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Monday, November 24, 2025

Best Coaches Quotes

Quotes don't win a lot of games, but they can win an occasional heart and mind. 

Nobody 'corners the market' on best quotes. Great insights come from women and men, colleges and pros, and coaches of all genders and races. Find a few that share a lesson and resonate. 

Dawn Staley  

“Discipline is doing what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it...If you want to be great, you have to give up something to get there.”

Pep Guardiola 

“If you train badly, you play badly. If you work like a beast in training, you play the same way.”

Pete Carril  

"The strong take from the weak, but the smart take from the strong."

Dean Smith  

"Basketball is a team game. But that doesn’t mean all the players should get the same amount of shots."

Doc Rivers  

"Never allow yourself to be a victim." 

Mike Krzyzewski  

"A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment." 

John Chaney  

“You can’t build character in the locker room. You build it at six in the morning...Coaching is teaching. And teaching is fighting for someone else’s future.”  

“I don’t want a bunch of choir boys. I want guys who’ll fight in the alley and then go get A’s in class.”

Geno Auriemma  

"You can be the leading scorer on a bad team. Who cares?"

Pete Newell  

"Basketball is a game of mistakes. The team making the fewer mistakes usually wins."

John Wooden  

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation."

Gregg Popovich  

"We believe in people executing their role and caring about the team more than anything individually."

Jose Mourinho  

"I am Jose Mourinho and I don’t change. I arrive with all my qualities and my defects."

Phil Jackson  

"Leadership is not about forcing your will on others. It is about mastering the art of letting go."

Sean McVay  

"It’s first about the ball - we’ve got to take better care of the football."

Bob Knight 

"The greatest sin a coach can commit is to let a kid slide by.”

Pat Summitt   

“Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team can have.”

Lagniappe. In some defenses, "help and recover" has become other approaches, "peel switches" and "X-ing out" to cover as much area as possible while bringing heat on the ball. 

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