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  • 2017-07-27 (xsd:date)
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  • Did a Football Coach Say 'Act Like You've Been There Before'? (en)
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  • In July 2017, an old, recycled quote went viral after White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci attributed the phrase act like you've been there before to former Penn State coach Joe Paterno: The full quote is commonly rendered as a football analogy: When you get into the end zone, act like you've been there before. Many people criticized Scaramucci for using Paterno — whose career was tarnished after a lengthy child sexual abuse scandal — as an example of honor, but others took issue with the attribution of this quote. Did Joe Paterno really say act like you've been there before? Wasn't it Vince Lombardi? No, it was Tom Landry. Or maybe it was Paul Brown, Lou Holt, or Paul William Bear Bryant? Our research turned up a variety of credible sources that attributed this phrase to a wide range of coaches. Jack Ham, for instance, a Pittsburgh Steelers player who spent his college years playing for Paterno at Penn State, wrote in the forward to the book An Odd Steelers Journey that Paterno had once used the phrase: The New York Times quoted Hall of Famer Lou Holtz using a similar phrase in a 1986 article, and former Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown in 1991. As this quote apparently sums up the general attitude that coaches have toward end zone celebrations, it has probably been spoken by hundreds of different coaches (including Paterno) at one time or another: But who said it first? Although we have yet to find a definitive answer, the Washington Post attributed this quote to Vince Lombardi in 1967: (en)
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