ACCOUNTABILITY
BILL PARCELLS: "Not every team has enough talent to win the Super Bowl, but any competent coach can field a team that is strategically sound, that plays with discipline, that doesn’t beat itself. If any of those components are missing, it’s the coach who must be held accountable."
ADVERSITY
BOB KNIGHT: "If we don't force our players to react to things: if we don't put them in tough situations, then it's our fault they can't react to them in ball game."
ATTITUDE
SCOTTY BOWMAN: “Probably the most important thing is attitude. I really think that there are a lot of things you can’t change, that are out of your control, but your attitude is in your control. The right attitude is something that will help you be successful. There are not many successful people that don’t have the right attitude. There are other things you have to have: You have to have some patience, you have to have perseverance obviously, and you have to maybe have had some adversity too. But the main thing I’d say is attitude. You can always do something to help your attitude.”
BEING A COACH
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: “I'm a basketball coach all the time. That's what I do. I don't play golf. I chase my dog, or he chases me, and I whack down some trees and bushes and play with my grandkids and drink a little bit of wine."
BELIEF
JOE PATERNO: “Your players tend to become what they believe you think they are.”
CHAMPIONS
DON MEYER: “You don’t have to win a championship to be a champion.”
CHARACTER
JOHN WOODEN: “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. You character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
CHEMISTRY
MUFFET McGRAW: "It's also difficult for me to respect anyone who tries to undermine the team, and, unfortunately, it only takes one player with a bad attitude to destroy team chemistry."
COMMUNICATION
PAT SUMMITT: "The foremost thing we require from our players, before anything else, is that they make good eye contact...eye contact is a sign."
COMPLACENCY
SUE GUNTER: “We must use our tradition to motivate us to build on it and not as a crutch to lean on where we might stumble and fall.”
CONDITIONING
VINCE LOMBARDI: “It’s usually the best conditioned team which usually wins the game. I’m going to expect a 100 percent effort at all times. Anything less than that is not good enough.”
CRITICISM
LARRY BROWN: “Know the difference between coaching and criticism. That is the only way to develop trust with your players.”
