Don Meyer Quotes

Shout praise and whisper criticism.

Only run special plays for special players; find plays that fit your players.

Every coach should be recording games to watch...use your VCR.

Complacency is the forerunner of mediocrity. You can never work too hard on attitudes, effort and technique.

We sure didn't play great, but we played hard. And I can live with that.

Shared suffering makes a team a team.

We painted a beautiful picture, but we just didn't finish it. Finishing is the difference between a beautiful picture and a masterpiece.

Ten minutes after you lose that last game, you start working on next season.

A coach who is not teaching leads to the worst thing in a program -- players not learning.

We have 2,500 students and an 8,000-seat basketball arena. You do the math on how important basketball is in Aberdeen.

You have to learn to play with what you've got.

I have learned that peace is not the absence of trial, trouble, or torment but the presence of calm in the midst of them

You never realize the value of coaching until your children play for a coach

There is a lot of difference at McDonald's between the guy in the back making the fries and the manager up front who is running the place.

To those who much has been given, much is expected.

To be a team, you must be a family.

Simplify the game as much as possible. When you add, you must subtract.

Can your player make a curl cut and score in the lane? If so, he is the cutter.

Tough minded enough to do the necessary things--this is the epitome of what a team is.

You have to clean out the pig barn every week because you know your pigs are in there doing their jobs every day.

The ability to rebound is in inverse proportion to the distance your house is from the nearest railroad tracks.

Good shooters take the shots; best shooters take most of the shots.

Coaching is the vehical we use to reach/ help people.

Plays are not as important as players, and players are not as important as teammates

The worst day coaching is better than the best day doing anything else

Sometimes the best recruits are the ones you don't get.

Habits are critical for players. They cannot think and play well at the same time.

Positioning, anticipation and technique create quickness. Therefore, you can always get quicker

We had 10 turnovers tonight. Each one gets worse as you go. It is like prior arrests: the 10th one may not have been that bad, but when you have had nine prior ones, it looks pretty bad.

If you have to 'try hard' to 'try hard, you are already beaten.

Parents would rather have their son get all-state than his team win the state championship.

Players who are late say that their time is more important than the team.

Successful programs consist of people working hard, working together, while never worrying about who gets the credit.

Be what ya is, 'cause if ya be what you ain't, ya ain't what ya is.

Recognize and reward players who put the team first, not just the gifted ones.

Proper prior planning prevents pitiful poor performance.

Go from good to great because good is the enemy of great.

When you get to be my age, you don't buy green bananas because you may not be around to eat them.

There is nothing more important than rebounding... don't just give it lip service.

As a coach, you're just trying to figure out how to keep a team on edge. You've got to find that edge.

It is foolish to expect a young man to follow your advice and to ignore your example.

Every day you teach attitude.

Our goal as a team is to keep playing as a group for as long as we can because you will never have that team again. It is like a dying limb, you have to prune it off and let another one grow in its place. That is the way you have to do it, but it still hurts losing these guys and that team because they and you have put so much effort into building a team. Even if you win that last game (and a national championship), it hurts badly because the players know they will never have that same special group of guys together on the same team again. Somebody always goes and somebody new always comes in.

When the legs go, the heart and the head follow quickly behind.

Anytime you get an award as a coach, you've got to be the ultimate fool to think it wasn't your assistant coaches and all the players responsible for the award.

There's only one thing we can control, and that is how hard we play.

When you watch the game, be a student of the game.

If it comes down to you or the program that decision was made long ago.