Archive for the ‘Coach’ Category

April 17th, 2012 Author Types, Authors, Coach, L No Comments »

Larry Bird

Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you’re ready to play as tough as you’re able to, you’d better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you’re not giving it all you’ve got.
Larry Bird

Once you are labeled ‘the best’ you want to stay up there, and you can’t do it by loafing around.
Larry Bird

I’ve got a theory that if you give 100% all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.
Larry Bird

Push yourself again and again. Don’t give an inch until the final buzzer sounds.
Larry Bird

The best player I ever played with was Dennis Johnson.
Larry Bird

While day by day the overzealous student stores up facts for future use, he who has learned to trust nature finds need for ever fewer external directions. He will discard formula after formula, until he reaches the conclusion: Let nature take its course.
Larry Bird

A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.
Larry Bird

I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.
Larry Bird

Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved. It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out. That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.
Larry Bird

The best players will play. That’s the way it will always be.
Larry Bird

I really don’t like talking about money. All I can say is that the Good Lord must have wanted me to have it.
Larry Bird

What’s better? Dogs or broomsticks? I mean will the world really ever know?
Larry Bird

As far as playing, I didn’t care who guarded me – red, yellow, black. I just didn’t want a white guy guarding me, because it’s disrespect to my game.
Larry Bird

It doesn’t matter who scores the points, it’s who can get the ball to the scorer.
Larry Bird

But it is a black man’s game, and it will be forever.
Larry Bird

I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody – somewhere – was practicing more than me.
Larry Bird

I’ve been around a while. I kinda know these things.
Larry Bird

The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.
Larry Bird

When it gets down to it, basketball is basketball.
Larry Bird

If there was a payment to the bank due, and we needed shoes, she’d get the shoes, and then deal with them guys at the bank. I don’t mean she wouldn’t pay the bank, but the children always came first.
Larry Bird

May 4th, 2011 Author Types, Authors, Coach, D No Comments »

Don Baylor

I’m going to try to enjoy the All-Star break, hope my players reflect on what happened the first half of the season, come back with a different attitude, try to find our solution on how to win it.
Don Baylor

Playing for Yogi is like playing for your father; playing for Billy is like playing for your father-in-law.
Don Baylor

I know what I have to do and I plan to do it. It’s a good time to get it done and get it behind me. It’s treatable, so why not treat it now? My family will give me comfort but I have to do this alone.
Don Baylor

I’m a fair manager, put it that way. I like to be fair with the players, but there’s a time for discipline.
Don Baylor

Texas has arguably the most extreme separation between the well off and everyday people in the United States.
Don Baylor

It’s what you’ve been a part of for so long. I don’t think I can watch a game without an interest in who wins.
Don Baylor

My bones are as hard as a rock. Every time I have a biopsy, the doctors are doing hand exercises a week, ten days out.
Don Baylor

May 27th, 2010 Author Types, Authors, Coach, S No Comments »

Sparky Anderson

It’s a terrible thing to have to tell your fans, who have waited like Detroit’s have, that their team won’t win it this year. But it’s better than lying to them.
Sparky Anderson

Just give me 25 guys on the last year of their contracts; I’ll win a pennant every year.
Sparky Anderson

If I ever find a pitcher who has heat, a good curve, and a slider, I might seriously consider marrying him, or at least proposing.
Sparky Anderson

Me carrying a briefcase is like a hotdog wearing earrings.
Sparky Anderson

A baseball manager is a necessary evil.
Sparky Anderson

Players have two things to do. Play and keep their mouths shut.
Sparky Anderson

Success is the person who year after year reaches the highest limits in his field.
Sparky Anderson

The players make the manager, it’s never the other way.
Sparky Anderson

Good seasons start with good beginnings.
Sparky Anderson

I don’t believe a manager ever won a pennant. Casey Stengel won all those pennants with the Yankees. How many did he win with the Boston Braves and Mets?
Sparky Anderson

They say the first World Series is the one you remember most. No, no no. I guarantee you don’t remember that one because the fantasy world you always dreamed about is suddenly real.
Sparky Anderson

We’re the best team in baseball, but not by much.
Sparky Anderson

You give us the pitching some of these clubs have and no one could touch us, but God has a way of not arranging that, because it’s not as much fun.
Sparky Anderson

I don’t want to embarrass any other catcher by comparing him to Johnny Bench.
Sparky Anderson

Baseball is a simple game. If you have good players and if you keep them in the right frame of mind then the manager is a success.
Sparky Anderson

Casey knew his baseball. He only made it look like he was fooling around. He knew every move that was ever invented and some that we haven’t even caught on to yet.
Sparky Anderson

My idea of managing is giving the ball to Tom Seaver and sitting down and watching him work.
Sparky Anderson

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