Jeff Van Gundy Quotes

The secret of successful managing is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the four guys who haven't made up their minds.

As you develop relationships in your team you have to learn how your teammates react to being yelled at or how to put your arm around them and show them how to do things. You have to build those relationships up and understand who that person is and how they respond and choose your way to lead them to hopefully help everyone out.

It's up to a manager to understand his players.

To lead a group of players is to lead a group of people with different ways of thinking. You have to be prepared for that and know more than just about football. You have to speak a lot to the players, have to make them feel what you expect of them. Have to convince them. Therefore, it's very important for a coach to have a life outside football.

Not head coach - Assistant would be very attractive, but I don't think I have the discipline to deal with all the egos and personalities a head coach has to deal with.

What I do know as a manager, as a person, is that you have to try and be honest with everyone around you. If I leave a player out, they deserve an explanation. It's about communication, about being clear in what you want.

As a goalkeeper you need to be good at organising the people in front of you and motivating them. You need to see what's going on and react to the threats. Just like a good manager in business.

The Leader will be a person with the management skills to coordinate the activities of the Team, and to assure that the Team remains faithful to the objectives of the incoming President.

So if the players trust the coach, it's not a problem. If the players don't trust the coach, it is a problem, and vice versa.

It's always really challenging trying to go from player to player/coach. You have a kind of friendship basis of relationship with all of your teammates, and now you go to this power position where you have to make decisions that might hurt people's feelings.

You know, I think when you coach or you manage, you make decisions, and there's some that are really, really tough.

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.

In Boston I got to a point where I thought I was putting out fires more than being a baseball coach. And some of it was my fault. I was getting stubborn. My fuse was a little shorter than it needed to be. And that helps nobody.

I think management is about just that - managing people via man-to-man skills.

I think a captain is someone who captains on the cricket field but, most of the leadership that happens is off the cricket field. It's very easy to captain people on the cricket field, but if you can start leading them off the cricket field, and show them that trust, what you have in them.

Look, coaching is about human interaction and trying to know your players. Any coach would tell you that. I'm no different.

You can have great players, but if they don't want to be coached, what are you going to do?

I don't think I am that hands-on. I'm much more of a believer in finding a great team of people and trusting them to follow their instincts. They work better when they feel they have freedom and they are trusted.

A manager's job is simple. For one hundred sixty-two games you try not to screw up all that smart stuff your organization did last December.

The key to good management is keeping the guys on your team who hate your guts away from the guys who haven't made up their minds.

To be a good leader, you have to be a good communicator. As a leader, you have to communicate your intent every chance you get, and if you fail to do that, you will pay the consequences.

We had a lot of different personalities. Hoak was the straw boss. He just would not quit.

I've been involved with great scripts and so-so leadership, and it's clear to me that leadership is the most compelling factor.

Playing baseball is fun. If I could play, I'd never retire. But managing is work. It's constant decisions of whose feelings you want to hurt all the time.

I think people always assume that every team has great intangibles, and that's not necessarily right.