Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Teachers are always trying to inspire people to do better, to learn, to grow. That's what we do, and we're proud of the success we've had here doing that, and it's something we'll certainly continue to do.
I don't know if I'm different from everybody else, but there's really only two things to me that are really, really important - recruiting good players in the program and developing those players once they get here.
I don't control what people put on dot-com or anything else. So I'm just telling you there's no significance, in my opinion, about this, about me, about any interest that I have in anything other than being the coach here.
Probably the number one position that has the greatest number of players to choose from is receiver. When we're out there recruiting, there are a lot of receivers out there to recruit. It's harder to find defensive players.
It's about how the players play and compete. I know everybody is going to equate that on winning or losing, like they always do, but if we play hard and compete well in the game .. then I think we are building on something.
I think everybody should take the attitude that we're working to be a champion, that we want to be a champion in everything that we do. Every choice, every decision, everything that we do every day, we want to be a champion.
I feel like I've been very blessed to have some great mentors through the years, starting with Don James, who was my college coach, who really inspired me to want to be a coach, which is not something that I really had in mind.
When you have the ability to affect other people and be somebody that somebody wants to emulate, care enough to help somebody else for their benefit, that's what makes you a good teammate, and that's what everybody's looking for.
We create a standard for how we want to do things and everybody's got to buy into that standard or you really can't have any team chemistry. Mediocre people don't like high-achievers and high-achievers don't like mediocre people.
Eliminate the clutter and all the things that are going on outside and focus on the things that you can control with how you sort of go about and take care of your business. That's something that's ongoing, and it can never change.
I don't think I'm complicated at all. I'm not political, and I'm not trying to be diplomatic. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, and I don't say bad things about people. There is no agenda. There's no trying to fool somebody.
Soccer is a continuous game, rugby is a continuous game, but for the physical elements that are involved in playing a football game and the number of plays that you play, I don't know that it was ever intended to be a continuous game.
When people have success, one of two things happen. They either get really satisfied and want to keep thinking about it and talking about what they did, or the success becomes a little addictive, and it makes them want to keep having more.
If I were a high school coach, I would put my best players on offense. The best athletes on my team, I would give them the ball and score points. I wouldn't play them on defense. I would play them where they can get the ball and score points.
The thing that concerns me the most is when I hear that people are making a lot of money a lot of ways except for the athletes, whether it's on the bowl games, the TV contracts, the conferences, the schools, the coaches, however you want to say it.
I don't want people to think I'm not happy when we win - I am. But there's a difference between being happy for the feeling of accomplishing something and being overjoyed and feeling, 'This is it - we conquered the world.' We didn't. We just won a game.
We don't have rules that people can't use Twitter. We just want people to be responsible. We certainly don't want them to do anything that's going to affect themselves in an adverse way or affect our program, our university, or our team in an adverse way.
I don't know that there's any particular scientific evidence that you could say, more guys get hurt in this offense versus that one, or hurry-up, or whatever, but everything that we've ever done in the NCAA is about exposure. How many exposures does a player get?
I enjoyed the NFL. I respected the players. It was a great opportunity to learn a lot of things, but the challenges were a little different, and it didn't seem that you could control your own destiny, especially in terms of how you could bring players to the team.
I think people who grow up in one particular environment, like the Alabama-Auburn game, they don't ever get the same appreciation for the Ohio State-Michigan game or the Michigan State-Notre Dame game or the Michigan-Michigan State game, the Browns and the Steelers.
First of all, you've got to have a vision of 'What kind of program do I want to have?' Then you've got to have a plan to implement it. Then you've got to set the example that you want, develop the principles and values that are important, and get people to buy into it.
Everybody thinks when I say a guy is a good game manager, that's a negative, but I think it's a real positive. You have the ball in your hand every time when you're a quarterback. Whether you're handing it off or throwing to somebody, I think that's extremely important.
I think you have to be more flexible to be a pro coach because once you pay the guy the money, whether he can backpedal the way you want him to or whatever, his style of play may not suit you, but you still are going to play him, and he is going to be a part of your team.
There's certain things that I was taught growing up about not quitting and seeing things through. I think if I would have come home and told my dad that I was going to quit the team, I think he would have kicked me out of the house. I don't think I'd have a place to stay.
We played in a number of these neutral site games, I would call them, whether it's a playoff game, a bowl game, or one of these kickoff classic type things, which I think is helpful to, you know, our players in terms of playing some place that's not really a home game for them.
One thing I always tell players is that there are three bad things: Nothing good happens after midnight, nothing good happens when you're around guns unless you're going hunting, and you don't want to mess around with women that you don't know because a lot of times, bad things happen.
People who are role models for the principles and values of the organization, who buy in and understand the vision of what the organization is trying to accomplish, and have the personality to inspire other people to the vision. You know, that’s what team chemistry and leadership is all about.
There needs to be somebody that looks out for what's best for the game, not what's best for the Big 10 or what's best for the SEC or what's best for Jim Harbaugh, but what's best for the game of college football - the integrity of the game, the coaches, the players, and the people that play it.
I think when you win the national championship, it works throughout your team. Where human nature is to say, I did well. I got my quota this month. Now do I get some time off? Do I get a bonus? Do I get to go on a cruise? But it's not to keep trying to be the best. That's not necessarily human nature.
I want what's best for people who want to improve the quality of their life. I hope whoever our leader is will do all that he can do to make our country safe and improve the quality of life for a lot of the people we have in our country, and I don't think I am qualified to determine who that should be.
Now, everybody always says there's no 'I' in team, but there is an 'I' in win, because the individuals make the team what it is, and how they think and what they do is important to the team. So when you act like the individual is not important, well, it is damn important who these people are and what they are.
When you play against good people, that's when you focus your concentration. Your sense of urgency to be disciplined in your execution all become more critical. Sometimes you get away with doing things not quite right against lesser competition, but when you play against real good people that's when it shows up.
There's two parts of leadership. You've got to be a good leader - you've got to be somebody that people want to emulate and care about the other people. But the other guys that you have have to accept their leadership. They have to respond to it. That's the chemistry that you never know how that is going to happen.
When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's make good grades in school, be a good athlete, be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who's in need, whatever it is you choose to do, you're investing your time in that.
The thing I like about college football so much is you can affect these guys a lot more when they are 18-22, 23 years old in terms of people and having a chance to be more successful. They are still a value type development, where you have a chance to help them mature a bit and help them be a little more successful in life.
It's not human nature to be great. It's human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by. That is normal. When you have something good happen, it's the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished.
One of these days when I'm finished coaching at Alabama, I'll write an authorized book because there's only one expert on my life, and guess who that is... me. And there won't be any misinformation. There won't be any false statements. There won't be any hearsay. There won't be any expert analysis from anybody else. It will be the real deal.
You can control your own destiny a little bit better in college. It's hard to control all the variables, especially with the salary cap and things like that, in pro football. You can't keep your team together, and you are going to have more changes all the time. Personnel decisions aren't always made by you, especially who you bring to your team.
We have three kinds of guys on our team. We have guys that get it; they play good; they understand how to play winning football. We have some guys that are trying to get it, and they are working hard every day? We are supporting them, and we want the guys that have it to support them. Then we have some guys that don't get it and don't know that they don't get it. We are trying to replace them. We only have a couple left.
The process is really what you have to do day in and day out to be successful, we try to define the standard that we want everybody to sort of work toward, adhere to, and do it on a consistent basis. And the things that I talked about before, being responsible for your own self-determination, having a positive attitude, having great work ethic, having discipline to be able to execute on a consistent basis, whatever it is you're trying to do, those are the things that we try to focus on, and we don't try to focus as much on the outcomes as we do on being all that you can be.