A Coach From A Player Quotes & Sayings

Every player needs a little time to adjust to new teammates and the mentality of the coach when you change clubs. — Zlatan Ibrahimovic

There is something about Game 7 that there's a memory there for you for sure. You want to be a coach or a manager or a player or a goaltender that gets it done, because to me, that's all part of sports. That's what you dream about when you're a little kid - scoring the winning goal. — Mike Babcock

There is no desire from the new British players. They say their coach doesn't travel with them so it's hard, but I played hundreds of players from Eastern Europe and Russia who had no facilities at all. — Tim Henman

I started when I was six years old. My first coach was my granny, she was the best player in Slovakia. — Daniela Hantuchova

What I hadn't expected was to be blindsided by a history lesson that betrayed every hard-won experience I'd had as a player and now a coach at the same school I'd attended. . . Whoever was responsible for sending a championship team into virtual obscurity was either a serious egomaniac or just plain mean. It stung.

After all, wasn't the story told at today's funeral the stuff of legacies? Of school lore passed on to the next class, and the next, building institutional pride as well as magical identities that made every kid in the state want to play there? — Jo Kadlecek

Many tennis coaches are enablers. They need the job more than the player needs the coach, and if the coach needs the job more than the player needs the coach, he can't effect change. — Ivan Lendl

I concluded some time ago that a major part of success of a team, or of an individual, has a great deal to do with the intangible qualities possessed. The real key is in how a person see himself (humility), how he feels about what he does (passion), how he works with others (unity), how he makes others better (servanthood), and how he deals with frustration and success, truly learning from each situations (thankfulness). I believe those concepts are the essence of a good player, team, coach, or individual in any capacity in life. — Dick Bennett

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

Our facility is state of the art. There are half a dozen big cozy offices that Chad Jensen could've parked his ass in, but for some reason he chose this modest office tucked away near the laundry room.

I knock on the door, only opening it when I hear Coach's gruff, "Get in here." The last player who waltzed in without knocking got a tongue-lashing that the rest of us could hear all the way from the showers. I like to think Coach uses the office to jack off and that's why he insists on privacy. Logan hypothesizes that he has a secret office family that's only allowed to venture out in the wee hours of the night.

Logan is an idiot. — Elle Kennedy

It's always really challenging trying to go from player to player/coach. You have a kind of friendship basis of relationship with all of your teammates, and now you go to this power position where you have to make decisions that might hurt people's feelings. — Abby Wambach

Don't ever ask a player to do something he doesn't have the ability to do. He'll just question your ability as a coach, not his as an athlete. — Lou Holtz

Knowing his coach likes him is more important to a player than anything else. To me, it was important to be able to chew out a player for screwing up and for him to accept it because he knew I liked him anyway. — John Madden

Players draw confidence from a poised, alert coach who anticipates changing in game conditions — Jack Ramsay

I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I never really had a job. I was a football player, then a football coach, then a football broadcaster. It's been my life. Pro football has been my life since 1967. I've enjoyed every part of it. Never once did it ever feel like work. — John Madden

I can't be a hypocrite as a coach because as a player that's what I wanted. I wanted feedback, I wanted communication from the boss. I showed up for work, you can yell at me if you want, but I want input. So that's the kind of coach I want to be. — Adam Oates

But I haven't met a player or a coach whose goal isn't to win the Super Bowl. — Pete Rozelle

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

This kind of directing, I think, is very similar to being a football coach. You prepare your players and place them in the right places, but once the game is on, there's nothing much you can do - you can smoke a cigarette or get nervous, but you can't do much. — Abbas Kiarostami

I still miss the players and I miss the game and the strategy. The first couple years were really difficult. Now I realize I'll never coach again. It's still hard to go into the stadium on a game day, because it's hard to just be a fan. But it's easier now than it was the first two or three years. — Tom Osborne

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

Perhaps the toughest call for a coach is weighing what is best for an individual against what is best for the team. Keeping a player on the roster just because I liked him personally, or even because of his great contributions to the team in the past, when I felt some one else could do more for the team would be a disservice to the team's goals. — Tom Landry

Find your own picture, your own self in anything that goes bad. It's awfully easy to mouth off at your staff or chew out players, but if it's bad, and your the head coach, you're responsible. If we have an intercepted pass, I threw it. I'm the head coach. If we get a punt blocked, I caused it. A bad practice, a bad game, it's up to the head coach to assume his responsibility. — Bear Bryant

Every player, every coach doesn't always see eye to eye. — Rajon Rondo

It's always good to have your players with you, it makes you feel great. That is just it. The coach and the players understand one another but people outside don't understand. But it's good to see him, it's good to see all the players. — Stephen Keshi

Coach John Wooden used seven players at UCLA. Coach Denny Crum used to say, 'The more moving parts you have, the greater the chance you have for a breakdown.' I think there's a lot of veracity to that. — Skip Prosser

People think that there is so much money in tennis, but the reality is unless you're ranked in about the top 50 you don't earn much at all. It is hard to support yourself travelling the world, to be away from home most of the year and to pay for a coach to help you become a better player. — Samantha Stosur

I was still in the college and they told me I should try it. At the time, I still thought I was going to be an Olympic softball player. But later, when I retired from softball in 2007, I decided to give bobsled a try. I emailed the coach and got invited to Lake Placid for a tryout and I never left. — Elana Meyers

Despite their tremendous talent, (NBA players) are still, by and large, young adults, seeking validation from an authority figure, and there is no greater authority figure on a team than the coach. Needless to say, in today's warped, self-indulgent climate, too many players couldn't care less about appeasing the coach. — Phil Jackson

When everyone believes they are the life coaches, who are the players? — Criss Jami

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a coach. I had people telling me you can't do this, you're not a great player. Be realistic. When I got rejection letters from colleges where I wanted to coach, my mom would say, "You are going to make it someday. You have something special within you and that is your spirit for life which will help you get to the top." — Dick Vitale

But what I didnt want to have happen, and I made this clear to Jeremy (Florida AD), if I am able to go coach, I want to coach at one place, the University of Florida. It would be a travesty, it would be ridiculous to all of a sudden come back and get the feeling back, get the health back, feel good again and then all of a sudden go throw some other colors on my shirt and go coach? I dont want to do that. I have too much love for this University and these players and for what weve built. — Urban Meyer

Victories are a byproduct of a larger vision. It begins with a question:

How much do we owe one another?

Each coach's and player's individual answer is one of the building blocks of The Streak. De La Salle separates itself from the competition because everyone from the head coach to the least accomplished player on the roster is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to be their absolute best. — Neil Hayes

I am here to give my players the little push they need, just like they needed long ago, when first learning the art of the swing. All you needed then was a little push, and quickly you were pumping away, flying higher and higher, without any more help from the 'coach.' — John Kessel

Changing from a player to a coach, I felt like a mosquito in a nudist colony. I didn't know where to begin. — Pee Wee Reese

Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They're inches away. In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement ... — Andre Agassi

What I learned from directing, I learned from soccer, where it's like a coach-player relationship. — Sean Durkin

If you think about it, I've never held a job in my life. I went from being an NFL player to a coach to a broadcaster. I haven't worked a day in my life. — John Madden

Coaching is one thing and one thing only: It is creating an environment so the player has an opportunity to be successful That is your job as a coach. When you teach him to do that, get out of his way. — Chip Kelly

I'm a coach's coaching player. I like to be on the floor. So, if the coach tells me what to do out on the floor, I can get it done. I'm really comfortable being directed. — Kevin Costner

I feel I am a players' coach. The only thing that means is I care about my players more than anything. — Rex Ryan

I think every coach has to adapt to what they have, because they're what you get. You can't just go out to the player tree and pick all the great ones. That doesn't happen. You get a Barry Sanders every now and then. You get a Billy Sims every once in a while. And when you have it, you adapt to their strengths. Whoever comes in here and whoever has this job needs to adapt and will do that. — Matt Millen

A pitching coach is a manager's best friend. He's handling 12 out of the 25 players on the team. — Lou Piniella

Hockey and cooking are similar in so many ways, especially if you are a player-coach, the guy in charge on the ice, a role I would closely relate to that of a chef in the kitchen - they are both contact sports.

You've gotta keep your head up, keep moving and communicate well. Even though you might be the leader in the kitchen or on the ice, you need to understand that that you're part of a working machine and that machine stops working if one of the pieces isn't working in unison with the others. I learned from a very young age the importance of being part of this team dynamic and how hard work can take you to so many different places.

(Chef Duane Keller) — Chris Hill

You can be a top, top player for 10, 20 years, then you become a coach, lose two or three games and you're out. — Roger Milla

You can be harsh on your players and still coach, but it is easier when you are kind to them. — John Kessel

A coach's main job is to reawaken a spirit in which the players can blend together effortlessly. — Phil Jackson

You notice it with any organization that's had a lot of success: you will start to reach thinking, 'That's the player, that's the method, that's the mechanism, that's the coach, that's the thing that's going to put us over the top.' — Jeffrey Lurie

He hadn't developed into the accomplished running quarterback many had predicted he would become over the course of the season.

But he had come to personify this team. He was raw and untested when the season began, but he played his two best games in the two biggest games on the schedule. He wasn't the player anybody expected him to be, but he got the job done-at times spectacularly. — Neil Hayes

How can a coach have any influence over a player that's making over five times more than he is? — Hayden Fry

Having been in football all my life as a player and a coach and having been on the sideline, I think the closer we can get to bringing people what it's like standing and watching the game on the sideline, with a better view, would be the perfect situation for television football. — John Madden

My mental approach is totally different. My coach predicated everything on defense. He always talked about defense, defense, defense. I took it to heart that if you play defense, you can take the heart from an offensive player. — Eric Williams

I'm a really smart player. If you tell me something, I get it quickly. If there is something wrong with my hitting, tell me what's wrong and I'll pick it up right away. That's the best thing I have going for me, my ability to listen to a coach and fix what I'm doing wrong. — Albert Pujols

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

I would like to clarify one thing about the 1970 USC game. Talk about urban legend. There have been numerous stories and documentaries about Coach going to the USC dressing room after that game and bringing Sam Cunningham back into our locker room and saying, "This is what a real football player looks like." I was there and it didn't happen. It wasn't unusual for Coach Bryant to go to a visiting locker area after a game and congratulate the other team if they beat us and he did do that after the game. But he never brought anyone back to our dressing room. — Mal Moore With Steve Townsend

Why would you want to bring a foreign coach? Why? If you bring a foreign coach, you might as well bring foreign players, white players to play for Nigeria. If you bring a European coach, he should also bring oyinbo (white) players. That's how it is. — Stephen Keshi

Teamwork is the foundation of success. The three universal questions that an individual asks of his coach, player, employee, employer are: Can I trust you? Are you committed to excellence? And, do you care about me? — Lou Holtz

Making the effort to improve as a human being is what Coach Lombardi was all about. He was able to see the gap between where we were and what we could become-both as football players and as people. And he felt it was his God-given responsibility to close that gap. — Jerry Kramer

As a coach, I want players to challenge me, to question me and ask why we're doing a certain thing, so they feel that they're taking ownership. — Warren Gatland

You shouldn't try to play games with me because I'm not a player, I'm the coach."
~ Cane — Adriana Locke

I've been in just about every situation as a player and coach and manager. I've been in the playoffs, World Series, and I know how to get there. — Don Baylor

If I'm going to coach the players, I want some say on who they're going to be. — Red Auerbach

I begin to call Morrie "Coach," the way I used to address my high school track coach. Morrie likes the nickname. "Coach," he says. "All right, I'll be your coach. And you can be my player. You can play all the lovely parts of life that I'm too old for now. — Mitch Albom

The University of Houston has made an excellent choice by hiring Ron Hughey as its new women's basketball coach. Coach Hughey will bring an expertise and energy level to the program that will excite fans and put Houston Women's Basketball back on the map. Having watched him coach up close, I know his players will improve immensely and love learning from him. I look forward to following Houston Basketball in the years to come. — Mike Thibault

That was what made the story so epic: the player, the hero, had to suffer mightily en route to his final triumph. Schwartz knew that people loved to suffer, as long as the suffering made sense. Everybody suffered. The key was to choose the form of your suffering. Most people couldn't do this alone; they needed a coach. A good coach made you suffer in a way that suited you. A bad coach made everyone suffer in the same way, and so was more like a torturer. — Chad Harbach