Quotes & Sayings About Great Teams

Every season is so much different and you go through your ups and downs, you figure your team out, you get to play against great teams. Some of the best competition there's been since I've been in the league. Just every night, night in and night out we get to play against the top guys, the top teams. It's a lot of fun. — Blake Griffin

A great team doesn't mean that they had the smartest people. What made those teams great is that everyone trusted one another. It can be a powerful thing when that magic dynamic exists. — Gene Kim

As a player I won things, had a special 10 years under Martin O'Neill [at Leicester and Celtic] and played in some great teams, beating Manchester United and getting to the last 16 of the Champions League. As a manager, I don't know if I will top this; I hope I do, because I am still young and am still learning. But this is up there with anything I have achieved, not just in my football career but in my life. — Neil Lennon

D-Bo had a great game, so now a lot of teams, they're not sure what to do. They can't just key on me. They've got to key on both of us. D-Bo had a coming-out party. — Calvin Johnson

I developed an interest in major league baseball and the 1960s were, as far as I'm concerned (with a nod to the Babe Ruth era of the 1920s), the Golden Age of Baseball. Like most people in the valley, I was a diehard Yankees fan and, in a pinch, a Mets fan. They were New York teams, and most New Englanders rooted for the Boston Red Sox, but our end of Connecticut was geographically and culturally closer to New York than Boston, and that's where our loyalties went.
And what was not to love? The Yankees ruled the earth in those days. The great Roger Maris set one Major League record after another and even he was almost always one hit shy of Mickey Mantle, God on High of the Green Diamond. — John William Tuohy

I've done a number of things in the spirit of employee motivation. I tend to be a storyteller and a student of history. I often tell stories of great battles, like the battle of Thermopylae, to inspire teams who face what appear to be insurmountable odds. — Brad D. Smith

You don't have to be best friends as basketball players but I do believe in chemistry. I think it makes everything different if a team is really together and they're all on that same page. They might not like each other, per se, but if you're on the same page and the chemistry is there, you can play great basketball. You can go back to teams like Detroit, the Bad Boys. Those guys had great chemistry, that's why they won. — Dwight Howard

It wasn't like it is now. But for the types of teams we had, the fans were very good here. On some Thursday afternoon games, we'd get 25,000 fans. That was remarkable. This has always been a great Red Sox city. — Curt Gowdy

This city has two great teams - Liverpool and Liverpool reserves. — Bill Shankly

Mediocre products with great sales teams always beat great products with mediocre sales teams. — Donal Daly

Great players and great teams want to be driven. They want to be pushed to the edge. They don't want to be cheated. Ordinary players and average teams want it to be easy — Pat Riley

That's one of the great oddities of baseball: Success is relative. A hitter who fails 70 percent of the time at the plate is a potential member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and many World Championship teams lose more than 70 games during their title-winning seasons. — Don Yaeger

[Wayne Rooney] has to be viewed as a great England striker if he breaks Sir Bobby Charlton's record. Scoring goals at international level is much more difficult than it was a few years back because even the lesser teams are well organised and don't concede too many goals these days. — Michael Owen

When I played at Minnesota, Green Bay, those northern cities, Buffalo, they wanted to have those championship games at home. It was going to be an advantage to be there with their fans and the cold weather and all that. But when you've got a Super Bowl, and it's the two best teams, you want ideal conditions. You want to play a great game. — Tony Dungy

Every profession has changed. Journalism has changed. Medicine has changed. Technology has changed and it evolves. The same is true of football. Free agency has now allowed teams to be a dynasty as they have been before. It is not a great thing for the fans, but it is a good thing for the players. — Marv Levy

My father was a really good athlete, so his pop-ups really were sky high. Eventually I learned how to judge them properly and catch them well. It was great training for when I started to play on teams, which I did all through school. — Artie Lange

These are the highlights in a lifetime of following sports. Hilarity. The most sheer fun I ever had in sports was playing volleyball, a game I commend highly ... if you have ever seen the great women s teams of Japan and Russia or the equally good men's teams of Cuba and East Germany, you know how exciting this playground game, which requires so little equipment, can be. — James A. Michener

Great teams work harder after a tough loss. — Ron Brown

The team architecture means setting up an organization that helps people produce that great work in teams. — Jay Chiat

I strongly believe in the fact
that there's still plenty of money and plenty of private equity capital
available around the globe. What are in short supply are great entrepreneurs
and great teams. A trading opportunity or a company's biggest
challenge is and has always been the team behind it. There's enormous
change under way in every facet of the world. Some is technology
driven, some is market driven. All that change creates unprecedented
opportunity, but to take full advantage of such opportunities I mostly
focus on the team. The right teams and right people behind those
opportunities always win. There is no secret sauce. Trading and investing
has, in my experience, boiled down to building relationships and
exchanging value. It consists of striking the right balance between
backing and interacting with the right teams with the right business
model at the right time and with the right amount of money. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

Look at great teams like Detroit a couple of years ago; they win the Stanley Cup and guys only score 25 goals, nobody has a really big season. — Peter Bondra

When part of this ecosystem was lacking, such as for John Atanasoff at Iowa State or Charles Babbage in the shed behind his London home, great concepts ended up being consigned to history's basement. And when great teams lacked passionate visionaries, such as Penn after Mauchly and Eckert left, Princeton after von Neumann, or Bell Labs after Shockley, innovation slowly withered. — Walter Isaacson

When you think about great teams, The Beatles and the Pythons immediately spring to mind. The Pythons were as much a part of their time as The Beatles. — Robyn Hitchcock

This may sound arrogant, but I believe that if we'd done teamship better, we'd still be there. Where we fell down was the inability to hold together. We should have learnt from the great football teams. The players may not like each other. They have egos, they have their own ambitions, they have different personalities, but they are still bloody good teams. — Alastair Campbell

Great teams have players who understand their responsibilities. — Bruce Brown

Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal. — Patrick Lencioni

One of London's massive strengths is its sporting prowess, its great football teams. — George Osborne

We don't sell a car, we sell a dream. We are Italy's national team. There are many great soccer teams in our country, but there is only one Ferrari. — Luca Cordero Di Montezemolo

They need to do two things if they're going to be great and win a championship: take the ball away and keep teams out of the end zone. You have those two things, that's the recipe for a championship. — Willie McGinest

Anytime you've got an opportunity to play for your country and win a gold medal, I think that takes it all. That's the greatest thing you could ever achieve in your sport. So, I have been very fortunate to play on great teams, but the gold medal was probably the best. — Larry Bird

Nobody achieves anything great by giving the minimum. No teams win championships without making sacrifices and giving their best. — John C. Maxwell

Some sports teams hate each other in the locker room and that's what makes them great. — Ira Kaplan

The Florida State League was considered the top A-league back then. You played in the spring training parks of major league teams, traveled throughout some great cities in Florida, and the pay was the best in A-ball. — Jim Evans

We are all going to fall short. We are going to have some bitter losses, very painful defeats and failures. We have to use those to come back even stronger. That's what makes it sweeter, when we can overcome those and figure out a way to win. The great teams can do that, and those are the gold medal winning teams. — Karch Kiraly

When you ask people what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It becomes quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest. — Peter Senge

I won eight Stanley Cups as a player, and I've been told it's because I played on great teams. I won two as a general manager, and I've been told it's because I was lucky. — Serge Savard

Great teams always have a Plan B. Look at Barcelona. Their Plan B is to stick to Plan A — Johnny Giles

Any team can be a miracle team. The catch is that you have got to go out and work for your miracles. Effort is what ultimately separates great teams from ordinary teams. — Pat Riley

Be more loving. Great teams are built by authentic leaders who are not afraid to speak truthfully and show kindness. This is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength. — Robin S. Sharma

I've got some other great teammates like Dallas Robinson and Johnny Quinn on the men's side who have been tremendous at showing Christ's love. It's not just the US teams, but there are also many believers from the international community including several from the Canadian team. We hope to grow Christianity throughout our sport. — Elana Meyers

The infantryman slithers in the mud, while many teams of horses are needed to drag each gun forward. All wheeled vehicles sink up to their axles in the slime. Even tractors can only move with great difficulty. A large portion of our heavy artillery was soon stuck fast ... The strain that all this caused our already exhausted troops can perhaps be imagined. — Gunther Blumentritt

He could not have got through the Sierra Nevada if she had not been sending him men and digging teams to level the road for him. No one else could have driven a road through there. He would have trusted no one else to support him, to hold the kingdom together as he pushed forwards. She could have conquered the mountains for no one else; he was the only one that could have attracted her support. What looked like a remarkable unity of two calculating players was deceptive - it was their passion which they played out on the political stage. She was a great queen because that was how she could evoke his desire. He was a great general in order to match her. It was their love, their lust, which drove them; almost as much as God. — Philippa Gregory

When football stars disappear, so do the teams, and that is a very curious phenomenon. It is like in the theatre, in a play, where there is a great star. If the star is not well, the whole cast suffers. — Pele

Great leaders are paradoxical. They catalyze, rather control, the work of their teams. They have an overarching vision for the team but are not autocratic in the realization of this vision. Their eyes are open to whatever results occur-not just planned goals, because serendipity is a great innovator. — Guy Kawasaki

Part of being able to make great decisions around that and to really grow a business and scale a business, it also comes down to people. I spend a lot of time building teams at both businesses - both The Trump Organization and my own - and thinking about who to hire to supplement the team and allow us to best achieve our goals. — Ivanka Trump

I think one of the great things about a football season is that you see teams play in all types of environments, and if you can't handle one of them, you probably don't deserve to win anyway. — Bill Simmons

You've got to be extremely careful, because you could be with a great team, and you could be the product of a great team. There are some players that stand out despite the teams that they play on, and there are some players that are good because of the team that they're with. — Marcus Allen

Individuals don't build great companies, teams do. — Mark Suster

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

Life is short, youth is finite, and opportunities endless. Have you found the intersection of your passion and the potential for world-shaping positive impact? If you don't have a great idea of your own, there are plenty of great teams that need you - unknown startups and established teams in giant companies alike. — Justin Rosenstein

On good teams coaches hold players accountable, on great teams players hold players accountable — Joe Dumars

I've got such great people around me. They don't really care if they make me angry. A lot of teams, they're afraid to make the artist angry, because they don't want to get fired and all that stuff. My team's pretty good about letting me know when to get in line. — Justin Bieber

Basketball Rule #6
A great team
has a good scorer
with a teammate
who's on point
and ready
to assist. — Kwame Alexander

I think that a lot of players and a lot of teams don't think of contact lenses as being a part of that essential gear but it truly is. You want every competitive advantage you can find and obviously having great vision is one of those advantages. — Heather O'Reilly

Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We. — Phil Jackson

The ultimate test of a great team is results. And considering that tens of thousands of people escaped from the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., there can be no doubt that the teams who risked, and lost, their lives to save them were extraordinary. — Patrick Lencioni

The fixed-mindset premise that great geniuses do not need great teams. They just need little helpers to carry out their brilliant ideas. — Carol S. Dweck

I think there's an awful lot of ball players with great skills, but whether or not they're going to be on winning teams is not going to be answered until you see how they fit in to a team or a program. If they don't, it may be their fault or it may be their coaches. — Tex Winter

George watches a dog cross the square through the noise and stop to sniff at something then amble off again as if nothing unusual is happening, so maybe something like this just happens here every week. Then, above the heads of everyone in the city, above the highest-tossed of the flags, church bells here and there announce midnight and as if they've been enchanted the next team after that to do a routine does it without drums and bugles but with its musicians humming instead, in tuneful voices and with a gentleness that seems sweet and absurd after the great din of the teams that have gone before. If only all ceremonials and pomp got hummed like that, her mother says. — Ali Smith

You've got to give great tools to small teams. Pick good people, use small teams and give them great tools so that they are very productive in terms of what they are doing. — Bill Gates

You learn from everybody. You learn from the players. You learn from great coaches. You learn from great teams — Tom Thibodeau

For our teams that do great work, we have a tradition of giving Rolex watches. If you see all the key guys with their Rolexes, that's sort of our Medal of Honor if you do something big. — Ross Perot Jr.

Like great teams in sports and business endeavors, if there's a chemistry among the participants, and they truly enjoy fellowship together, everybody wants to be there, stay involved, and just have fun together. — Ed Greenwood

The great teams find a way to win. — Allan Ray

Humility is what makes teams great. I've preached it for a long period of time. — Rick Pitino

To be a great game, one of the teams has to score first. — Mark Lawrenson

The real good teams and the real great teams find a way to win. — Allan Ray

Why are there no great women artists?' sounds as ignorant of human geography as the query 'Why are there no Eskimo tennis teams? — Francine Du Plessix Gray

But the truly ambitious teams find relief in honesty when they've lost, because it's the diagnostic tool that leads to a solution - here's what we did wrong and let's fix it, so we don't ever have to feel this way again. Great teams explain their failure; they don't excuse it. Then they pay a visit to Charles Atlas and get stronger. When you explain a loss aloud, it's no longer a tormenting mystery. I believed in that brand of honesty my whole career, and I knew at least one other coach who believed in it too. — Pat Summitt

Great creative teams are diverse. They are composed of very different sorts of people with different but complementary talents. — Ken Robinson

It's a great start, but we have a tough group: we have big teams like Denmark, Armenia and Serbia, so starting here gives us a good opportunity to fight until the end. — Lorik Cana

The spirit of the Olympic movement is great for young people because it teaches them about the training and discipline required to compete. Even if they don't make the teams, they can rededicate their lives to the art of sport, discipline, and physical fitness. — Richard M. Daley

The key is having great players. But there are a lot of teams that have All-Stars and haven't been able to put it together. — Mark Cuban

I've been fortunate over the years to have been on good teams and as a result I've been able to score some goals but I wouldn't say I'm great at it. — Jeff Cunningham

I think there's a lot of different ways to win. You've seen teams that win championships with a super-duper star like Kobe Bryant. Those championship teams with Michael Jordan certainly had a great, great player. — Doug Collins

I've been real fortunate to be on a lot of great teams. — Ed Belfour

The key to long term success in the marketplace is to build relationships & acquire leadership skills that can build great teams. — JR

Teams that are moved by great purpose become tighter still when things are tough. — Eric Greitens

Leo [Messi] is the best player of all time - better than Pele, Maradona or Cruyff. There have been some great teams in history - Pele's Brazil, Cruyff's Ajax, Sacchi's Milan - but in the past 20 years this Barcelona team is the best. — Xavi

A lot of TV is put together by teams, by writing staffs and several different directors. It's a great, very smart way to make television. It's worked for however long TV's been around. — Louis C.K.

Good teams beat you with speed. Great teams beat you with spacing and timing. — Jason Kidd

Given the challenges and adversity we face in business and life today, Jon Gordon provides a clear road map to navigate the negativity and pitfalls that too often sabotage individual and team success as he shines a light on the truths that define great leaders, great teams, and great energy. I especially loved the part about leading with purpose. I consider this a valuable book for anyone looking to bring out the best in themselves and their team. — Tom Gegax

It's funny, because when I went down to the combine for the interviews with teams, Charles Haley is the name that came up a lot as a comparison to the way I play. A lot of people said that I reminded them of him, and that's a great honor. — Justin Tuck

When the Knicks won the championship in 1970, our fans rallied behind us and became our sixth man because they saw a group of five distinct personalities come together and play as one seamless unit. Winning takes a game plan and that's where a great coach comes in. He has to have the vision. He has to be the architect and design a particular style of play that his players can work together and excel at. The great Celtics teams that won 11 championships in the span of 13 seasons ( 1957-69) never changed their system. They played the same game regardless of who their cast was. — Walt Frazier

Great teams make clear and timely decisions and move forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team, even those who voted against the decision. They leave meetings confident that no one on the team is quietly harboring doubts about whether to support the actions agreed on. — Patrick Lencioni

Great teams are usually small-under fifty in total head count. (There are few examples of a team made up of hundreds of people who created anything revolutionary.) Big teams aren't conducive to revolutionary products because such products require a high degree of single-mindedness, unity, and unreasonable passion. — Guy Kawasaki

Great teams are not made up of many well-rounded players. Great teams are made up of a variety of players, each having their own strengths. — Pele

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

For many years, Darrel Royal was the football coach for the University of Texas at Austin. They always had great teams and winning records. Sometimes, however, when they won a close game, a sportswriter would suggest that while the Longhorns were skilled, they had been lucky on that day. Hearing it one time too often, Coach Royal finally said, "Luck is partly the residue of design, the simple act of being prepared for luck when it arrives." And there is something else to luck, Royal said - luck follows speed. Move, and luck finds you. Move quickly, and it finds you more often. — Mac Anderson

A baseball manager recognizes a nonphysical talent, hustle, as an essential gift of great players and great teams. It is the characteristic of running faster than necessary, moving sooner than necessary, trying harder than necessary. It is essential for great programming teams, too. — Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

Budgets may count Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs), but great teams count on people. — Johanna Rothman

If there is delay in getting culling teams out, delay in any part of the chain, even weeks, that could have great implications for the virus to spread. — David Nabarro

All we do is sign great teams, and stay out of the way. The rest will take care of itself. — Mike Wilson

Throughout my career, I was blessed with great teams and great teammates. — Roger Craig

It's going to be crazy. All eight teams here are good teams. Hopefully the atmosphere will be great because it's going to be great basketball. — Chris Kraus

In great teams, conflict becomes productive. The free flow of conflicting ideas is critical for creative thinking, for discovering new solutions no one individual would have come to on his own. — Peter Senge

Great execution. That's what you have to do when you're playing great teams. — Tracy McGrady

When I'm playing the 1-guard, teams do a great job of just loading up and preparing for my drives and preparing for my three-point shots. — Kyrie Irving

When you ask people about what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It becomes quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways to recapture that spirit. — Peter M. Senge

- As the poet Hebbel noted, "Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion." Executives know their development teams need to be passionate about their projects; otherwise, the projects and the company will remain mediocre. — Anonymous