Jimmy Chitwood: I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.

Jimmy Chitwood: I'll make it.

Merle Webb: Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here.

Opal Fleener: Sun don't shine on the same dog's ass everyday, but, mister you ain't seen a ray of light since you got here.

Player: [to shorter player] Didn't know they grew 'em so small on the farm.

Preacher Purl: [Just before the big game] And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen.

Wilbur 'Shooter' Flatch: Boys, we're gonna run the picket fence at em...Now, don't get caught watching the paint dry.

Wilbur 'Shooter' Flatch: Clete, you tell him. Sectionals of '33, one point down. Five, four, three, two, one, let 'er fly... in and out. Yeah, well, I was fouled...

Wilbur 'Shooter' Flatch: I know everything there is to know about the greatest game ever invented.

Wilbur 'Shooter' Flatch: You got to promise me that you're not gonna get thrown out of any more games.

Coach Norman Dale: First of all, let's be real friendly here, okay? My name is Norm. Secondly, your coaching days are over.
George: Look, mister, there's... two kinds of dumb, uh... guy that gets naked and runs out in the snow and barks at the moon, and, uh, guy who does the same thing in my living room. First one don't matter, the second one you're kinda forced to deal with.
Coach Norman Dale: Translate. That some sort of threat?
George: I don't know why Cletus drug your tired old bones in here, he musta owed you somethin' fierce. Fact is, mister, you start screwin' up this team, I'll personally hide-strap your ass to a pine rail and send you up the Monon Line!
[George angrily turns and storms out of the gym]
Coach Norman Dale: Leave the ball, will you, George? [to himself] OK, let's see what kind of hand I've been dealt.

Coach Norman Dale: You know, if everyone is as nice as you, country hospitality is gonna get an awful name.
Myra Fleener: What a pleasant thing to say.

Myra Fleener: A man your age comes to a place like this, either he's running away from something or he has nowhere else to go.
Coach Norman Dale: What I'm doing here has nothing to do with you.
Myra Fleener: Just stay away from Jimmy. I don't want him coaching in Hickory when he's fifty.

Myra Fleener: Leave him alone, alright? He's a real special kid and, and I have high hopes for him and... I think if he works really hard, he can get an academic scholarship to Wabash College and can get out of this place.
Coach Norman Dale: Why, do you have something against this place?

Myra Fleener: [about Jimmy Chitwood] You know, a basketball hero around here is treated like a god, er, uh, how can he ever find out what he can really do? I don't want this to be the high point of his life. I've seen them, the real sad ones. They sit around the rest of their lives talking about the glory days when they were seventeen years old.
Coach Norman Dale: You know, most people would kill... to be treated like a god, just for a few moments.