This is our second installment from Billy Packer's book "Why We Win" in which he ask coaches of all sports for insight on their philosophy.Can a coach be a motivator, or is motivation something that is within a person that a coach can bring out.
Red Auebach: Well, both. First of all, the most important thing in coaching in my book, is communication. It's not what you say as much as they they absorb.
Ara Pareghian: I think that the team will reflect the intensity or the passiveness of a coach. I think a coach sets the stage. I think a coach builds the mentality, and not just with a motivational talk before the ball game. He starts on Sunday and Monday, building to a point where the team knows why they're going to the field.
Bob Knight: Left Driesell once told me, "I may not always be right, but the one thing I'm going to do is show my players that I'm always working and that I'm always trying to figure out how we can win. And that they can look at me and say, well, he is really committed to winning." I think peer pressure is important. Calbert Cheaney was always the first kid at practice and the last kid to leave. Having a leader like that means that you can to the other players, "How the hell can you do what you're doing when Calbert does what he's doing, and he's better than you to begin with."
Joe Gibbs: If you're to have motivated guys...I think you've got to be able to lift them up at the right time; you have to be able to know them down at the right time.
Pat Summitt: There can be short-term motivation, but the purest form of motivation is self-motivation. Now while I think I might be able to come in and motivate individuals, I think that unless they have it inside, unless every day they want to step out and compete -- and it's important that you get competitors in your program -- but unless they really want to do it themselves, it's not going to be anything that will be consistent or long range.
Tommy Lasorda: I classify a leader as someone who walks out in front of his men, but he doesn't get too far in front to where he cannot hear their footsteps.
Dan Gable: If your team has a large number of athletes not ready to commit to the work level, then that marginally motivated athlete will make little progress, or he'll even fall back.
