Quotes by Basketball Coaches

I've been here so long . . . when I got here the Dead Sea wasn't even sick yet.
Wimp Sanderson
Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.
John Wooden
You know what they call the guy who finishes last in medical school? They call him Doctor!
Abe Lemons
You know what they call the guy who finishes last in medical school? They call him Doctor!
Abe Lemons
Don't let other people tell you what you want.
Pat Riley
I never took a position we were going to be a good ball club. I took the position we were going to be a winning ball club.
Red Auerbach
Look for your choices pick the best one then go with it.
Pat Riley
There are only two options regarding commitment. You're either in or out. There's no such thing as a life in between.
Pat Riley
And I would be the first to admit that probably, in a lot of press conferences over the time that I have been in coaching, indulging my own sense of humor at press conferences has not been greatly to my benefit.
Robert Montgomery Knight
Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.
Red Auerbach
If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.
Dean Smith
If you make every game a life-and-death thing, you’re going to have problems. You’ll be dead a lot.
Dean Smith
When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat. After a while it becomes more innovative in thinking up how to lose than thinnking up how to win.
Pat Riley
There's no such things as coulda, shoulda, woulda. If you shoulda and coulda, you woulda done it.
Pat Riley
You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.
John Wooden
Shout praise and whisper criticism.
Don Meyer
You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.
John Wooden
A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.
John Wooden
Someday, I suppose I’ll give up, and sit in the rocking chair. But I’ll probably be rocking fast, because I don’t know what I’ll do without a job.
Pat Summitt
Don’t be afraid to fail. The greatest failure of all is not to act when action is needed.
John Wooden
If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?
John Wooden
Do the next right thing and you'll be okay.
Coach Don Meyer
Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.
John Wooden
I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession.
John Wooden
Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.
John Wooden
When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.
John Wooden
Be quick, but don't hurry.
John Wooden
Who could better motivate Bill Russell than Bill Russell?
Red Auerbach
Humility is the true key to success. Successful people lose their way at times. They often embrace and overindulge from the fruits of success. Humility halts this arrogance and self-indulging trap. Humble people share the credit and wealth, remaining focused and hungry to continue the journey of success.
Rick Pitino
Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth.
Doc Rivers
There is a choice you have to make in everything you do. So keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you.
John Wooden
Be more concerned with character than reputation. Character is what you are, reputation is what people think you are.
John Wooden
Hard work guarantees you nothing, but without it you don't stand a chance
Pat Riley
Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books – especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.
John Wooden
‎"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.
John Wooden
My short-term factual memory can be like water; events are a brief disturbance on the surface and then it closes back up again, as if nothing ever touched it. But it’s a strange fact that my long-term memory remains strong, perhaps because it recorded events when my mind was unaffected. My emotional memory is intact too, perhaps because feelings are recorded and stored in a different place than facts. The things that happened deeper in the past, and deeper in the breast, are still there for me, under the water. I won 1,098 games, and eight national championships, and coached in four different decades. But what I see are not the numbers. I see their faces. 'Pat should get a tattoo!' The kids laughed. 'What kind should she get?' 'A heart. She should get a heart.' Little did they know. They are the tattoos.
Pat Summitt
God doesn’t take things away to be cruel. He takes things away to make room for other things. He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.
Pat Summitt
How many of us have conflicts with someone else- and how many of us pray for that person? We have individuals with whom we are competitive, or whom we dislike or have a quarrel with; but very few of us have true enemies in the martial sense. And yet if Lincoln could pray fervently- and contemporary reports indicate he did- for the people who were opposing him, how much more can we do for someone we just find a little irritating?
John Wooden
It is most difficult, in my mind, to separate any success, whether it bein your profession, your family, or as in my case, in basketball, fromreligion.
John Wooden
A leader who is through learning is through.
John Wooden
Reputation is what others perceive you as being, and their opinion may be right or wrong. Character, however, is what you really are, and nobody knows that but you.
John Wooden
Good values are like a magnet, they attract good people.
John Wooden
Remember, results aren't the criteria for success — it's the effort made for achievement that is most important.
John Wooden
Don't mistake activity with achievement.
John Wooden
Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating...too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.
John Wooden
If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you'll die a lot of times.
Dean Smith
In order to achieve positive results, one must work for them, not hope for them.
Bobby Knight
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
John Wooden
If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?
John Wooden
Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
John Wooden
My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.
Jim Valvano