Wooden's Greatest Quotes

The life lessons taught by John Wooden have become legend. Here's a collection of some of the greatest "Woodenisms."

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."

"Never mistake activity for achievement."

"Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then."

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

"Be prepared and be honest."

"Be quick, but don't hurry."

"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."

"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you."

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

"Winning takes talent; to repeat takes character."

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

"I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent."

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

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

"It isn't what you do, but how you do it."

"Ability is a poor man's wealth."

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."

"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights."

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

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

"It's not so important who starts the game but who finishes it."

"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."

"Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."

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

"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."

"Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts."

QUOTES

"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."
-Abraham Lincoln-

"What we think or what we know or what we believe is, in the end of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do."
-John Ruskin-

TALENT IS NOT ENOUGH

There are a lot of people that are blessed with an incredible amount of God given ability. What seperates those people are what they do with their talent?

"There are a lot of guys hanging on the street corners with athleticism in their pockets." Bengals Head Coach Marvin Lewis

WHAT IS A WINNER?

A winner is someone who recognizes his Godgiven talents, works his tail off two develop them into skills, and uses those skills to accomplish his goals.

ARE YOU A FOUNTAIN?

Choose to be a fountain not a drain. A fountain is a giver. A drain sucks the energy out of a team.

ADVERSITY

Adversity only visits the strong but stays with the weak.

Coach K - Teaching Offense

“My emphasis is not on running an offense...it is on teaching my team offense. We want players who can play offense, not run an offense.”
-Mike Krzyzewski

SCREENERS

“The toughest thing to guard is a great shooter that screens.”
-Roy Williams

COMPETITIVENESS

"When talent is roughly equal, the competitive guys win. You have to have that in this league to win." Sacramento Kings coach Paul Westphal

LARRY FITZGERALD

Todd Haley: "I told Larry Fitzgerald the first time I met him: ‘I’m not your buddy. I’m your coach; I’m trying to get you to be great."

BECOMING GREAT

"The good ones, they put aside everything going on in their lives and focus specifically on basketball. Thats how they become great." Keith Smart (Assistant coach for the Golden St Warriors.)

RICKY RUBIO

"I'm only 18 years old, but on the court age doesn't matter," Rubio said of his leadership skills. "If your teammates don't respect you, you can't be a point guard, so that's very important. When you are a leader, the point guard who leads your team, your team gets better."

PASSION

Trump: "Passion is a key ingredient to success and even more so to bouncing back. If you work hard without passion, you're just wasting energy."

COMPLACENCY

Urban Meyer: "Do I worry about complacency? Sure I do. That's why we're going to have the toughest off-season we've ever had."

BORING PLAYS

Tony Romo on what he's learned after 39 starts: "Highlight reels don't win championships. They don't. The boring plays win championships."

QUOTES

KEITH BULLOCK - Tennessee Titans LB: Confidence is like money. Very hard to get and very easy to lose.

PAT SUMMITT: "If it doesn't bother you, it won't bother them."

PAT RILEY: "Great effort springs naturally from great attitude."

BRANDON ROY: "Now I see why Kobe, LeBron have that extra drive. You have to take these growing pains and remember them," Roy said after their first round exit to the Houston Rockets.

Kobe to Coach K: "I want you to let me guard the best player on every team we (Team USA) face. And I promise that I will destroy him."

Mike Krzyzewski: "Failure requires you to reevaluate."

Bart Starr - former NFL great: “If there was just one word I could use to describe a successful person, that one word would be attitude.”

Tom Brady: "Don't get caught up in worrying about what other guys do. When I started worrying about myself that was when things started going better for me."

Benjamin E. Mays: "The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal, but in having no goal to reach."

Denver Nuggets guard J.R.Smith said point guard Chauncy Billups allows Coach George Karl to "save his breath" when talking to his team.

George Karl: "The Chauncey trade was huge because everything we were preaching, teaching and coaching, he personified."

Lions' Schwartz: "The playoffs are a long way away. What's more important is what happens today. We need to set goals on a shorter scale."

Derek Fisher: "The guys who separate themselves are those who are able to take what appear to be setbacks and stay prepared, keep working."

Joe Torre: "A winner is somebody who goes out there every day and exhausts himself trying to get something accomplished."

From the book "A New Breed of Leader": Katharine Graham, "the most important leadership quality is the absence of arrogance."

SU Coach Marrone: "Competition is the key to being successful. Look at any team, if it's successful, they have competition on that team."

Nick Saban" "We had a good spring, but I don't think the true team chemistry really surfaces until the summertime. The coaches are always with the guys in spring practice. In the summer, the coaches aren't there as much. That's when the true leadership starts to emerge. You start to see the core buy-in that everybody has in terms of how they go about what they do. They have to work with the strength and conditioning coaches. For the first time, the responsibility becomes theirs instead of somebody making them do it. That's where the true chemistry (develops); you see what the team might be."

Peter Drucker: "To trust a leader, it is not necessary to like him. Nor is it necessary to agree with him."

John Stuart Mill: "He who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do."

QUOTES

"I WOULD WALK THROUGH HELL IN A GASOLINE SUIT TO PLAY BASEBALL." Pete Rose

George Karl on Chauncey Billups: "You don't understand how good he is running the team. He's the head coach a lot."

Coach Woodson on Mike Bibby: “Without him we’re lost. He’s our quarterback."

TEAM QUOTES

Great quote from Ron Artest the other day in the Houston paper:

"The only thing that defines individuals is how the team does."

A good quote from John Wooden that relates is, "The star of the team is the team."

"When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality."

THE SPIRIT OF A HUMAN BEING

Great quote from University of Cincinnati football offensive coordinator Jeff Quinn,

"I always said you don't underestimate the spirit of a human being. You don't know what's going on in their chest and between their ears. You just don't know."