Calvin Johnson Quotes

I'm a great believer that you cannot have enough senior pros around your dressing room.

A lot of these teams really forget that part of success comes with having veteran leadership. You see a lot of teams forget that and start letting go of these old veterans. They don't realize how important it is to have a veteran voice in your locker room or on the bench. It's important to have guys who have been there before.

There were some great veterans who I learned so much from and who helped make me the best I could be as a player.

I've had influences from many people including the coaches and players I've worked with.

I also wanted to play with Peyton Manning because I thought he could teach me a lot, and he did.

It's just like high school. If you're a freshman or a sophomore, it's hard to tell the seniors who've been through two, three, playoff games what to do.

Mike Matheny, Fernando Vina, Edgar Renteria, Mark McGwire and Darryl Kile... before he died. Those guys took me under their wing and taught me the way to play the game the right way.

He knew I enjoyed the relationships of college basketball. All along, he was the wise one.

My role models in the business were the older guys on my team when I first got there: Gray Scott, Adrian Smith, Roland Taylor. These were the guys who took me under their wing, and really schooled me in terms of what the business was about.

It's always great for a young guy to have those examples, even though you may not follow 'em right away, it's great to have those guys in the locker room that you could look up to and see the right way to go about your business.

It is important to watch and learn from the seniors in the team.

That's my job as a veteran in the league - to help make the young guys better.

Playing one year under Coach K feels like you've played for three years. I learned so much from him; gained a lot of wisdom and knowledge from him.

I learned how to be a pro, I learned how to win, I learned about building relationships with your teammates; it goes beyond basketball. I pretty much learned everything I know from OKC.

Coach K was great. We had a couple of individual conversations and he definitely taught me a lot of things.

When you've got the experienced players around you who've won countless trophies and titles between them, you want to rise to them.

You see guys that have been in the league for a long time and have taken that opportunity to not only make their game better but to make the people around them better. And to help them know things that maybe you wish you had known.

I had a lot of veteran guys who taught me things.

I call him 'Daddy Coach.' He's taught me everything that he's known so I'm able to do what I'm able to do.

There's so many things Thierry's taught me, just how you go about being a professional.

I sit next to Drogba in the dressing room. I listen all the time because he gives advice.

The key is having great players. But there are a lot of teams that have All-Stars and haven't been able to put it together.

Cause I was such a novice and thank God that Sarah was as seasoned as she was because she was really a great leader in that regard in the sense that she would communicate really well with the crew.

I spent my first twenty years in Morocco, where I coached the national team.

I didn't really want to be the coach who wins but the coach who educates.