Coach And 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 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

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

I'm just thrilled for so many people. Our players, mostly, but the people in our organization - Rick Welts, Joe Lacob and Peter Guber and the whole group. It's just a phenomenal group of people. I think as a coach you just appreciate kind of the big picture a little bit more. — Steve Kerr

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

To have harmony on a team, you need a coach who can get inside the head of every player and get them all pulling in one direction. — Jerry West

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

You can never guarantee the wins but you can guarantee that you give it 100%. That way you can always look back and feel comfortable, as a player or a coach. — Ivan Lendl

It has been an honour to be the coach of the best player (Messi) I have ever seen and probably the best I will see. — Pep Guardiola

Coach Henley gave his whistle two short blasts to get the team moving. The Westerly Women ambled over and formed a half circle. The Mothers stamped their feet on the bleachers, trying to build excitement for a game that would unfold with the same painful drama as a mime's funeral. The opposing team hadn't even bothered to warm up. Their shortest player was six feet tall — Karin Slaughter

As a coach, your high standards of performance, attention to detail and - above all - how hard you work set the stage for how your players perform. — Don Shula

I was always making decisions and they were easier decisions because I had control of the game, I had control of the ball. As a coach you sort of put the ball in other player's hands and let them make decisions for you. But I still get a kick out of winning basketball games and that's what I'm in this for. — Larry Bird

I dictate entirely how the team is prepared, and I am a hands-on coach; I love to be out there with the players taking the sessions. — Brendan Rodgers

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

I think my broadcast partner Mike Gorman said it best. He said there's a generation of fans who know me as a player and there's a generation of fans who know me as a coach and now there's a generation of fans who think I'm Shrek! — Tom Heinsohn

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

As a coach, one thing that used to frustrate me was one player would make a bad decision, and that's all you would read about in the papers all over the country. We have so many athletes do so many wonderful things for other people, and you never read about it. — Lou Holtz

You see the assets of your actors and you see their strengths and you try to play into them. It's like I feel part of my job is as a coach. I'm putting a team on the field and you want to formulate how to make the best game out of these players. — James Mangold

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

I think my history as a coach shows I like players who are gifted technically and have courage when it comes to being in possession of a football. That is a key quality for me. — Brendan Rodgers

My school was 17 years as a player and another 16 watching more games probably than any coach has - all over the world, all systems. I couldn't go to school and write it down for people who are far less experienced, telling me what to do and how to do it. — Andy Gray

I want to say congratulations to Cleveland and Coach Blatt. LeBron is an incredible player. — Steve Kerr

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

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

I probably would have no capability of absorbing a 60-defeat season as a coach. It would be a foreign experience. My whole career, even as a player, has been on winning basketball clubs and it just seems to have been a part of the make-up of what's been given me. That's what I've been given and that's what I've had to deal with. Some people can make fun of it or some people can have a good time with it, or some people can resent it. It's just what it is. — Phil Jackson

I feel blessed that I had an opportunity to be in the Big Ten for four years as a player and be in the Big Ten as a coach for eight years. To get 12 years in a conference like the Big Ten - it's a first-class league with great towns and great fans. — Steve Alford

I'm not the kind of coach who just goes out and buys players for the sake of it. I'm a coach who wants to - and can - improve players. — Louis Van Gaal

My standards are so high because of who I serve but it doesn't put any water on my fire for winning. I'm still an intense person. You can be intense and saved. You can compete and still be saved. You can challenge a guy and still be saved. There was nothing soft about me as a player and there isn't anything soft about me as a coach. You want to be a man of integrity and you want the players to know that you care about them. Whether or not they still like you or not is a whole other deal. — Avery Johnson

Players have to buy into your system and be willing to accept the role, you, as the coach, have assigned to them — Chuck Daly

Coaching doesn't start with X's and O's. It starts with believing that players win games and coaches win players. — Bill Courtney

If there is something a coach might wish to see changed in a player or team, the first place to check and see if it could not be done better is in yourself. — John Kessel

But something magical happened to me when I went to Reardan.
Overnight I became a good player.
I suppose it had something to do with confidence. I mean, I'd always been the lowest Indian on the reservation totem pole - I wasn't expected to be good so I wasn't. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. And so I became good.
I wanted to live up to the expectations.
I guess that's what it comes down to.
The power of expectations.
And as they expected more of me, I expected more of myself, and it just grew and grew. — Sherman Alexie

It's just a natural progression. You're a player, then you're a coach, then you're general manager for the team, and then the next logical step for me and you would be [to become] team owner. — Zakk Wylde

I think my father is probably the best coach ever because if we talk about numbers, he's got a lot and he's only had two players. — Serena Williams

If you lose, it's the coach's fault and if you win, the players are credible, they are indispensable, so whatever happens it's going to be the coach. — Stephen Keshi

If I let him walk away now, we'll forever be a "just"; Just hockey player and skating coach. Just music swappers. Just friends. A not-quite-almost whose time passed through as quickly as the train, fading into the distance before it even had a real chance at staying, at becoming something more, because I didn't speak up. — Sarah Ockler

That's what we really mean by being feared on the football field. And not actually the player that fears him, it's the offensive coordinator that fears him or the running backs coach. — Jamal Lewis

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

I hope somebody falls in love with me - other than my fiancee. But that's what you want. As a player you want a team that really wants you; head coach, GM, owner, everybody that really wants you in their place and the players believe in you. I'm looking forward to making somebody fall in love with me. — Robert Griffin III

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

You're always trying to motivate your players. There's a time and a place for a speech that would try to motivate your players, especially if as a coach you knew that the cards were stacked against you a little bit. — Vince Kehres

I had a coach that was not a great player, but he taught with kids and juniors so that by the time he was 50 he was great. He helped me make the top 5 in the world and yet he wasn't a great player himself. — Guy Forget

I go out there with whatever the coaches call, and whatever they do, I just go out there, and I'm the player. Coaches coach, and players play. — Wes Welker

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

The wise coach takes all the heat when his players lose, and gives them all the credit when they win. — John Kessel

If you strut around like peacocks-I'm a De La Salle football player-you're going to struggle. Get that out of your heads. You have to earn that, and you earn it week to week with consistency, mental toughness, focus, the grind and the grittiness of it. I don't know if you're earning it or not. We'll find out in the game... -Coach Ladouceur — Neil Hayes

Morale - the will to win, the fighting heart - are the honored hallmarks of the football coach and player. Likewise, they are characteristic of the enterprising executive, the successful troop leader, the established artist and the dedicated teacher and scientist. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since the most important responsibility of a coach in regard to the actual playing of the game is to teach his players properly and effectively to execute the various fundamentals of the game, he is first of all a teacher. — John Wooden

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 coach can't be concerned with the poor ballplayer. If the player can't make it, he's got to be out right away. It's a very tough aspect of coaching, and in this aspect I was weak. Also, some guys get fat on coaching, they get healthy and strong, but other guys get ulcers. — John McNally

How it works is you have an organization that provides you with players, and our job, as we've said all along, is just to coach 'em up. — Randy Carlyle

In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life - or at least the way life should be. — Lou Holtz

Practices should be for the players and not the coach. Practices should be fun for the players, positive in nature, and last no more than two hours. — Norm Sloan

I suppose I might be a player-coach nowadays. I'm a great teacher, and I enjoy teaching. But I'm glad I got injured and ended up turning to cooking. It was an accident but the happiest one of my life. — Gordon Ramsay

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

After a while, your coaching development ceases to be about finding newer ways to organize practice. In other words, you soon stop collecting drills. Your development as a coach shifts to observing how great coaches teach, motivate, lead, and drive players to performances at higher and higher levels — Anson Dorrance

I grew up in Arkansas and that's the law. My dad was a high school basketball coach, so I was raised as a coach's son and I was a baseball player back in Arkansas, and I lived in Texas, too, so I was just surrounded by sports. So that's what I was going to do: Pitch for the St Louis Cardinals. I had no idea I was going to be an actor. So I got my collar bone broken in the Kansas City Royals training camp. And once I got hurt I started doing other things for a while. — Billy Bob Thornton

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

A system depends on the players you have. I played 4-3-3 with Ajax, 2-3-2-3 with Barcelona and a 4-4-2 with AZ. I'm flexible. The philosophy stays the same though. I don't think that you can adapt it to every possible situation. You need the right mindset, and it depends on how the players see the coach and vice versa. The coach is the focal point of the team but you need to have an open mind, and so do all the players. Everyone needs to work together to achieve a common goal. — Louis Van Gaal

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

I've put in 63 years now in the big leagues as a player, coach, manager. And now just being around these young guys, it keeps you going pretty good. — Red Schoendienst

We ask these players to do some very difficult things, for the team, the coaching staff, the school - at risk of injury. And when they do those things, I feel as if I'm in their debt. It's an honor to coach those guys. I want to be of service to them. — Les Miles

Overnight, I became a good player. I suppose it had something to do with confidence. I mean, I'd always been the lowest Indian on the reservation totem pole - I wasn't expected to be good so I wasn't. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. And so I became good. I wanted to live up to expectations. I guess that's what it comes down to. The power of expectations. pg 181 — Sherman Alexie

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

The best thing that a coach can have is experience. The first time that you're going out to lead a team on the field, you have certainly thought about what you're going to say, but it gets easier as you go. You'll learn what works and what doesn't, not just about what you do on the field but what you say to players to get them motivated. — Vince Kehres

I think coaching is confused at times as being an arrow that only goes to a player. Those players send arrows back to you, and that's where a relationship is developed. I don't make a player, and a player doesn't make me a coach. We make each other. — Mike Krzyzewski

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

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