Quotes About A Basketball Coach

#1. I don't look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball.

Mike Krzyzewski

#2. I grew up in a small town in Illinois, and my dad was a basketball coach. Thanks to him, I have excellent fundamentals in both basketball and baseball.

Nick Offerman

#3. I have an incredible amount of basketball knowledge, and I think a lot of that is derived from having a Hall of Fame college basketball coach who was very knowledgeable of the game and I had a great high school coach who was also very knowledgeable.

Alonzo Mourning

#4. I'm not really a big X's and O's guy, but if you want to go there, I'm more of a space-the-floor type of coach: Five out, zero in, and that's the way we play basketball, screen and roll here and there, pocket passes everywhere; it's what it's about.

Kyrie Irving

#5. I am very excited to be the head women's basketball coach at Beloit College, ... This is a great opportunity for me. I am looking forward to putting my stamp on the program. I am confident that I can and will be successful here.

Don Adams

#6. I've had a desire to coach for years. This was something I felt I should do.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#7. Flip's a player's coach, and I do know one thing, he motivates better than anybody I know. His system is very oriented around the point guard. He and Steph (Marbury) had a great relationship when Steph was in Minnesota.

Kevin Garnett

#8. In 2001 we didn't have all the talent in the world, we just had me on offense and just a bunch of tough ass dudes, and a great coach in Larry Brown.

Allen Iverson

#9. X & O's aren't worth a damn without a team. If your team isn't with you it doesn't matter what you draw up. The team must respect what the coach is asking them to do

Hubie Brown

#10. A good coach improves your game. A great coach improves your life.

Michael Josephson

#11. Oh, you know. I'm queen of the rumor mill. It seems like there's been a new rumor about me every week since I got here. Comes with being the new girl, I guess. Have you heard the one where I seduced the basketball coach? That's a personal favorite.

Cynthia Hand

#12. 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

#13. When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team.

George Raveling

#14. We told Stanley Roberts to go on a water diet, and Lake Superior disappeared. Pat Williams When Xavier McDaniel plays against Orlando Wooldridge, it's a coach's dream - X vs O.

Mychal Thompson

#15. I was a much better writer than I was an athlete. My college coach told me flat out, he said, "Deford, you write basketball better than you play it."

Frank Deford

#16. Basketball, like all sports, is predicated on the execution of fundamentals. The coach is a teacher. His subject: fundamentals

Jack Ramsay

#17. Many of the most successful coaches and managers have come from players who never reached the highest level. The one exception seems to be basketball, where many of the greatest stars at least tried to coach a team.

George Vecsey

#18. John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren't a failure until you start to blame.

Carol S. Dweck

#19. The greatest sin a coach can commit is to allow kids to slide by. This goes for the classroom as well as the court

Hubie Brown

#20. Players draw confidence from a poised, alert coach who anticipates changing in game conditions

Jack Ramsay

#21. What excites me the most is when a coach calls a timeout and chews out his forward because I just dunked on his head.

Karl Malone

#22. What makes a good coach? Complete dedication.

George Halas

#23. You must have a passion to coach.

Rick Majerus

#24. Practice gotta be harder than the games and it never is unless you want it to be as a player. The coach can't drive that

John Calipari

#25. Your contribution as a coach is defending and rebounding.

Dick Motta

#26. Building relationships is the key for being happy as a coach. Players must want to play for you. If they are comfortable with you, they will work hard for you.

Mike McConathy

#27. When you're a coach you've got to go up the ladder, you've got to be ready to travel. That's the nature of coaching

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

#28. For a college basketball player or coach, to reach the Final Four is la-la land. You've achieved, you've got your stamp of approval. My first team to do that was in 1986. Then we did it in '88, '89 and '90.

Mike Krzyzewski

#29. I am not a strategic coach; I am a practice coach.

John Wooden

#30. A team should be an extension of a coach's personality. My teams are arrogant and obnoxious.

Al McGuire

#31. 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

#32. I tried to teach them [his sons] that about the importance of self-discipline, and that the culture of yes is built on a foundation of no.

Bill Walton

#33. When players are used to winning, they put out a little more. Basketball 3rd winningest coach (regular season and playoffs) in NBA history; won 1,037 times in 20 years;

Red Auerbach

#34. Any old coach will say the game was meant for finesse. It's a beautiful game, especially on television.

Dean Smith

#35. A Coach must never forget that he is a leader and not merely a person with authority.

John Wooden

#36. Coach Wooden, when he speaks, you listen. I've taken a lot of things from him and his little blue book because to him, it's not just about basketball, it's about life as well.

Kevin Love

#37. Anytime you're playing basketball, and you have a coach who you have to respect, you've got to be very disciplined.

Romeo Miller

#38. So you're dealing with a coach, and you're dealing with a guy who's actually experienced NBA basketball from a player's perspective and actually goes about it that way.

Kevin Garnett

#39. He looks like a woman coach sometimes. I guess he's just trying to get into certain people's heads, but it won't work with me. Like a woman who coaches and cries all the time. He can't get in my head. He's a crybaby.

Shaquille O'Neal

#40. You don't win games as a coach during games. You win games as a coach before games. Players win during games, not coaches

Red Auerbach

#41. Everyone needs a coach. It doesn't matter whether you're a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

Bill Gates

#42. My teammates at Duke - all of them, black and white - were a band of brothers who came together to play at the highest level for the best coach in basketball.

Grant Hill

#43. I'm a lot better coach when I have really good players

Chuck Daly

#44. I love practice. It is when a coach exercises the most control over the improvement of his or her team.

Mike Krzyzewski

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

Don Meyer

#46. In all the research you do as a coach, studying other coaches and championship-type situations, you find that all those teams combined talent with great defense. You've got to stop other teams to win.

Pat Riley

#47. The basketball coach cut me within two days, so I was back in the pool. I was the first one in the wall after the first 25 yards, but the last one out because I didn't have a flip turn.

Merlin Olsen

#48. You need a teaching coach who understands the game of basketball, not just some guy coming on the court talking about Xs and Os.

Oscar Robertson

#49. True basketball coaches are great teachers and you do not humiliate, you do not physically go after, you do not push or shove, you do not berate, if you are a true coach. If you humiliate or curse them, that won't do it. Coaches like that are not coaches.

Morgan Wootten

#50. I'm just right down the middle, man, ... It doesn't matter to me. I'd love him (Phil Jackson) as a coach. It doesn't matter to me. If they want him here, he'll be here. If he wants to come, he'll come, he'll coach and we'll go from there.

Kobe Bryant

#51. I've never felt my job was to win basketball games - rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.

Bobby Knight