OUR FAVORITE COACHING Quotes

“Simple, clear principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.”

– Dee Hock

“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”

– Mia Hamm

“A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on the x’s and o’s and as compared to time spent learning about people.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.”

– John Wooden

“I’ve never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline.”

– Vince Lombardi

“The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching.”

– Anson Dorrance

“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

– James Allen

“In leadership, there are no words more important than trust. In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team if success is going to be achieved.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions. Not me. I don’t want to be a manager or a dictator. I want to be a leader and leadership is ongoing, adjustable, flexible, and dynamic. As such, leaders have to maintain a certain amount of discretion.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“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.”

– Howard Wasdin

“You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.”

– John Addison

“The mind is the athlete; the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further, or box better.”

– Bryce Courtenay

“Leaders have to give time for relationships. But more demands will be placed on their time as they become more successful. So if a persons success is based on developing relationships, then they have to continually find new ways of getting it done.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“I always won in my imagination. I always hit the game-winning shot, or I hit the free throw. Or if I missed, there was a lane violation, and I was given another one.”

– Mike Krzyzweski

“Confrontation simply means meeting the truth head-on.”

– Mike Krzyzweski

“My assistants and I often would spend more time planning a practice than the actual practice itself.”

– John Wooden

“Thirdly—but not lastly—there was the bias toward what people saw with their own eyes, or thought they had seen. The human mind played tricks on itself when it relied exclusively on what it saw. There was a lot you couldn’t see when you watched a game.”

– Michael Lewis

“Competition is key to developing players. The only practice environment in which you truly develop a player is a competitive arena.”

– Anson Dorrance

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

MOTIVATIONal quotes

“There are two great days in a person’s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why.”

– William Barclay

“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”

– Lou Holtz

“Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing. You don’t do things right once in a while you do them right all the time.”

– Vince Lombardi

“We do not win championships with girls. We win with competitors.”

– Patt Summitt

“If there is a defining aspect of UNC women’s soccer, and its success, it is what we call the competitive cauldron. It is the pinnacle of our program. The great part about the cauldron is that it fosters a quality we can all possess. It isn’t talent we are born with. Competitive drive is not governed by innate ability, but by self-discipline and desire.”

– Anson Dorrance

“Confrontation simply means meeting the truth head-on.”

– Mike Krzyzweski

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

“The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching.”

– Anson Dorrance

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

– Bill Gates

“Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself.”

– W.C. Doane

“If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.”

– Roopleen

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”

– Lou Holtz

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

– Windston Churchill

“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

– James Allen

“Competition is key to developing players. The only practice environment in which you truly develop a player is a competitive arena.”

– Anson Dorrance

“Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference.”

– Lou Holtz

RELATIONSHIPS

“You have to work hard at staying in contact with your friends so that the relationships will continue and live on. Friendships, along with love, make life worth living.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on the x’s and o’s and as compared to time spent learning about people.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn’t make your house look any better.”

– Lou Holtz

“If I was renowned as as tough coach, I also wanted to be a caring one.”

– Patt Summitt

“Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.”

– John Wooden

“Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.”

– Margaret J. Wheatley

“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Leaders have to give time for relationships. But more demands will be placed on their time as they become more successful. So if a persons success is based on developing relationships, then they have to continually find new ways of getting it done.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

PREPARATION

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

– Abraham Lincoln

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

– Michael Jordan

“I am building a fire, and everyday I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match.”

– Mia Hamm

“My assistants and I often would spend more time planning a practice than the actual practice itself.”

– John Wooden

“A volleyball game is like chopping down a tree. You don’t win with one big swing of the ax. You win with lots and lots of good swings of the ax.”

– Carl McGown

“The essence of the best thinking in the area of time management (practice planning) can be captured in a single phrase: Organize and execute around priorities.”

– Stephen R. Covey

“If you had to do one exercise every day….my recommendation is to get a ball and play some kid in the neighborhood one on one. Thatís going to develop you….if another kid shows up, show a little spunk and play íem both.”

– Anson Dorrance

“The key is not the will to win… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”

– Bobby Knight

“I try to see each new season as a new challenge because I have a new team to work with, new opponents to encounter, and often new ideas and theories to try.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“The structure of your practice is the main reason for your success or lack of success as a coach”

– Bobby Knight

“Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character.”

– T. Alan Armstrong

“For me, winning isn’t something that happens suddenly on the field when the whistle blows and the crowds roar. Winning is something that builds physically and mentally every day that you train and every night that you dream.”

– Emmitt Smith

“It isn’t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough, is being good every day”

– Willie Mays

MENTAL TOUGHNESS

“The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.”

– Vince Lombardi

“Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.”

– Bobby Knight

“Giving yourself permission to lose guarantees a loss.”

– Pat Riley

“Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.”

– Roopleen

“Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.”

– Bill Russell

“The strongest people aren’t always the people who win, but the people who don’t give up when they lose.”

– Ashley Hodgeson

“People think SEALs are cold-blooded, heartless, wound-up, brainwashed killers. They imagine you can just point a SEAL in a direction and say, ‘Go kill.’ The truth is you’re talking about a bunch of kind-hearted, jovial guys. The only thing that separates them is mental toughness.”

– Howard Wasdin

“Don’t tell your problems to people: eighty percent don’t care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.”

– Lou Holtz

“I always won in my imagination. I always hit the game-winning shot, or I hit the free throw. Or if I missed, there was a lane violation, and I was given another one.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“Every cell in your body is listening to your thoughts.”

– Carl McGown

“When I’m in my groove there is no thinking. Everything just happens.”

– Ozzie Smith

“Winning and losing are both very temporary things. Having done one or the other, you move ahead. Gloating over a victory or sulking over a loss is a good way to stand still.”

– Chuck Knox

“For me, losing a tennis match isn’t failure, it’s research.”

– Billie Jean King

“You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.”

– John Addison

“The most important attribute a player must have is mental toughness.”

– Mia Hamm

“With confidence, you have won even before you have started.”

– Marcus Garvey

“I think it’s the mark of a great player to be confident in tough situations.”

– John McEnroe

“Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary.”

– Ray Knight

“Mastery of thought and emotion is the key to all winning!”

– George Zalucki

“You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.”

– John Addison

“We become what we think about all day long.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My brother was a huge Charles Barkley fan – my brother went to Miami. He played power forward, and he always used to tell me stories about Barkley and college. And I watched Barkley growing up. I loved what he brought to the game. His toughness and just his attitude, being as strong he was.”

MENTAL TOUGHNESS

“The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.”

– Vince Lombardi

“Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.”

– Bobby Knight

“Giving yourself permission to lose guarantees a loss.”

– Pat Riley

“Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.”

– Roopleen

“Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.”

– Bill Russell

“The strongest people aren’t always the people who win, but the people who don’t give up when they lose.”

– Ashley Hodgeson

“People think SEALs are cold-blooded, heartless, wound-up, brainwashed killers. They imagine you can just point a SEAL in a direction and say, ‘Go kill.’ The truth is you’re talking about a bunch of kind-hearted, jovial guys. The only thing that separates them is mental toughness.”

– Howard Wasdin

“Don’t tell your problems to people: eighty percent don’t care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.”

– Lou Holtz

“I always won in my imagination. I always hit the game-winning shot, or I hit the free throw. Or if I missed, there was a lane violation, and I was given another one.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“Every cell in your body is listening to your thoughts.”

– Carl McGown

“When I’m in my groove there is no thinking. Everything just happens.”

– Ozzie Smith

“Winning and losing are both very temporary things. Having done one or the other, you move ahead. Gloating over a victory or sulking over a loss is a good way to stand still.”

– Chuck Knox

“For me, losing a tennis match isn’t failure, it’s research.”

– Billie Jean King

“You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.”

– John Addison

“The most important attribute a player must have is mental toughness.”

– Mia Hamm

“With confidence, you have won even before you have started.”

– Marcus Garvey

“I think it’s the mark of a great player to be confident in tough situations.”

– John McEnroe

“Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary.”

– Ray Knight

“Mastery of thought and emotion is the key to all winning!”

– George Zalucki

“You’ve got to win in your mind before you win in your life.”

– John Addison

“We become what we think about all day long.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My brother was a huge Charles Barkley fan – my brother went to Miami. He played power forward, and he always used to tell me stories about Barkley and college. And I watched Barkley growing up. I loved what he brought to the game. His toughness and just his attitude, being as strong he was.”

– Paul Pierce

LEADERSHIP

“Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I don’t look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“In leadership, there are no words more important than trust. In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team if success is going to be achieved.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“Coaches are sales people and change agents.”

– Hugh McCutcheon

“Leaders should be reliable without being predictable. They should be consistent without being anticipated.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“When a leader takes responsibility for his own actions and mistakes, he not only sets a good example, he shows a healthy respect for people on his team.”

– Mike Kryzewski

“Too many rules get in the way of leadership. They just put you in a box. People set rules to keep from making decisions.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions. Not me. I don’t want to be a manager or a dictator. I want to be a leader and leadership is ongoing, adjustable, flexible, and dynamic. As such, leaders have to maintain a certain amount of discretion.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“It takes courage not only to make decisions, but to live with those decisions afterward.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.”

– Coach Paul “Bear” Bryan

“Leaders have to give time for relationships. But more demands will be placed on their time as they become more successful. So if a persons success is based on developing relationships, then they have to continually find new ways of getting it done.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

SELF BELIEF

“There’s a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality.”

– Clint Eastwood

“Do not compare, become.”

– Marv Dunphy

“Our doubts are traitors And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt”

– Shakespeare

“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

– Wayne Gretsky

“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”

– Muhammad Ali

“Don’t let other people tell you what you want.”

– Pat Riley

“You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there.”

– Venus Williams

“It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.”

– Muhammad Ali

EFFORT

“Soccer is basically a struggle between the ones who want it and the ones who donít. Every single duel is a statement of who wants it more.”

– Anson Dorrance

“It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired.”

– Robert Strauss

“I’ve never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline.”

– Vince Lombardi

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

“Despite the success cult, men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of the effort involved in getting there — or failing to get there.”

– Max Lerner

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

– John F. Kennedy

“God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest.”

– P.D. James

“Have you ever watched a stonecutter at work? He will hammer away at a rock for perhaps a 100 times without a crack showing in it. Then, on the 101st blow, it will split in two. It is not that blow alone which accomplished the result, but the 100 others that went before as well.”

– Anonymous

“You find that you have peace of mind and can enjoy yourself, get more sleep, and rest when you know that it was a one hundred percent effort that you gave — win or lose.”

– Gordie Howe

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

– John Wooden

“Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I’m doing.”

– Phil Jackson

“The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work – if you won’t.”

– Zig Ziglar

HUMILITY

“One of the most unfortunate things I see when identifying youth players is the girl who is told over the years how great she is. By the time she’s a high school freshman, she starts to believe it. By her senior year, she’s fizzled out. Then there’s her counterpart: the girl waiting in the wings who quietly and with determination decides she’s going to make something of herself. Invariably, this humble, hardworking girl is the one who becomes the real player.”

– Anson Dorrance

“The nail that sticks out farthest gets hammered the hardest.”

– Patrick Jones

“Well done is better than well said.”

– Thomas A. Edison

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”

– Honore de Balzac

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

– 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

“You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.”

– John Wooden

“When you cleanse yourself of a big victory, you may open yourself up to the opportunity for an even bigger victory.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.”

– Pat Riley

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

– John Wooden

“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

“Success comes to those who dedicate everything to their passion in life. To be successful, it is also very important to be humble and never let fame or money travel to your head.”

– A.R. Rahman

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

– Yehuda Berg

“Injury in general teaches you to appreciate every moment. I’ve had my share of injuries throughout my career. It’s humbling. It gives you perspective. No matter how many times I’ve been hurt, I’ve learned from that injury and come back even more humble.”

– Troy Polamalu

“Doing what is right, fair and honorable is more important than winning or losing.”

– Chick Moorman

“The one characteristic of authentic power that most people overlook is humbleness. It is important for many reasons. A humble person walks in a friendly world. He or she sees friends everywhere he or she looks, wherever he or she goes, whomever he or she meets. His or her perception goes beyond the shell of appearance and into essence.”

– Gary Zukav

“Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.”

– William Penn

“We have to humble ourselves and the way you do that is by serving other people.”

– Tim Tebow

“Great leaders don’t need to act tough. Their confidence and humility serve to underscore their toughness.”

– Simon Sinek

“You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.”

– Lou Holtz

“The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.”

– Martina Navratilova

LEARNING / CHANGE

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

– Andre Gide

“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

– Samuel Beckett

“Some coaches believed they could judge a player’s performance simply by watching it. In this they were deeply mistaken. The naked eye was an inadequate tool for learning what you needed to know to evaluate baseball players and baseball games. Think about it. One absolutely cannot tell, by watching, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter. The difference is one hit every two weeks. The difference between a good hitter and an average hitter is simply not visible—it is a matter of record.”

– Michael Lewis

“Skills are really just circuits in your brain”

– Daniel Coyle

“People who live in the past generally are afraid to compete in the present. I’ve got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There’s no future in it.”

– Sparky Anderson

“I hadn’t read this anywhere before, but it is exciting to see because it helps me feel better about something I had always believed (and recommended), that is, when learners are in the cognitive stage of learning it is OK for some of their drills to be in a simple blocked setting, because in the beginning appropriate regulatory stimuli activities need to be simpler than those found in random activities”

– Carl McGown

“I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.”

– Lou Holtz

“Thirdly—but not lastly—there was the bias toward what people saw with their own eyes, or thought they had seen. The human mind played tricks on itself when it relied exclusively on what it saw. There was a lot you couldn’t see when you watched a game.”

– Michael Lewis

“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”

– Peter F. Drucker

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For me, losing a tennis match isn’t failure, it’s research.”

– Billie Jean King

“When you compete with someone as good or better than you, you may not always win, but you never lose.”

– Michael Josephson

“Life’s up and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals.”

– Marsha Sinetar

“Because blocked practice leads to better performance during training sessions, athletes and coaches are often led to a false sense of confidence that is shattered during competitions, when predictability and rote learning are no longer guaranteed.”

– Dr. Allison Belger

“You, and you alone, are the person who should take the measure of your own success. . . . I do not try to be better than anyone else. I only try to be better than myself.”

– Dan Jansen

“It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.”

– Carl Lewis

“Be bold. If you are going to make an error, make a doozy, and don’t be afraid to hit the ball.”

– Billie Jean King

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.”

– Oliver Wendall Holmes. Sr.

“In a nutshell and without getting too complicated or technical here, it seems that repetitive blocked practice leads to a kind of rote learning that allows for better performance during training sessions but less skill transfer to competitions and novel situations, as well as lower retention levels over time.”

– Dr. Allison Belger

“In blocked practice, because the task and goal are exactly the same on each attempt, the learner simply uses the solution generated on early trials in performing the next shot. Hence, blocked practice eliminates the learner’s need to ‘solve’ the problem on every trial and the need to practice the decision-making required during a typical round of golf.”

– Richard Schmidt, PhD

METHODS / PRINCIPLES

“The person who knows how will always have a job. The person who also knows why will always be the boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The person who grasps principles can successfully select his or her own methods. The person, who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Simple, clear principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.”

– Dee Hock

“By centering our coaching on correct principles, we create a solid foundation for development. Unlike ideas based on people or things which are subject to frequent and immediate change, correct principles do not change. They don’t depend on the behavior of others or the current fad for their validity. They are not here one day and gone the next. Even in the midst of people or circumstances that seem to ignore the principles, we can be secure in the knowledge that principles are bigger than people or circumstances, and that thousands of years of history have seen them triumph, time and time again.”

– Steven Covey

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

– Dwight Eisenhower

“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”

– Victor Hugo

“I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”

– Everett Dirksen

TEAM

“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”

– Mia Hamm

“Being a part of success is more important than being personally indispensable.”

– Pat Riley

“Management must speak with one voice. When it doesn’t management itself becomes a peripheral opponent to the team’s mission.”

– Pat Riley

“Individual commitment to a group effort is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

– Vince Lombardi

“There can only be one state of mind as you approach any profound test; total concentration, a spirit of togetherness, and strength.”

– Pat Riley

“Communication does not always occur naturally, even among a tight-knit group of individuals. Communication must be taught and practiced in order to bring everyone together as one.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“People want to be on a team. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be in a situation where they feel that they are doing something for the greater good.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“There are five fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring and pride. I like to think of each as a separate finger on the fist. Any one individually is important. But all of them together are unbeatable.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“There’s no limit to what a man can achieve, if he doesn’t care who gets the credit.”

– Laing Burns, Jr.

“Many of us are more capable than some of us . . . but none of us is as capable as all of us!!”

– Tom Wilson

“I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down and I will not let myself down.”

– Mia Hamm

“One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”

– Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

“Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.”

– Magic Johnson

“A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide.”

– Mickey Mantle

“Anyone can support a team that is winning – it takes no courage. But to stand behind a team to defend a team when it is down and really needs you, that takes a lot of courage.”

– Bart Starr

“I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”

– Everett Dirksen

Volleyball Coach Quotes

GMS Insights & Articles

The Wrist Snap in Volleyball - Good or Bad?

Importance of Good Transition Footwork

Volleyball Attack Names