Don Meyer Quotes & Sayings

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

Every day you teach attitude. — Don Meyer

If it comes down to you or the program that decision was made long ago. — Don Meyer

Our goal as a team is to keep playing as a group for as long as we can because you will never have that team again. It is like a dying limb, you have to prune it off and let another one grow in its place. That is the way you have to do it, but it still hurts losing these guys and that team because they and you have put so much effort into building a team. Even if you win that last game (and a national championship), it hurts badly because the players know they will never have that same special group of guys together on the same team again. Somebody always goes and somebody new always comes in. — Don Meyer

Parents would rather have their son get all-state than his team win the state championship. — Don Meyer

A coach who is not teaching leads to the worst thing in a program
players not learning. — Don Meyer

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

The key to success is to do the next right thing right. — Don Meyer

If you are a good team, your offense is born on the defensive end. — Don Meyer

Be what ya is, 'cause if ya be what you ain't, ya ain't what ya is. — Don Meyer

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

There's only one thing we can control, and that is how hard we play. — Don Meyer

Don't be in a hurry to change during the season. — Don Meyer

If you can do something and not blow your own horn, it sure sounds a lot better. — Don Meyer

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

The team is an extension of the coach. — Don Meyer

If you want to thank me, go do something for somebody else — Don Meyer

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

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

It doesn't matter where you coach, it matters why you coach. — Don Meyer

We sure didn't play great, but we played hard. And I can live with that. — Don Meyer

Successful basketball coaches are those that subscribe to a system that is based on sound fundamental teachings. — Don Meyer

Only run special plays for special players; find plays that fit your players. — Don Meyer

Have character, don't be one. — Don Meyer

You can pick captains, but you can't pick leaders. Whoever controls the locker room controls the team — Don Meyer

You never realize the value of coaching until your children play for a coach — Don Meyer

Defense involves three things: courage, energy, intelligence. — Don Meyer

To those who much has been given, much is expected. — Don Meyer

Coaching is the vehical we use to reach/ help people. — Don Meyer

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

It doesn't cost nothing to be nice to people — Don Meyer

Sometimes the best recruits are the ones you don't get. — Don Meyer

Your program must have an overriding purpose which is clearly visible and which teaches lessons beyond winning. — Don Meyer

Players who are late say that their time is more important than the team. — Don Meyer

Every coach should be recording games to watch ... use your VCR. — Don Meyer

Positioning, anticipation and technique create quickness. Therefore, you can always get quicker — Don Meyer

Quickness more than anything else should determine your amount of pressure on the ball. — Don Meyer

I tell everyone that I have 25,000 assistant coaches. If I want to know something, I just go to the grocery store.' — Don Meyer

Study people who can teach you how to deal with people. — Don Meyer

Coach like the coach you want to be ten years from now. — Don Meyer

Shared suffering makes a team a team. — Don Meyer

Play off your great player ... great teams have a go-to player and they play off of him. — Don Meyer

Recognize and reward players who put the team first, not just the gifted ones. — Don Meyer

Habits are critical for players. They cannot think and play well at the same time. — Don Meyer

When you watch the game, be a student of the game. — Don Meyer

If I cover my head with my hands, it means deny the ball to the opponent's ball handler. — Don Meyer

You aren't going to win championships unless you make layups and free throws. — Don Meyer

We have 2,500 students and an 8,000-seat basketball arena. You do the math on how important basketball is in Aberdeen. — Don Meyer

Let your players know that you love them. — Don Meyer

To be a team, you must be a family. — Don Meyer

We can always do it better. — Don Meyer

Shared suffering: one guy messes up and everyone runs. One guy does well and everyone benefits. — Don Meyer

You have to learn to play with what you've got. — Don Meyer

Players must do what you want them to do in pressure situations. — Don Meyer

Plays are not as important as players, and players are not as important as teammates — Don Meyer

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

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

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

In practice, don't just run basketball drills, teach the players how to play basketball. — Don Meyer

The only thing success should do is make you more humble. — Don Meyer

Complacency is the forerunner of mediocrity. You can never work too hard on attitudes, effort and technique. — Don Meyer

To win it all, winners have to be obsessive about the fundamentals and doing the little things right. — Don Meyer

Successful programs consist of people working hard, working together, while never worrying about who gets the credit. — Don Meyer

Go from good to great because good is the enemy of great. — Don Meyer

Can your player make a curl cut and score in the lane? If so, he is the cutter. — Don Meyer

The ability to rebound is in inverse proportion to the distance your house is from the nearest railroad tracks. — Don Meyer

Discipline and demand without being demeaning. — Don Meyer

Simplify the game as much as possible. When you add, you must subtract. — Don Meyer

It is foolish to expect a young man to follow your advice and to ignore your example. — Don Meyer

You build your program from the ideas of great coaches. — Don Meyer

Discover your gift, develop your gift and then give it away every day. — Don Meyer

Tough minded enough to do the necessary things
this is the epitome of what a team is. — Don Meyer

When the legs go, the heart and the head follow quickly behind. — Don Meyer

Make the practices like games and the games like practices. — Don Meyer

Ten minutes after you lose that last game, you start working on next season. — Don Meyer

Time doesn't fly when you are not happy. — Don Meyer

It is not what you teach, but what you emphasize. — Don Meyer

If a farmer and his family can get up at 5:30 every morning to milk cows, surly we can get up at that time to practice basketball. — Don Meyer

What you accept in victory, you must accept in defeat. — Don Meyer

The worst day coaching is better than the best day doing anything else — Don Meyer

Good shooters take the shots; best shooters take most of the shots. — Don Meyer

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

In the end, what your own troops do is more important than who they are marching against. — Don Meyer

Shout praise and whisper criticism. — Don Meyer

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

If you have to 'try hard' to 'try hard, you are already beaten. — Don Meyer

Put your two best players away from the ball and bring it back to them. — Don Meyer