96 Basketball Coach Inspirational Quotes for Team Building and Leadership

"Limits, like fears, are often just an illusion"

- Michael Jordan

"Heart is what separates the good from the great"

- Michael Jordan

"I don't look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"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"

- Pat Riley

"You can't always be the most talented person in the room. But you can be the most competitive"

- Pat Summitt

"Confidence is what happens when you've done the hard work that entitles you to succeed"

- Pat Summitt

"Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the Me for the We"

- Phil Jackson

"True motivation is not getting people to play to their potential. It's getting people to play beyond their potential"

- Rick Pitino

"If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it"

- Michael Jordan

"I'm looking for players who make their teammates better. You do that with enthusiasm and passion"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"Champions play as they practice. Create a consistency of excellence in all your habits"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"Effort is fully replenishable. There is no need to save any of it. Leave every bit you have on the playing field"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"You don't just be a team. You become a team. Through tough games you find that you need each other"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"Teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"There are 5 fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring, and pride"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"Bottom line – if you want success of any kind; you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable"

- Tim Grover

"Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling"

- Bill Belichick

"Mental Toughness is doing the right thing for the team when it's not the best thing for you"

- Bill Belichick

"Champions behave like champions before they are champions"

- Bill Walsh

"We believe in people executing their role and caring about the team more than anything individually"

- Gregg Popovich

"Never give up. Failure and rejection are just the first steps to succeeding"

- Jim Valvano

"It's not just about working hard, it's about working together. You have to care more about the team than you do about yourself"

- John Calipari

"The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team"

- John Wooden

"Great players are willing to give up their own personal achievement for the achievement of the group. It enhances everybody"

- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

"Coaching is making players do what they don't want to do so they can become the player they want to become"

- Kevin Eastman

"The key is not the 'will to win'… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important"

- Bobby Knight

"Create unselfishness as the most important team attribute"

- Bill Russell

"Basketball is a beautiful game when the five players on the court play with one heartbeat"

- Dean Smith

"A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment"

- John Wooden

"Failure does not come from losing, but from not trying"

- Larry Brown

"Play the right way means play unselfishly, respect each other's achievements, play hard, fulfill your role"

- Gregg Popovich

"Practice gotta be harder than the games and it never is unless you want it to be as a player. The coach can't drive that"

- John Calipari

"The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move"

- John Wooden

"I do not judge success based on championships; rather, I judge it on how close we came to realizing our potential"

- John Wooden

"What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player"

- John Wooden

"When opportunity comes, it's too late to prepare"

- John Wooden

"Discipline yourself, and others won't need to"

- John Wooden

"Confidence comes from being prepared"

- John Wooden

"Leadership is diving for a loose ball. It's about being able to take it as well as dish it out. That's the only way your going to get respect from other players"

- 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 got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end"

- Larry Bird

"I don't do things half-heartedly. Because I know if I do, then I can expect half-hearted results"

- Michael Jordan

"You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them"

- Michael Jordan

"In developing teams, I don't believe in rules. I believe in standards. Rules don't promote teamwork, standards do"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers"

- Pat Riley

"Great effort springs naturally from a great attitude"

- Pat Riley

"Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better"

- Pat Riley

"Admit to and make yourself accountable for mistakes. How can you improve if you're never wrong?"

- Pat Summitt

"Discipline is the only sure way I know to convince people to believe in themselves"

- Pat Summitt

"Teamwork doesn't come naturally. It must be taught"

- Pat Summitt

"A guy who gives you less than what he has to give is, one, telling you what he thinks of you, and two, telling you what he thinks of himself"

- Pete Carroll

"The two ingredients for success in basketball are playing hard and playing intelligently"

- Pete Carroll

"You can't force your will on people. If you want them to act differently, you need to inspire them to change themselves"

- Phil Jackson

"Failure is good. It's fertilizer. Everything I've learned about coaching, I've learned from making mistakes"

- Rick Pitino

"If you are not willing to work hard and establish discipline in your life, then all your dreams are merely pipe dreams"

- Rick Pitino

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

- Don Meyer

"It's not about any one person. You've got to get over yourself and realize that it takes a group to get this thing done"

- Gregg Popovich

"Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory"

- Bill Russell

"The goal is to make practice more difficult, physically/mentally, than anything your players will face during a game"

- Bobby Knight

"Coaches shouldn't have to push you to work hard, you should push yourself to work hard because you want to be a great player"

- Bobby Knight

"We're building a culture of accountability, trust, and togetherness. Entitlement will not be tolerated"

- Brad Stevens

"You have to earn your right to win the game with effort and togetherness"

- Brad Stevens

"What do you do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it"

- Dean Smith

"There is a lot of basketball beyond our control, but a player should never let anyone try harder than he does"

- Dean Smith

"Good players want to be coached… Great players want to be told the truth"

- Doc Rivers

"Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise"

- Michael Jordan

"Discipline is the greatest form of love you can show someone. Great players crave discipline"

- Tom Izzo

"In all my years one thing has never changed; You win with serious, tough-minded players. That never changes"

- Tom Thibodeau

"Don't confuse your path with your destination. Just because its stormy now doesn't mean you aren't headed for sunshine"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"I don't recruit players who are nasty to their parents. I look for players who realize the world doesn't revolve around them"

- Pete Carroll

"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability"

- John Wooden

"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes"

- John Wooden

"The extra pass and the extra effort on defense always get the job done"

- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

"Today's society wants to skip the process. And I hate that"

- Tom Izzo

"Defense is one man guarding the ball and four others helping him"

- Mike Krzyzewski

"Discipline is doing what has to be done, when it has to be done, as well as it can be done, and doing it that way all the time"

- Bobby Knight

"Mental is to the physical as four is to one"

- Bobby Knight

"The game honors toughness"

- Brad Stevens

"My goal is to win the next game one possession at a time. That's it. I don't have any other goals"

- Brad Stevens

"Success is determined by your daily choices and habits"

- Rick Pitino

"You can pick captains, but you can't pick leaders. Whoever controls the locker room controls the team"

- Don Meyer

"Discover your gift, develop your gift, and then give it away every day"

- Don Meyer

"Shout praise and whisper criticism"

- Don Meyer

"Make the practices like games and the games like practices"

- Don Meyer

"Young men need more models, not critics"

- John Wooden

"Remember this, the choices you make in life, make you"

- John Wooden

"There are 86,400 seconds in a day. It's up to you to decide what to do with them"

- Jim Valvano

"Be quick without hurrying"

- John Wooden

"Not only is there more to life than basketball, there's a lot more to basketball than basketball"

- Phil Jackson

"Good basketball always starts with good defense!"

- Bobby Knight

"If you're not talking, you're not playing defense"

- Doc Rivers

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

- Don Meyer

"If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special"

- Jim Valvano

"If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot"

- Dean Smith

"It doesn't cost nothing to be nice to people"

- Don Meyer

"Winning is overemphasized. The only time it is really important is in surgery and war"

- Al McGuire