Best Coaching Quotes

Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.

Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.

You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

You have no choices about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation.

I was supposed to be grateful because I one was one of the first African Americans coaching. I was supposed to sit there and say, ‘Oh, thank you Mr. White Man for giving me a job.’ God made me human and equal. Now I’m supposed to be grateful because you’re treating me equal and treating me as a human being? No.

Excellence happens when you try each day to both do and be, a little better than you were yesterday!

Commitment to the team – there is no such thing as in-between, you are either in our out.

You can never have enough talent.

I always say to my guys, ‘The most important day of your life is today. This very minute is the most important of you life. You must win this minute. You must win this day. And tomorrow will take care of itself.

Don’t try to imitate other coaches. Be your own person with your own style and do your own thing.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ ’em to play together is the hard part.

I’ve never felt my job was to win basketball games – rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.

I wrote a book on life coaching, because my life became my own reference point how to live.

The definition of courage is going from defeat to defeat with enthusiasm.

My final coaching point of the day: It’s my contention that in any given moment one lives one’s life in one of two ways, either under a threat or for a challenge. In performing when it counts, it’s one or the other, under a threat or for a challenge. If, as Einstein says, Imagination will take you everywhere, then living your life under a threat will take you nowhere.

Always acknowledge hustle plays in practice.

Prepare for every game like you just lost your last game.

Eventually I went back to high school. I went to a coaching center in my neighborhood. I had to leave the homeless situation because it was so bad and I knew that I was falling deeper and deeper.

Obviously I was disappointed when it fell into disuse, because it was my own track named after me, but I am sure all those youngsters we lost will be coming back, and I certainly intend to be down here as much as I can, coaching and advising.

We put a premium on knowing what the other team does. Then we try to take them out of it.

In the last few days when I was not even the manager of England my freedom was taken away from me and that is not the coaching I am used to.

This is the first time since I’ve been coaching that I gave them off on Christmas Day. Sometimes when you lose a game you want to get right back at it. But in reality I thank God we had an opportunity for our guys to be home with their families on Christmas.

It’s stressful to keep doing audition after audition after audition. You finish one and go to the next one, and you have to learn lines. For me, I have to work on my accent, so I was getting accent coaching and acting coaching. I wanted to make good impressions.

I learned early that if I wanted to achieve anything in life, I’d have to do it myself. I learned that I had to be accountable.

I did a few more plays, and then I went to L.A., because I knew I could get a coaching job there.

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.

The man above has given me some unbelievable abilities to play the game of basketball. I just try to take advantage of it every night. I got the trust of my teammates and my coaching staff to go in there and let it go.

Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing.

Offensively, you do what you do best and you do it again and again. Defensively, you attack your opponent’s strength.