Don Meyer Quotes & Sayings

#1. Tough minded enough to do the necessary things
this is the epitome of what a team is.

#2. Nobody travels better than Northern State fans and nobody knows the game better than Northern State fans. If I'd die and went to heaven and I was coaching, it would be at Wachs Arena.

Don Meyer

#3. There is a lot of difference at McDonald's between the guy in the back making the fries and the manager up front who is running the place.

Don Meyer

#4. If you are a good team, your offense is born on the defensive end.

Don Meyer

#5. The worst day coaching is better than the best day doing anything else

Don Meyer

#6. If you can do something and not blow your own horn, it sure sounds a lot better.

Don Meyer

#7. Positioning, anticipation and technique create quickness. Therefore, you can always get quicker

Don Meyer

#8. The only thing success should do is make you more humble.

Don Meyer

#9. Only run special plays for special players; find plays that fit your players.

Don Meyer

#10. Players must do what you want them to do in pressure situations.

Don Meyer

#11. The team is an extension of the coach.

Don Meyer

#12. As a coach, you're just trying to figure out how to keep a team on edge. You've got to find that edge.

Don Meyer

#13. Have character, don't be one.

Don Meyer

#14. Quickness more than anything else should determine your amount of pressure on the ball.

Don Meyer

#15. Players who are late say that their time is more important than the team.

Don Meyer

#16. Successful programs consist of people working hard, working together, while never worrying about who gets the credit.

Don Meyer

#17. We had 10 turnovers tonight. Each one gets worse as you go. It is like prior arrests: the 10th one may not have been that bad, but when you have had nine prior ones, it looks pretty bad.

Don Meyer

#18. Coaching is the vehical we use to reach/ help people.

Don Meyer

#19. You build your program from the ideas of great coaches.

Don Meyer

#20. We painted a beautiful picture, but we just didn't finish it. Finishing is the difference between a beautiful picture and a masterpiece.

Don Meyer

#21. Every day you teach attitude.

Don Meyer

#22. Recognize and reward players who put the team first, not just the gifted ones.

Don Meyer

#23. Your program must have an overriding purpose which is clearly visible and which teaches lessons beyond winning.

Don Meyer

#24. Good shooters take the shots; best shooters take most of the shots.

Don Meyer

#25. We can always do it better.

Don Meyer

#26. It is not what you teach, but what you emphasize.

Don Meyer

#27. When you watch the game, be a student of the game.

Don Meyer

#28. Successful basketball coaches are those that subscribe to a system that is based on sound fundamental teachings.

Don Meyer

#29. It doesn't cost nothing to be nice to people

Don Meyer

#30. In the end, what your own troops do is more important than who they are marching against.

Don Meyer

#31. Sometimes the best recruits are the ones you don't get.

Don Meyer

#32. You never realize the value of coaching until your children play for a coach

Don Meyer

#33. Go from good to great because good is the enemy of great.

Don Meyer

#34. If I cover my head with my hands, it means deny the ball to the opponent's ball handler.

Don Meyer

#35. Put your two best players away from the ball and bring it back to them.

Don Meyer

#36. Discover your gift, develop your gift and then give it away every day.

Don Meyer

#37. Discipline and demand without being demeaning.

Don Meyer

#38. When the legs go, the heart and the head follow quickly behind.

Don Meyer

#39. Simplify the game as much as possible. When you add, you must subtract.

Don Meyer

#40. You can pick captains, but you can't pick leaders. Whoever controls the locker room controls the team

Don Meyer

#41. To win it all, winners have to be obsessive about the fundamentals and doing the little things right.

Don Meyer

#42. A coach who is not teaching leads to the worst thing in a program
players not learning.

Don Meyer

#43. Study people who can teach you how to deal with people.

Don Meyer

#44. We sure didn't play great, but we played hard. And I can live with that.

Don Meyer

#45. We have to get a lot tougher. If you get involved in a street fight, you can't lay down in the street and act like you're dead because they will kill you for sure. You might as well get up and fight.

Don Meyer

#46. Habits are critical for players. They cannot think and play well at the same time.

Don Meyer

#47. To be a team, you must be a family.

Don Meyer

#48. Complacency is the forerunner of mediocrity. You can never work too hard on attitudes, effort and technique.

Don Meyer

#49. It is foolish to expect a young man to follow your advice and to ignore your example.

Don Meyer

#50. Every coach should be recording games to watch ... use your VCR.

Don Meyer

#51. You have to learn to play with what you've got.

Don Meyer

#52. Don't be in a hurry to change during the season.

Don Meyer

#53. If it comes down to you or the program that decision was made long ago.

Don Meyer

#54. Winning a postseason game is like winning five regular season games. There is just no feeling like it. Everything is magnified. Every free throw, turnover, shot and play.

Don Meyer

#55. Parents would rather have their son get all-state than his team win the state championship.

Don Meyer

#56. When you get to be my age, you don't buy green bananas because you may not be around to eat them.

Don Meyer

#57. I have learned that peace is not the absence of trial, trouble, or torment but the presence of calm in the midst of them

Don Meyer

#58. To those who much has been given, much is expected.

Don Meyer

#59. We always need to be prepared and work hard in practice so we can be just like the farmer who has put that fourth cutting of hay in the barn. After he does that, he can feel good about what is going to happen the rest of the winter.

Don Meyer

#60. You have to clean out the pig barn every week because you know your pigs are in there doing their jobs every day.

Don Meyer

#61. Shout praise and whisper criticism.

Don Meyer

#62. Ten minutes after you lose that last game, you start working on next season.

Don Meyer

#63. When I go in for heart surgery, I want a full-time surgeon. I don't want some guy who just does it part-time between rounds of golf. You want a guy who is doing it all the time and is always reading and learning about the most recent techniques.

Don Meyer