Volleyball Coaching Quotes

LEADERSHIP

“Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I don’t look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“In leadership, there are no words more important than trust. In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team if success is going to be achieved.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“Coaches are sales people and change agents.”

– Hugh McCutcheon

“Leaders should be reliable without being predictable. They should be consistent without being anticipated.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“When a leader takes responsibility for his own actions and mistakes, he not only sets a good example, he shows a healthy respect for people on his team.”

– Mike Kryzewski

“Too many rules get in the way of leadership. They just put you in a box. People set rules to keep from making decisions.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions. Not me. I don’t want to be a manager or a dictator. I want to be a leader and leadership is ongoing, adjustable, flexible, and dynamic. As such, leaders have to maintain a certain amount of discretion.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“It takes courage not only to make decisions, but to live with those decisions afterward.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.”

– Coach Paul “Bear” Bryan

“Leaders have to give time for relationships. But more demands will be placed on their time as they become more successful. So if a persons success is based on developing relationships, then they have to continually find new ways of getting it done.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

SELF BELIEF

“There’s a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality.”

– Clint Eastwood

“Do not compare, become.”

– Marv Dunphy

“Our doubts are traitors And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt”

– Shakespeare

“You miss 100% of the shots you never take.”

– Wayne Gretsky

“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.”

– Muhammad Ali

“Don’t let other people tell you what you want.”

– Pat Riley

“You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there.”

– Venus Williams

“It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.”

– Muhammad Ali

EFFORT

“Soccer is basically a struggle between the ones who want it and the ones who donít. Every single duel is a statement of who wants it more.”

– Anson Dorrance

“It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired.”

– Robert Strauss

“I’ve never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline.”

– Vince Lombardi

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

“Despite the success cult, men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of the effort involved in getting there — or failing to get there.”

– Max Lerner

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

– John F. Kennedy

“God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest.”

– P.D. James

“Have you ever watched a stonecutter at work? He will hammer away at a rock for perhaps a 100 times without a crack showing in it. Then, on the 101st blow, it will split in two. It is not that blow alone which accomplished the result, but the 100 others that went before as well.”

– Anonymous

“You find that you have peace of mind and can enjoy yourself, get more sleep, and rest when you know that it was a one hundred percent effort that you gave — win or lose.”

– Gordie Howe

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

– John Wooden

“Winning is important to me, but what brings me real joy is the experience of being fully engaged in whatever I’m doing.”

– Phil Jackson

“The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work – if you won’t.”

– Zig Ziglar

HUMILITY

“One of the most unfortunate things I see when identifying youth players is the girl who is told over the years how great she is. By the time she’s a high school freshman, she starts to believe it. By her senior year, she’s fizzled out. Then there’s her counterpart: the girl waiting in the wings who quietly and with determination decides she’s going to make something of herself. Invariably, this humble, hardworking girl is the one who becomes the real player.”

– Anson Dorrance

“The nail that sticks out farthest gets hammered the hardest.”

– Patrick Jones

“Well done is better than well said.”

– Thomas A. Edison

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”

– Honore de Balzac

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”

– John Wooden

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are”

– John Wooden

“You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.”

– John Wooden

“When you cleanse yourself of a big victory, you may open yourself up to the opportunity for an even bigger victory.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.”

– Pat Riley

“Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”

– John Wooden

“Humility is the true key to success. Successful people lose their way at times. They often embrace and overindulge from the fruits of success. Humility halts this arrogance and self-indulging trap. Humble people share the credit and wealth, remaining focused and hungry to continue the journey of success.”

– Rick Pitino

“Success comes to those who dedicate everything to their passion in life. To be successful, it is also very important to be humble and never let fame or money travel to your head.”

– A.R. Rahman

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

– Yehuda Berg

“Injury in general teaches you to appreciate every moment. I’ve had my share of injuries throughout my career. It’s humbling. It gives you perspective. No matter how many times I’ve been hurt, I’ve learned from that injury and come back even more humble.”

– Troy Polamalu

“Doing what is right, fair and honorable is more important than winning or losing.”

– Chick Moorman

“The one characteristic of authentic power that most people overlook is humbleness. It is important for many reasons. A humble person walks in a friendly world. He or she sees friends everywhere he or she looks, wherever he or she goes, whomever he or she meets. His or her perception goes beyond the shell of appearance and into essence.”

– Gary Zukav

“Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.”

– William Penn

“We have to humble ourselves and the way you do that is by serving other people.”

– Tim Tebow

“Great leaders don’t need to act tough. Their confidence and humility serve to underscore their toughness.”

– Simon Sinek

“You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.”

– Lou Holtz

“The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.”

– Martina Navratilova

LEARNING / CHANGE

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

– Andre Gide

“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

– Samuel Beckett

“Some coaches believed they could judge a player’s performance simply by watching it. In this they were deeply mistaken. The naked eye was an inadequate tool for learning what you needed to know to evaluate baseball players and baseball games. Think about it. One absolutely cannot tell, by watching, the difference between a .300 hitter and a .275 hitter. The difference is one hit every two weeks. The difference between a good hitter and an average hitter is simply not visible—it is a matter of record.”

– Michael Lewis

“Skills are really just circuits in your brain”

– Daniel Coyle

“People who live in the past generally are afraid to compete in the present. I’ve got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There’s no future in it.”

– Sparky Anderson

“I hadn’t read this anywhere before, but it is exciting to see because it helps me feel better about something I had always believed (and recommended), that is, when learners are in the cognitive stage of learning it is OK for some of their drills to be in a simple blocked setting, because in the beginning appropriate regulatory stimuli activities need to be simpler than those found in random activities”

– Carl McGown

“I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.”

– Lou Holtz

“Thirdly—but not lastly—there was the bias toward what people saw with their own eyes, or thought they had seen. The human mind played tricks on itself when it relied exclusively on what it saw. There was a lot you couldn’t see when you watched a game.”

– Michael Lewis

“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”

– Peter F. Drucker

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“For me, losing a tennis match isn’t failure, it’s research.”

– Billie Jean King

“When you compete with someone as good or better than you, you may not always win, but you never lose.”

– Michael Josephson

“Life’s up and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals.”

– Marsha Sinetar

“Because blocked practice leads to better performance during training sessions, athletes and coaches are often led to a false sense of confidence that is shattered during competitions, when predictability and rote learning are no longer guaranteed.”

– Dr. Allison Belger

“You, and you alone, are the person who should take the measure of your own success. . . . I do not try to be better than anyone else. I only try to be better than myself.”

– Dan Jansen

“It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.”

– Carl Lewis

“Be bold. If you are going to make an error, make a doozy, and don’t be afraid to hit the ball.”

– Billie Jean King

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.”

– Oliver Wendall Holmes. Sr.

“In a nutshell and without getting too complicated or technical here, it seems that repetitive blocked practice leads to a kind of rote learning that allows for better performance during training sessions but less skill transfer to competitions and novel situations, as well as lower retention levels over time.”

– Dr. Allison Belger

“In blocked practice, because the task and goal are exactly the same on each attempt, the learner simply uses the solution generated on early trials in performing the next shot. Hence, blocked practice eliminates the learner’s need to ‘solve’ the problem on every trial and the need to practice the decision-making required during a typical round of golf.”

– Richard Schmidt, PhD

METHODS / PRINCIPLES

“The person who knows how will always have a job. The person who also knows why will always be the boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The person who grasps principles can successfully select his or her own methods. The person, who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Simple, clear principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.”

– Dee Hock

“By centering our coaching on correct principles, we create a solid foundation for development. Unlike ideas based on people or things which are subject to frequent and immediate change, correct principles do not change. They don’t depend on the behavior of others or the current fad for their validity. They are not here one day and gone the next. Even in the midst of people or circumstances that seem to ignore the principles, we can be secure in the knowledge that principles are bigger than people or circumstances, and that thousands of years of history have seen them triumph, time and time again.”

– Steven Covey

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

– Dwight Eisenhower

“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”

– Victor Hugo

“I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”

– Everett Dirksen

TEAM

“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”

– Mia Hamm

“Being a part of success is more important than being personally indispensable.”

– Pat Riley

“Management must speak with one voice. When it doesn’t management itself becomes a peripheral opponent to the team’s mission.”

– Pat Riley

“Individual commitment to a group effort is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

– Vince Lombardi

“There can only be one state of mind as you approach any profound test; total concentration, a spirit of togetherness, and strength.”

– Pat Riley

“Communication does not always occur naturally, even among a tight-knit group of individuals. Communication must be taught and practiced in order to bring everyone together as one.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“People want to be on a team. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be in a situation where they feel that they are doing something for the greater good.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“There are five fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring and pride. I like to think of each as a separate finger on the fist. Any one individually is important. But all of them together are unbeatable.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.”

– Mike Krzyzewski

“There’s no limit to what a man can achieve, if he doesn’t care who gets the credit.”

– Laing Burns, Jr.

“Many of us are more capable than some of us . . . but none of us is as capable as all of us!!”

– Tom Wilson

“I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down and I will not let myself down.”

– Mia Hamm

“One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”

– Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

“Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.”

– Magic Johnson

“A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide.”

– Mickey Mantle

“Anyone can support a team that is winning – it takes no courage. But to stand behind a team to defend a team when it is down and really needs you, that takes a lot of courage.”

– Bart Starr

“I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”

– Everett Dirksen