Top 52 Dean Smith Quotes
#1. I know a lawyer who'd love to retire and be an assistant coach. I mean, it's fun.
Dean Smith
#2. Praise behaviour that you want repeated
Dean Smith
#3. Given the fact that we are in a capitalist society, we still do not want to overlook not only what a corporation produces and its profitability but also how it impacts the environment, touches human life and whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the human person.
Dean Smith
#4. If you make every game a life-and-death thing, you're going to have problems. You'll be dead a lot.
Dean Smith
#5. Only praise behavior that you want to be repeated. Never use false praise.
Dean Smith
#6. Basketball is a team game. But that doesn't mean all five players should have the same amount of shots.
Dean Smith
#7. I'd like to see the high schools put in a rule that limits recruitable athletes from playing on teams outside a 100-mile radius from their home or school.
Dean Smith
#8. The coach's job is to be part servant in helping each player reach his goals within the team concept.
Dean Smith
#9. I wasn't as critical during games as I was at practice. Players needed confidence during games more than criticism.
Dean Smith
#10. You should never be proud of doing the right thing. You should just do it.
Dean Smith
#11. Any old coach will say the game was meant for finesse. It's a beautiful game, especially on television.
Dean Smith
#12. I think the real free person in society is one that's disciplined. It's the one that can choose; that is the free one.
Dean Smith
#13. The death penalty makes us all murderers.
Dean Smith
#14. The best way to stop the problem of agents would be for the NCAA to come down hard and suspend a school for two years if it finds players with agents on campus.
Dean Smith
#16. Good people are happy when something good happens to someone else.
Dean Smith
#17. One player's selfish attitude can poison a locker room and make it hard, if not impossible, to establish team work
Dean Smith
#18. There is a lot of basketball beyond our control, but a player should never let anyone try harder than he does
Dean Smith
#19. You should just do the right thing.
Dean Smith
#20. I've always believed in quickness over strength and size.
Dean Smith
#21. I only use statistics to reinforce what I already think, or if it's something unusual.
Dean Smith
#22. Always have your players go and pick-up the guy who draws the charge.
Dean Smith
#24. Over coaching is the worst thing you can do to a player.
Dean Smith
#25. What do do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.
Dean Smith
#26. I always mean what I say, but I don't always say what I'm thinking.
Dean Smith
#27. The truly free person in society is a disciplined person.
Dean Smith
#28. The most important thing in good leadership is truly caring.
Dean Smith
#29. There is a point in every contest when sitting on the sidelines is not an option.
Dean Smith
#30. I do believe in praising that which deserves to be praised.
Dean Smith
#31. Michael, if you can't pass, you can't play.
Dean Smith
#32. The focus should be on the players. I'm here a long time. You can call me in the summer. Our seniors will be gone.
Dean Smith
#33. Basketball is a beautiful game when the five players on the court play with one heartbeat.
Dean Smith
#34. Everyone on the bench stands for the man coming out of the game.
Dean Smith
#35. As soon as you try to describe a close friendship, it loses something.
Dean Smith
#36. I enjoy basketball. I enjoy coaching basketball. It's the out-of-season stuff I didn't handle well.
Dean Smith
#37. I would never recruit a player who yells at his teammates, disrespected his high school coach, or scores 33 points a game and his team goes 10-10.
Dean Smith
#38. I just think we shouldn't get into counting coaches' records. I've never been for that ... but I know that's just American society.
Dean Smith
#39. The real issue is not if a crossing is put in, but when. It would be negligent on the part of Union Pacific and the California Public Utilities Commission to not address the problem.
Dean Smith
#40. The key statistic is still to get to the foul line.
Dean Smith
#41. The best way to build team chemistry is the way Rupp used to substitute, when they fouled out.
Dean Smith
#42. The presidents of colleges have to have some courage to step forward. You can't limit alcohol in college sports, you have to get rid of it.
Dean Smith
#43. Our teachers at the public school level are the most underpaid for the importance of their job in America.
Dean Smith
#44. If you do what we ask you to do, the victories will belong to you, and the losses to me.
Dean Smith
#45. The most important thing is team morale.
Dean Smith
#46. If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you'll die a lot of times.
Dean Smith
#47. Play hard. Play smart. Play together.
Dean Smith
#48. You should sub a player out when you see a player not going full-speed or playing selfish basketball.
Dean Smith
#49. The flash of rain, the shining rainbow riding completely around the plane, the lift over mountain ridges, the steady, pure air at dawn take-offs ... It was so alive and rich a life that any other conceivable choice seemed dull, prosaic, and humdrum.
Dean Smith
#50. A leader's job is to develop committed followers. Bad leaders destroy their followers' sense of commitment.
Dean Smith
#51. I'd never get elected if people in North Carolina realized how liberal I am.
Dean Smith
#52. Basketball, more than any other sport, is a team game ... about the thousands of small, unselfish acts, the sacrifices on the part of the players that result in team building.
Dean Smith
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