Top 169 Quotes & Sayings by Mike Krzyzewski

Imagination has a great deal to do with winning.

Even though we want huge individual egos, our collective ego is unbelievable.

The person who has inspired me my whole life is my Mom, because she taught me commitment. She sacrificed.

Actually, the Kentucky moment was better than winning the two National Championships, because it was the epitome of what I try to get from a team in a crisis situation.

It's always an honor to be ranked high, but whatever is said about you, you take it and then take a realistic look at yourself and who you are.

My ambition in high school was to be a high school coach and teacher, and that's still what I do: teach.

I hated to lose.

Once you win a National Championship, how do you do that again? How do you get the passion to do that again? We won it again right away, the next year. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't give myself an opportunity to enjoy the first one.

Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they need.

I had a really bad temper, when I was growing up. Sport helped me channel that temper into more positive acts.

I always wanted to teach.

I think you're not a human being unless you have doubts and fears.

That's another thing, we made up games. We didn't have equipment. When it snowed, we would play slow motion tackle football. We would play hockey, but we wouldn't skate. We just made things up. I loved doing that.

Fun is to experience things you would not have been able to experience in any other setting.

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

The other thing I knew I had was a high level of competitiveness.

When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to become a priest.

I always won in my imagination. I always hit the game-winning shot, or I hit the free throw. Or if I missed, there was a lane violation, and I was given another one.

I've been so fortunate in my life that my family has never been jealous of my success. They have shown true love and commitment to me by being supportive. They shared in it.

I've tried to handle winning well, so that maybe we'll win again, but I've also tried to handle failure well. If those serve as good examples for teachers and kids, then I hope that would be a contribution I have made to sport. Not just basketball, but to sport.

Parents can really help, but they can also really hinder the development of their youngsters.

When I went to high school, an all-boys' school, a Catholic school, I tried out for football, and I didn't make it. It was the first time, athletically, that I was knocked down.

The life expectancy of a team is about eight months. Then the next year, it's a whole new team.

If you win a National Championship, or you win two, people think you have not only seen the Holy Grail, but you've embraced it. Basically, I do what a lot of people do, but I've been able to win.

The thing I loved the most - and still love the most about teaching - is that you can connect with an individual or a group, and see that individual or group exceed their limits.

First of all, what happens is, when you're good at something, you spend a lot of time with it. People identify you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.

I think some parents now look at a youngster failing as the final thing. It's a process, and failure is part of the process. I would like it if the teacher and the parents would connect more. I think that used to be, but we're losing a little bit of that right now.

In high school, in sport, I had a coach who told me I was much better than I thought I was, and would make me do more in a positive sense. He was the first person who taught me not to be afraid of failure.

Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school.

Throughout my life, my mom has been the person that I've always looked up to.

Playing sport was somewhat frivolous, but I liked it. I rebelled a little bit, and wouldn't go to music lessons and things like that, but I would go and play ball. My parents learned to love it because they saw how much I got out of it.

The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions.

My parents didn't really understand too much about sport. At that time, we were in a Polish community in the inner city of Chicago, and I was the youngest of a bunch of cousins. Polish families are real big, with cousins and aunts and uncles.

When you win, sometimes it overshadows a poor performance.

You can see and you can listen, but you have to have moments in which you feel.

I'm fortunate now that I coach at Duke University and we've won a lot. I have some kids who haven't failed that much. But when they get to college, they're going to fail some time. That's a thing that I can help them the most with.

I have a rule on my team: when we talk to one another, we look each other right in the eye, because I think it's tough to lie to somebody. You give respect to somebody.

That's what I do now: I lead and I teach. If we win basketball games from doing that, then that's great, but I lead and teach. Those are the two things I concentrate on.

Leadership is an ever-evolving position.

A basketball team is like the five fingers on your hand. If you can get them all together, you have a fist. That's how I want you to play.

It is the ultimate honor for a coach to be his country's coach.

I'm still not a great reader, but my wife is and my daughters are, and I envy them. I think I got into a bad habit of trying to do something all the time, instead of trying to sit down and take my time a little bit.

There are kids don't want to do something because they're afraid of looking stupid to their peers. There comes a time when they start protecting themselves, instead of extending. I want to make sure that they're always trying to extend themselves.

When I was growing up, there weren't any Little Leagues in the city. Parents worked all the time. They didn't have time to take their kids out to play baseball and football.

With me and basketball, it became part of me.

Everybody wants to take responsibility when you win, but when you fail, all these fingers are pointing.

The only way you're going to grow is to be in difficult situations.

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

Effective teamwork begins and ends with communication

When you are passionate, you always have your destination in sight and you are not distracted by obstacles. Because you love what you are pursuing, things like rejection and setbacks will not hinder you in your pursuit. You believe that nothing can stop you!

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

Leadership is simple: Add value to people everyday.

Only the mediocre are always at their best. If your standards are low, it is easy to meet those standards every single day, every single year. But if your standard is to be the best, there will be days when you fall short of that goal. It is okay to not win every game. The only problem would be if you allow a loss or a failure to change your standards. Keep your standards intact, keep the bar set high, and continue to try your very best every day to meet those standards. If you do that, you can always be proud of the work that you do.

You develop a team to achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone. All of us alone are weaker, by far, than if all of us are together.

My hunger is not for success, it is for excellence. Because when you attain excellence, success just naturally follows.

In order to be a winner, you have to look for ways of getting things done and not for reasons why things can’t be done. People who live with excuses have things that can’t be done hovering around them all the time.

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

A leader is someone who puts their people in position to be successful all the time

In all forms of leadership, whether you are a coach, a CEO, or a parent, there are four words that, when said, can bring out the best in your team, your employees, and your family. I BELIEVE IN YOU. Those four words can mean the difference between a fear of failure and the courage to try.

Never delegate. Always empower.