How to you feel about keeping players happy or players needing to like the coach?
John Wooden: Adolph Rupp was a great coach, and a reporter said to him one time, “You know your players don’t seem so happy. They don’t seem to like you so much. How come?” Rupp replied, “I’m here to coach them, not coddle them.” You’d like to see them reasonably happy, but that’s not your job. You hope that you have their respect; that’s far more important than having them happy. Having their respect and getting them to accept the roles you designate for them, even though they might disagree, that’s the most important.
Anson Dorrance: No, not at all (laughing). Although invariably, the route to becoming liked is through respect. And I think one of the great mistakes that all the young coaches make as they are entering the profession is the feeling that they have to be liked.
Bob Knight: I think that if you’re an honest person who works hard and deals fairly with players, then the coach will gain the respect of those players.
Mike Krzyzewski: (on developing personal relationships with players) I think if I don’t have that, then I’m missing out on maybe the best part of it.
Sparky Anderson: I have two rules, and I give that to them in spring training. Number one, you guys are lucky, you don’t have to like me. Number two, I’ll give you one that’s even better, you don’t have to respect me. Now, let me explain those two rules to you. The reason you don’t have to like me is that I have to earn that. Number two, the reason you don’t have to respect me, if I don’t earn respect, how in the hell can I ask you to give it to me? I’ll earn that, gentlemen.
Joe Paterno: One of the tings I tell them when we first start in preseason practice — which is where we try to set the tone of how tough we’re going to have to work — I say, you know, you may come back here 25 years from now at a reunion, and you may all sit around and you may say, “Boy, you remember what an SOB that Paterno was? You remember what Sandusky made us do? And you remember that day we practiced out there until we thought we were going to drop? The shouting, and the urging and the cajoling and the nit-picking about all the little things.” You may come back and gripe about that, but you’re never going to come back here and say, “You know, I just wish Joe knew how good we wanted to be; that if he’d just pushed us a little more, we could have gone all the way.” We’re never going to sell you short. We’re going to make you be as good as you can be, and if you’re willing to go along with us, we’re going to have some fun.
