A Quote by Jeff Van Gundy
I don't ever remember wanting to do anything but coach. My dad obviously influenced me. But it wasn't because he sat there and drilled coaching stuff into our heads. We were on the bench keeping the scorebook and traveling with the team on weekends. It was such a great upbringing.
Related Quotes
I went to many coaching clinics, talked to other coaches, read articles, books, etc. Anything I could do that would help me prepare to be the best coach possible. Fortunately, the coaches I had as a player were good men and were excellent role models in setting priorities and relating to the team members and coaching staff.
I've had the privilege of coaching the best basketball team in the history of the world, and that's the USA national team. I've had a chance to coach them for eight years. If you were to ask me if I could end my career only coaching one team for the rest of my coaching career, I don't think it could get better than that, especially with the players that I've had during those eight years. When you've coached at that level, you know, you've coached those players, it's pretty hard to say, I would rather coach anybody else.
Perhaps the toughest call for a coach is weighing what is best for an individual against what is best for the team. Keeping a player on the roster just because I liked him personally, or even because of his great contributions to the team in the past, when I felt some one else could do more for the team would be a disservice to the team's goals.
Dad, you played rounders with me, even though you hated it and wished I'd take up cricket. You learned how to keep a stamp collecion because I wanted to know. For hours you sat in hospitals and never, not once, complained. You brushed my hair like a mother should. You gave up work for me, friends for me, four years of your life for me. You never moaned. Hardly ever. You let me have Adam. You let me have my list. I was outrageous. Wanting, wanting so much. And you never said, 'That's enough. Stop now.
If I played basketball, and you played with me, and all of a sudden you become my head coach, there isn't anything you can tell me, dude. Because your years in the league were just as long as mine. Why are you coaching me? That's one of the things that I hate.
My dad worked 12-hour shifts in the Kodak factory - I remember creeping about when he was on nights - but he was also lead singer in a band playing in British Legion and working men's clubs. My earliest memories are of being sat at the back of a pub, falling asleep on the bench while my dad played.
If you've got aspirations to be a manager or coach, obviously coaching your country would be a great honour.
The book on my nightstand right now isnt anything that inspired me, but it entertained me. I read a book on Labor Day, it was a holiday, and I have three daughters, and we all went to the shopping mall and I sat on the bench and read a book while they shopped, it was called The Greatest Golfer there Ever Was, it was a great book, easy to read and entertaining.
I thought as a young coach, there were times when my head coach might have prohibited me from moving forward. I always said if I am ever in that position, I'll do anything I can to make our guys move forward.
Our sports [softball] is a game of failure already so my dad always says to parents who he is a pitching coach and he's been my pitching coach since I was 11 years old is if they can be the best kid on the team, let them experience that and then obviously the challenge has to come later on but you don't get that opportunity very often and confidence is such a huge part of this game and in life in general.
I was very small, about 3 or 4 I think, and just wanted to be the people on telly telling these wonderful stories. Obviously the idea grew and matured with me but I can't ever remember wanting to do anything else. I've just sort of taken it for granted all my life that that was what I would do.
Whenever a team has three weeks to prepare, and it's an excellent coach and coaching staff and great players, you've got to work on it all.
When I'm by myself, I'm not threatening at all. I get many more invitations than I would if I were traveling with anyone else, especially with a man. But I'm rarely alone. I sit on a park bench and I'm not alone because I pick a park bench where somebody interesting is sitting.
My dad took me to a high school basketball game and this very, very famous coach in Michigan, by the name of Lofton Greene - he was a guy that my dad was familiar with. He was from our hometown. And I watched the game and I said I didn't see this guy doing a lot of coaching. And my dad told me, well, it's just like a teacher - which he was - he said if you do a good job teaching during the week, when they take the test on Friday, that's not the time you have to do a lot of demonstrative things.
I can't remember a time when I stepped into an airport or train station without wishing I were somewhere else, doing almost anything else. Just thinking about traveling gives me the willies. Traveling and dyslexia don't really get along.
For me, I think you can coach guys in martial artsm, and wrestling can be one aspect of it, but I have no desire to be an NCAA wrestling coach again. It was one of the worst coaching jobs I have ever had.
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