out in prior movies, Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed become friends united against a common enemy, evil super Russian Ivan Drago, who eventually straight up murders Creed in the ring.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs one of the only sincere quotes in this entire slideshow, and Apollo Creed went out like a warrior.ย
The Replacements
23 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 40 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: Inspired by the 1987 NFL players strike, the Washington Sentinels assemble a ragtag bunch of scabs who, against all odds, put together one pretty solid season playing professional football before dispersing back into their real lives.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs reminiscent of all those quotable sports cliches but doesnโt take itself so damn seriously.ย
Semi-Pro
24 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 21 percent
One-Sentence Synopsis: A one-hit-wonder singer named Jackie Moon, played by the endlessly quotable Will Ferrell, owns and starts for a fantastically terrible basketball team but has to loosen the reins a little when a former NBA champion comes to coach in hopes the team will improve enough to be elevated to the NBA.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because there probably is something in the rule book that says you canโt play drunk.ย
Johnny Be Good
25 of 25
Tomato Meter Ranking: 0 percent โZERO!
One-Sentence Synopsis: Brat Pack baby Anthony Michael Hall plays a cocky high school quarterback who is highly sought after by ridiculously desperate college recruiters, and heโs reunited with a previous nemesis in Paul Gleason, who plays his high school coach and is best remembered as the principal in The Breakfast Club.ย
Why Itโs a Great Quote: Because itโs the only bit of humor that transcends the movieโs abject terribleness and can actually deliver a laugh.ย
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
