Mike Krzyzewski Quotes

During the season, your team should be led with exuberance and excitement. You should live the journey. You should live it right. You should live it together. You should live it shared. You should try to make one another better. You should get on one another if somebody's not doing their part. You should hug one another when they are. You should be disappointed in a loss and exhilarated in a win. It's all about the journey.

On every team, there is a core group that sets the tone for everyone else. If the tone is positive, you have half the battle won. If it is negative, you are beaten before you ever walk on the field.

The important thing is to get the right players on the team so Mike can be successful.

People realize that when you win, you obviously have some good players on your team.

The key ingredient is talent - you've got to have talent. If you look at the regular season, they've got the best record in the entire league, so they've got the talent.

I think the tone that the head coach sets transcends to the team.

A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.

He doesn't need advice on how to play his position, but he needs advice on how to play team ball... If it's going to be my team, I'll voice my opinion. If he don't like it, he can opt out.

This may sound arrogant, but I believe that if we'd done teamship better, we'd still be there. Where we fell down was the inability to hold together. We should have learnt from the great football teams. The players may not like each other. They have egos, they have their own ambitions, they have different personalities, but they are still bloody good teams.

I would never recruit a player who yells at his teammates, disrespected his high school coach, or scores 33 points a game and his team goes 10-10.

You need a lot of leaders, but a hockey team needs a voice, not only in the community, but more importantly between the coaching staff and the players. There are always ups and downs in a season; the captain is the guy players look to in those situations.

Michael Jordon may have been the best basketball player in history, but he couldn't have won six NBA titles without a team.

When you think about little league football, high school, and even on to college even more so, you're dealing with a lot of guys that are prideful, that think they're the best - a lot of alpha males. So, typically, you've got to have a guy that can control those guys, and, when he talks, they know he means business. He's a serious guy.

I know that nobody can become a star without a team.

I hold head coaches accountable.

I think the players win the championship, and the organization has something to do with it, don't get me wrong. But don't try to put the organization above the players.

You are only as successful as the people who work for you want you to be.

I think there's a lot of different ways to win. You've seen teams that win championships with a super-duper star like Kobe Bryant. Those championship teams with Michael Jordan certainly had a great, great player.

The team with the best players wins.

It's not a successful captain that makes a successful team.

I talk to the players, either individually or as a group, what I'm feeling, and I think the players appreciate that. And I think they respond to that.

People want to see how we get teams to come together so quickly. They want to see how we get young guys to play so hard and so unselfish. I'm fine with that. I have no problem sharing that.

You cannot just allow your team to stink.

You can only win if you have good players.

I always like to have the best players in my team.