Quotes on Basketball

Courage gives a leader the ability to stand straight and not sway, no matter which way the wind blows.

When we're playing a good scoring center, we tell our team that it is not our defensive man's job to stop the center. It's the responsibility of our perimeter people to stop the ball from going inside.

You have to learn what makes this or that Sammy run. For one it's a pat on the back, for another it's eating him out, for still another it's a fatherly talk, or something else. You're a fool if you think as I did as a young coach, that you can treat them all alike.

If the only reason I coached was to win basketball games, my life would be pretty shallow

You don't just be a team. You become a team. Through tough games you find that you need each other

Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

Becoming number one is easier than remaining number one.

Every time I was playing basketball, I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't realize that feeling was having to leave my family - having to leave my sister, who can't even communicate with me when I'm gone.

It is wise to direct your anger towards problems - not people; to focus your energies on answers - not excuses.

Practice habits were crucial to my development in basketball. I didn't play against the toughest competition in high school, but one reason I was able to do well in college was that I mastered the fundamentals. You've got to have them down before you can even think about playing.

Failure, to me, is not having the desire to try. Having the desire to try is in it own way success.

The WNBA changed the equation for a young female broadcaster who wanted nothing more than to remain close to the game, and call basketball games.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.

It doesn't matter if you win as long as you give everything in your heart

You have so much fun playing games. We all love basketball, so we never want the season to end, 'cause then it's five months of sitting around and watching the playoffs.

Being afraid on the court, means you're not confident of your skills

Champions behave like champions before they are champions

Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.

The old lessons (work, self-discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, fighting to achieve) aren't being taught by many people other than football coaches these days. The football coach has a captive audience and can teach these lessons because the communication lines between himself and his players are more wide open than between kids and parents. We better teach these lessons or else the country's future population will be made up of a majority of crooks, drug addicts, or people on relief.

At 49, I can say something I never would have said when I was a player. I am a better person because of my failures and disgraces.

I've always tried to coach people the way I would like to be coached; positively and encouragingly rather than with criticism and fear ... I've tried to be as fair as possible.