A Quote by John Wooden

Selfishness is the greatest challenge for a coach. Most players are more concerned with making themselves better than the team.

John Wooden

Quote Topics

Better Challenge Coach Concerned Greatest Making More Most Players Selfishness Team Than Themselves

Quote Author

John Wooden
American - Coach
October 14, 1910 - June 4, 2010

There's players like myself in the league who deserve to make the All-Star team and aren't given a chance. I've put up numbers, as good if not better than players that are making the team.

Jeff Cunningham

The more better players we have at Barcelona, the better it is for the team and coach.

Sergio Busquets

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.

Geno Auriemma

I think players maybe now want to look more pretty than anything else. What I feel disappointed about when I watch games is too many players think of themselves. Still good players, maybe better than we were, but looking too much at themselves.

Patrick Vieira

No man is more important than The Team. No coach is more important than The Team. The Team, The Team, The Team, and if we think that way, all of us, everything that you do, you take into consideration what effect does it have on my Team?

Bo Schembechler

I look at the England job. It's not always about being the greatest coach. You've got less than a week before most matches. So do the players need actual coaching, or do they need to be set up in a team structure that works, and then pointed in the right direction? Create spirit, take away the fear.

Steve Bruce

Many of the most successful coaches and managers have come from players who never reached the highest level. The one exception seems to be basketball, where many of the greatest stars at least tried to coach a team.

George Vecsey

As a coach you need to choose the characteristics your players can contribute. I don't think it's a good thing for a coach to analyse his team by looking for something he sees in other teams. He has to pay close attention to the characteristics his team have, and make the most of those.

Diego Simeone

The first thing any coaching staff must do is weed out selfishness. No program can be successful with players who put themselves ahead of the team.

Johnny Majors

I believe in work, in connections between the players, I think what makes football great is that it is a team sport. You can win in different ways, by being more of a team, or by having better individual players. It is the team ethic that interests me, always.

Arsene Wenger

Coach isn't the one playing. The players do that. The coach can only help with planning so if the team loses, I don't think the coach is not as accountable as we hold him as a nation.

Wasim Akram

The on-field stuff, setting fields, changing bowlers, that's the easy part. It's making sure all your players are on the same page with what your plans are and what you want from your players and the team. That's the biggest challenge and what you really need to get right if you want your team to be successful.

Steve Smith

Change does not mean you will win with a new coach and achieve victories, but rather it causes instability in the team as the new coach needs some time for the players to adapt his new plans, which are always different than the previous coach.

Fabio Cannavaro

Despite their tremendous talent, (NBA players) are still, by and large, young adults, seeking validation from an authority figure, and there is no greater authority figure on a team than the coach. Needless to say, in today's warped, self-indulgent climate, too many players couldn't care less about appeasing the coach.

Phil Jackson

In San Antonio when I was asked to say other players were better than me to help their confidence so they can play better, that was the most disrespectful thing that I've ever heard from any coach in my life.