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Dan Spainhour is a terrific coach and educator. I had the pleasure of working several years with him, and I know that his knowledge and enthusiasm are first-rate.
Coaching is the great passion of my life, and the job to me has always been an opportunity to work with our student athletes and help them discover what they want.
You really just have to come in and build the spirit up of your team by working them everyday, showing them examples of what they've done and reinforce their work.
When I was a freshman and sophomore, I got booed every time I was put in the game. Then, in my junior and senior years, my dad got booed every time he took me out.
The college recruiting process shouldn't be about how many schools have interest in you or how many offers you get, it should be about you finding the right school.
In no other profession does the character and personality of a director play a more vital role in the development of young people than in the coaching of athletics.
All winners are edgy. Guys that are pushing themselves are edgy. It's the old saying we have in Kentucky: I'd rather have a guy I have to say whoa to, than giddyup.
When you decide to go into coaching, obviously you don't forget why. That's to help develop young people, help them chase their dreams, help them reach their goals.
As much as we pump iron and we run to build our strength up, we need to build our mental strength up... so we can focus... so we can be in concert with one another.
I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get even one play at Indiana, let alone 25 years later, walk Bruin Walk, walk UCLA where Coach Wooden built his legacy.
It was an unusual environment. We're used to having the jotter arena at this time of year. It's unfortunate that it was that way, but both teams had to deal with it.
Thoughtless risks are destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity.
X & O's aren't worth a damn without a team. If your team isn't with you it doesn't matter what you draw up. The team must respect what the coach is asking them to do
If you're analytical, you have to be blunt. That's by definition. You can't analyze something and not be blunt about it. What would you rather hear if not the truth?
I always won in my imagination. I always hit the game-winning shot, or I hit the free throw. Or if I missed, there was a lane violation, and I was given another one.
God doesn’t take things away to be cruel. He takes things away to make room for other things. He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.
Winning takes character. Workers get the most out of themselves. When a body has limited talent, it must muster all its resources of character to overcome adversity.
Setting up a system that rewards you for meeting your goals and has penalties for failing to hit your target is just as important as putting your goals down on paper.
I think the only thing that I really thought about, I am always every year thinking about how I can get better, how my stuff can get better, how our team can improve.
At one point, I said to the officials that you guys haven't called walking for 20 years, now you don't know what it is. When you call walking, you're about half right.
I'm pleased that they performed as well as they did while we've been in Miami and that's about as far as it goes. Now, we've got to go home and play as well or better.
You have to show high school players that fans care about your program, that they're gonna be at the games. I think that's a huge key to success in college basketball.
I never said I'm unhappy about going to the ACC. I'm unhappy the Big East broke up. That's a completely different thing than saying I'm unhappy about going to the ACC.
When I was a kid, like 14 or 15, I played with the waiters from the hotel, 'cause that was the best game. And these guys, they'd let me play. And they were black guys.
If Shakespeare had been in pro basketball, he never would have had time to write his soliloquies. He would have always been on a plane between Phoenix and Kansas City.
I think we've put ourselves in a position that if we can go into the Big East and compete at the level that we aspire to compete at, we'll get out of this what we want.
When you're trying to build or change a culture, what do you do? I always say to take players from state championship teams because they only know one thing -- winning.
I have a rule on my team: When we talk to one another, we look each other right in the eye, because I think it's tough to lie to somebody. You give respect to somebody.
First of all, what happens is, when you're good at something, you spend a lot of time with it. People identify you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.
Actually, the Kentucky moment was better than winning the two National Championships, because it was the epitome of what I try to get from a team in a crisis situation.
When players are used to winning, they put out a little more. Basketball 3rd winningest coach (regular season and playoffs) in NBA history; won 1,037 times in 20 years.
You don't think the losing is ever going to end, but when it does end, you get to enjoy it and keep working with it and keep getting it better, and that's where we are.
They call me eccentric. They used to call me nuts. I haven't changed. The only difference between being eccentric and being nuts is the number of security boxes you own.
I grew up dreaming about being an Olympic basketball player: Doug Collins getting smashed into the stanchion, making two free throws. Phil Ford and Mike O'Koren in 1976.
There are franchise players to build around that have championship-level talent, skill, basketball IQ, and character - it's hard to find those guys. Those guys are rare.
In basketball, there are no trap games. If you walk out on that court and lose a game, it's because the other team beat you. You played poorly. But there's no trap game.
When I was a player, I didn't expect my teammates to play the way I did. I did expect them to work hard every day and get better. And I never learned anything by losing.
That's what I do now: I lead and I teach. If we win basketball games from doing that, then that's great, but I lead and teach. Those are the two things I concentrate on.
Every leader needs to remember that a healthy respect for authority takes time to develop. It’s like building trust. You don’t instantly have trust, it has to be earned.
Great players and great teams want to be driven. They want to be pushed to the edge. They don't want to be cheated. Ordinary players and average teams want it to be easy
Any team can be a miracle team. The catch is that you have got to go out and work for your miracles. Effort is what ultimately separates great teams from ordinary teams.
Success lulls you. It makes the most ambitious of us complacent and sloppy. In a way, you have to cultivate a kind of amnesia and forget all of your previous prosperity.
If you think you are working hard, you can work harder. If you think you are doing enough, there is more that you can do. No one really ever exhausts his full potential.
You are trying not only to reach your potential but to move beyond it. If you are not in the best shape you can be, these things simply become more difficult to achieve.
That first group of Manchester players allowed me to enjoy coaching at a very young age that motivated me to do it. If it wasn't good, I might have made a career change.
It's good to give some of the kids a chance for playing time and some confidence. It doesn't do any good to leave starters out there just to beat a team by 60-70 points.
The greatest words you hear in college basketball are Ohio State advances. (The Iowa upset) is amazing. But again, it's all the proof you need that there's no guarantee.
During my 40-year coaching career at West Point, Indiana and Texas Tech, my teams reached the Final Four on five occasions, winning the national championship three times.
Winning a postseason game is like winning five regular season games. There is just no feeling like it. Everything is magnified. Every free throw, turnover, shot and play.
Tonight was a disappointing effort. I thought we competed the last three quarters but in the first quarter we did not compete, we participated, and that's not acceptable.