Quote Investigator, which has worked this family of sayings twice, concludes the creator is anonymous and the wording evolved over decades of sports-page use. No instance from Rockne’s lifetime has been found: the first print credit to him is an August 1943 letter to The Washington Post, and Rockne died in 1931. Wikiquote files this exact “good and gracious” wording under Disputed, reporting no definite mention located before the 1980s.
“Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure” Not verifiably Knute Rockne. "Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure" is an anonymous coaching adage. Quote Investigator finds no instance from Rockne's lifetime — the first print credit to him is an August 1943 letter to The Washington Post, published after his death in 1931 — and Wikiquote files this exact wording under "Disputed," with no definite mention located before the 1980s. The "show me a good loser" formula was already in the sports pages by May 1911. — Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Knute Rockne. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of success, failure and character. Theme: "Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The paper trail
Status
Disputed — anonymous coaching adage, no primary source
Attributed work
None. No Rockne book, speech, letter or interview has been shown to contain it
Earliest Rockne credit
George Strickler, letter to The Washington Post, August 1943 — Rockne died in 1931
Anchor research
Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Show Me a Good Loser and I’ll Show You a Loser” (29 June 2024)
“Show me a good loser,” he used to say, “and I will show you a failure.”
The Washington Post, August 1943
This is not the popular wording — it is the closest thing to a documented one. Quote Investigator found it in a 1943 letter to The Washington Post from George Strickler, publicity director of the National Professional Football League, recalling what Rockne “used to say.” It is a second-hand memory printed twelve years after Rockne’s death, and it lacks the “good and gracious” phrasing that circulates today.
May 1911 — the “show me a good loser” formula is already in the sports pages. Cincinnati Reds pitcher Harry Gaspar tells The Cincinnati Post on 8 May: “Show me a good loser and I will show you a darn fool” (Quote Investigator ↗).
November 1924 — Illinois coach Robert Zuppke gives the sentiment its most-quoted early form, “a good loser is no good,” and Quote Investigator credits the expression to him rather than to any Notre Dame source (Quote Investigator ↗).
August 1943 — the first print credit to Rockne, in a letter to The Washington Post from NFL publicity director George Strickler. Rockne had died in March 1931, so this is recollection, not record (Quote Investigator ↗).
1957–1975 — the payoff keeps changing: “an unsuccessful man” credited to Rockne in a 1957 Paul Steiner collection, the modern “a loser” used by Gus Doerner in 1962, then attributions to Red Auerbach in 1965 and Leo Durocher by 1975 (Quote Investigator ↗).
Today — Wikiquote files the “good and gracious” wording under Disputed, noting that Safire’s Political Dictionary (2008) mentions a 1920s Rockne attribution but that no definite mention has been located prior to the 1980s (Wikiquote ↗).
No rights status can honestly be asserted, because no work of origin has been identified. The line is not tied to any Rockne book, speech or letter, and the “good and gracious” wording has no documented appearance before the 1980s. Quoting the sentence for commentary or criticism is ordinary fair use; presenting it as a public-domain Rockne quotation is not supportable, since we cannot name the work it came from or the year it was first published.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
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Fact-check
Where the credit goes, and why it keeps moving
This is a floating adage, not a quotation. Quote Investigator notes it has been attributed to “U.S. football coach Knute Rockne, U.S. basketball coach Red Auerbach, U.S. football coach Vince Lombardi, and many others” — and finds solid support for none of them.
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The popular creditKnute Rockne No lifetime source
Rockne died on 31 March 1931. The earliest print credit to him that Quote Investigator located is from August 1943 — a letter to The Washington Post from NFL publicity director George Strickler, recalling that Rockne “used to say” it. A 1957 collection by Paul Steiner credits him with a different payoff again, “an unsuccessful man” (Quote Investigator ↗).
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The exact wording“good and gracious” Later polish
None of the mid-century citations carry the doubled adjective. Wikiquote places “Show me a good and gracious loser, and I’ll show you a failure” in its Disputed section and reports that, although Safire’s Political Dictionary (2008) mentions an attribution to Rockne sometime in the 1920s, no definite mention of it has been located prior to the 1980s (Wikiquote ↗).
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The other coachesRed Auerbach, Vince Lombardi and Leo Durocher Also unsupported
United Press International attributed a version to Auerbach in 1965, and a Durocher version circulated by 1975. The Yale Book of Quotations credits the similar remark to Auerbach on a 1965 Mansfield News Journal citation reading “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser” — decades after the saying was already in print (Wikiquote ↗).
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The nearest real sourceRobert Zuppke Documented, but a different line
Quote Investigator credits Illinois coach Robert Zuppke with the closely related “a good loser is no good,” which he used from November 1924 — in his own lifetime, in print. That is the sentiment with a paper trail; it is not this sentence (Quote Investigator ↗).
✓Quote Investigator’s verdict is that the creator of the adage remains anonymous and the date of creation is uncertain, because the expression evolved over time — and the earliest “show me a good loser” wording it documents belongs to a baseball pitcher, Harry Gaspar, in The Cincinnati Post of 8 May 1911 (Quote Investigator ↗).
Context
Why this one sticks to Rockne
The idea is genuinely of its era. American coaches in the 1910s and 1920s built a whole rhetoric around refusing to be gracious in defeat, and the sports pages repeated it constantly — Cincinnati Reds pitcher Harry Gaspar was already saying “Show me a good loser and I will show you a darn fool” in The Cincinnati Post in May 1911, and Illinois coach Robert Zuppke made “a good loser is no good” his signature line from 1924 onward.
What is missing is Rockne. He died in March 1931, and the earliest printed version crediting him appears in August 1943, in a letter to The Washington Post from NFL publicity director George Strickler — a recollection, not a transcript. The polished modern form with “good and gracious” is later still, and Wikiquote reports no definite mention of it located before the 1980s. A famous orator with a famous early death is the ideal magnet for a floating adage: the line sounds like him, and there is nobody left to check it against.
The sentiment is authentically 1920s. The sentence is not authentically Rockne’s.
What we checked ourselves
Rockne published under his own name during his lifetime. A full-text search of the scanned 1925 Devin-Adair edition of The Four Winners ↗ on the Internet Archive returns no occurrence of the word “loser” at all. That is one book and imperfect OCR, so it is not proof of a negative — but it is consistent with the research finding that the line cannot be traced to anything Rockne wrote.
The variants are the tell. Quote Investigator records the payoff mutating repeatedly: “a failure” in 1943, “an unsuccessful man” in a 1957 collection by Paul Steiner, and the now-standard “a loser” used by Gus Doerner in 1962, before the saying was being credited to Red Auerbach in 1965 and Leo Durocher by 1975. Sayings with a real documented source do not drift like that; orphaned ones do (Quote Investigator ↗).
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1888–1931 · Notre Dame head football coach, 1918–1930
Knute Rockne was born in Voss, Norway in 1888 and became head football coach at the University of Notre Dame from 1918 to 1930, compiling a record of 105–12–5 — a .881 winning percentage. He was famous for his locker-room oratory, including the “win one for the Gipper” speech, which is exactly why so many unsourced pep-talk lines drift onto his name. He died on 31 March 1931 in a plane crash in Kansas, which places him before almost every printed version of this quotation.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Anchor research
Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Show Me a Good Loser and I’ll Show You a Loser,” 29 June 2024, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/06/29/show-good/. First print credit to Rockne: George Strickler, letter, The Washington Post, August 1943, as documented by Quote Investigator. Exact “good and gracious” wording: Wikiquote, “Knute Rockne,” Disputed section.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure’?” Last verified 27 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/show-me-a-good-and-gracious-loser-and-ill-show-you-a-failure/