Jeff Van Gundy Quotes

My high school class was the first one to know, during the college recruiting process, to know there was the option to play professional basketball, to know that the WNBA was there, and to know I better pick a school that is going to help me get to the next level.

It doesn't change whether it's Georgia, Clemson or Florida or Tennessee. You have to fight out there on the recruiting trail every day. And recruiting's a lot like shaving: If you don't do it every day, you start looking like a bum.

Rookies are also coming in from college programs as big stars, whereas when we came in, we were just happy to be there. We were happy to be playing in a big gym, to be on television, to be playing in America.

The thing is 3,900 out of 4,000 college basketball players are very happy to have a scholarship. They're happy. They've got a $70,000 scholarship and they've got money in their pocket. It's the other hundred guys and they're all going to make money playing basketball and the top guys are going to make a lot of money.

Guys are coming into the league a little more mature when they take the three or four years in college.

We could fill up a whole hour's television show talking about coach's recruiting stories, I love them, they're the best.

When I was in college, I was a landscaper. Other than that, coaching has been my life and my job. A lot of people like coaching college, but I would never do it again. There are too many NCAA bylaws, rules and politics.

A lot of kids, especially football players, had been using Twitter for recruiting.

You see, some kids, the college coaches are calling them at all hours of the night, saying the same thing over and over again.

Washington State was a tough recruiting spot.

The opportunity to play in the Big Ten was one that I could not pass up.

I didn't get an athletics scholarship at a major school.

The University of Notre Dame does not redshirt, and I endorse that policy completely. I am very much in favor of redshirting, but not at Notre Dame. But there's no doubt about it. It puts us at a huge disadvantage.

College athletics are so entrenched and enjoyed by so many people that they will never be discontinued or substantially changed. I know that. I just pity the people caught in that tender trap. And most of all, I pity those kids.

Without the AJGA, it would be very difficult for the college coaches to find us. Every junior golfer around the country knows about the AJGA and knows that's the way to get to college. And the way to get beyond college.

I think we can benefit from being in the ACC. It's a great basketball league. If anything, it helps our recruiting.

Everyone wrote our obituary but us and the coaches and the kids who stayed with us. The obit was, 'Vanderbilt will have to leave the Southeastern Conference. All the coaches are leaving, and all the students are transferring.'

My life, even as a college student, has all been through the NCAA, and I'm telling you there's so much good that comes out of it.

I never thought Marquis Teague would leave after a year.

Mark Emmert, the head of the NCAA, makes millions. Coaches today are making millions. Who's not making anything? I don't want to hear about they get scholarships. Yeah, they get scholarships all right, they earn those scholarships.

I got some cash from agents. I've talked to the NCAA. I think that should be legal. I want some money, too; everybody else is making money. I want to go on dates. I want to go buy myself some new suits. I want to buy myself some new sneakers, and I paid the agents back.

The NCAA makes so much money off of their kids, and they put ridiculous - absolutely ridiculous - restrictions on everything that they can do.

I went to University of Illinois team camp. And that was a big deal for me. I got MVP of the camp, but they offered another kid from the camp, which was fine. I laughed with the couple coaches I know who were there at the time, who were part of recruiting the other guy.

The unwritten rule in college basketball is the black assistant goes and gets the black players. Don't worry about the X's and O's. Just recruit.

If a guy is not serious about being a student-athlete then why force him into the college system. He's not serious about getting education.