Coaching Challenges Quotes

I know I have the abilities to be a head coach or D-coordinator. It's something I wouldn't mind doing. But it's tough being a player and going back and doing something like that, because egos get in the way.

I've had a decent career, I've been a decent player but coaching is a whole different ball game. I can take the experience that I've got but there's so much more to it than that and I'd never take it for granted and just say I can jump into a new role and it will be easy and a breeze because I know it won't be like that.

I've missed the association with players and coaches but haven't missed the recruiting and the travel.

Coaching takes patience. I'm more enthused when teaching players who want it versus when I have to.

To teach an academic subject is certainly not easy, but compared to coaching, it is. We can say 'two plus two is four' to every kid and be sure that we are right. But in coaching, we have to literally get to the soul of the people we are dealing with.

Some coaches prefer players who will just do whatever he tells them to. It's like, if you're at school with a load of 10-year-old boys and you tell them to jump, everyone will start to jump. But the intelligent boy will ask, 'Why should I jump? Why?' That can be difficult for a lot of coaches, and I understand that.

A coach needs time to get to know the players, the environment, the fans and the culture of the club. You can't solve everything in one or two months.

You just have to adapt to what is needed at that moment, whereas as coaches are going crazy, because they're used to having and following a schedule. Everything's laid out in front of them on when they're going to practice and when they're going to take a plane to this city.

Just thinking about the Pittsburgh franchise and Dan Rooney when he hired me, my first goal was just not to get fired before my 20th high school reunion.

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.

I tell young players who want to be coaches, who think they can put up with all the headaches and heartaches, can you live without it? If you can live without it, don't get in it.

There's always things you want to get better at and learn from but that's something that's quite hard to instil in players.

People think that coaches are always right, but it's difficult to teach a runner how to run, because every runner is different. You have to have an understanding of how to assist what that runner has, so they know how to assist what you have without taking away your special ability, because you're not like anybody else.

As a player, you can be more spontaneous and instinctive, but now as a coach I have to find a psychological balance within the team.

I'm by no means an expert at coaching high school football. I'm doing the best I can in Year 1. But I've already learned a lot of lessons and I imagine I'll keep learning them.

When a coach loses a team... that's when a coach is kind of done.

A lot of coaches make it harder than it should be. Some are too hard on themselves, obsessing about controlling everything, not trusting their assistants, worrying about time.

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

It's difficult to be a coach.

Coaches have the worst hours in the world. They go home maybe twice a week. They're sleeping in their office. They're watching film. It's a brutal, brutal job and that's why I respect them so much.

It can be lonely as a manager out there. You are on the field, yes, but you are not really on the field with them. Yet I have to share with my players my experiences and my knowledge.

I accept that everyone is entitled to his opinion and as a coach, I don't run away from criticism.

I would be a very demanding coach. I wouldn't yell and scream, but I want players that want what I want. And that's why I couldn't coach, 'cause I know how hard it is and I know how hard I want you to play. But everyone's not going to do what I want.

You definitely go through a stage, most coaches do, where you see a good player and you get enamored, you really like what the player does, but then when you put him into your system, it's not quite the same player that he was in another system. He has some strengths, but you cant utilize all those strengths. If you try to utilize all his strengths, you end up weakening a lot of other players who are already in your system.

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.