The old lessons (work, self-discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, fighting to achieve) aren't being taught by many people other than football coaches these days. The football coach has a captive audience and can teach these lessons because the communication lines between himself and his players are more wide open than between kids and parents. We better teach these lessons or else the country's future population will be made up of a majority of crooks, drug addicts, or people on relief.
If there is one thing that has helped me as a coach, it's my ability to recognize winners, or good people who can become winners by paying the price.
No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it's what his players know that counts.
Recruiting is the one thing I hate. I won't do it unless my coaches tell me I've just got to. The whole process is kind of undignified for me and the young man.
If I miss coaching that much, I could go to some little school where they didn't recruit, where all the kids wanted to go. I believe I could find somewhere to coach.
If you want to coach you have three rules to follow to win. One, surround yourself with people who can't live without football. I've had a lot of them. Two, be able to recognize winners. They come in all forms. And, three, have a plan for everything. A plan for practice, a plan for the game. A plan for being ahead, and a plan for being behind 20-0 at half, with your quarterback hurt and the phones dead, with it raining cats and dogs and no rain gear because the equipment man left it at home.
Scout yourself. Have a buddy who coaches scout you.
I tell young players who want to be coaches, who think they can put up with all the headaches and heartaches, can you live without it? If you can live without it, don't get in it.
I think the most important thing of all for any team is a winning attitude. The coaches must have it. The players must have it. The student body must have it. If you have dedicated players who believe in themselves, you don't need a lot of talent.
The biggest mistake coaches make is taking borderline cases and trying to save them. I'm not talking about grades now, I'm talking about character. I want to know before a boy enrolls about his home life, and what his parents want him to be.
Nearly every coach I've talked with tells me that the attention you get from media and other people is the thing you miss most. I don't know if that's right.
I'm happy with the coach we have. I think any one of the ones I asked them to consider would've been good.
Most coaches study the films when they lose. I study them when we win -to see if I can figure out what I did right
When I was a young coach I used to say, "Treat everybody alike." That's bull. Treat everybody fairly.
I'm no genius, but I'm a damn good football coach.
I don't have any ideas; my coaches have them. I just pass the ideas on and referee the arguments.
I didn't have a thing to do with picking a coach, and didn't want to. But I didn't think they'd pick one I didn't like.
It's been years since I've had a real input in the game anyway. For this game, I've just tried to keep all the other stuff away from the players and coaches.
There ought to be a special place in heaven for coaches' wives.
I think I'm telling the truth. I sat by Ray Perkins at the Hall of Fame dinner in New York, and at that time he didn't know he was our coach and I didn't either.
But it's still a coach's game. Make no mistake. You start at the top. If you don't have a good one at the top, you don't have a cut dog's chance.
Find your own picture, your own self in anything that goes bad. It's awfully easy to mouth off at your staff or chew out players, but if it's bad, and your the head coach, you're responsible. If we have an intercepted pass, I threw it. I'm the head coach. If we get a punt blocked, I caused it. A bad practice, a bad game, it's up to the head coach to assume his responsibility.
You have to learn what makes this or that Sammy run. For one it's a pat on the back, for another it's eating him out, for still another it's a fatherly talk, or something else. You're a fool if you think as I did as a young coach, that you can treat them all alike.
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