When I first started coaching, one of the worst things that I think I heard was ‘It will be O.K.’ I would wonder, ‘How the hell is it going to be O.K.?’ The worst word in the English language is ‘hope.’
BOBBY KNIGHTThe thing that bothers me the most about the media is simple accuracy.
More Bobby Knight Quotes
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Superiority and success doesn’t favor good effort or self-esteem… The mentally precise and physically fit win, while the mediocre and obtuse take solace in hopeful cliches.
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My definition isas follows: 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it it that way all the time.
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So when I hear a guy after a game-winning home run say or gesture that God was on his side, I think to myself, ‘He’s saying God screwed the pitcher.
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It has always been my thought that the most important single ingredient to success in athletics or life is discipline. I have many times felt that this word is the most ill-defined in all of our language.
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To be as good as it can be, a team has to buy into what you as the coach are doing. They have to feel you’re a part of them and they’re a part of you.
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Failure, to me, is not having the desire to try. Having the desire to try is in it own way success.
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Good basketball always starts with good defense!
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Well, why will it be a better day? And I think the more that we believe in doing things better, doing the right thing rather than hoping that that’s going to happen, let’s make it happen.
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Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.
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Basketball may have been invented in Massachusetts, but it was made for Indiana.
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As coaches we talk about two things: offense and defense. There is a third phase we neglect, which is more important. It’s conversion from offense to defense and defense to offense.
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You are never going to be driven anywhere worthwhile, but you sure as hell drive yourself to a lot of great places. It is up to you to drive yourself there.
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I don’t have to wait until the next morning to regret something I did that was kinda dumb.
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Perform drills that force your players to think
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A coach should never be afraid to ask questions of anyone he could learn from.
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I’ve never predicted anything. All I have ever said is, that we will do the very best we can.
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A primary goal of teaching anything is the advantage that learning gives to people over their competitors who haven’t been as well taught.
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Offense at Indiana is not equal opportunity. Those players who shoot best are going to shoot most. It is important that every player know his offensive limitations. It is also important that a player know who the best shooter is on the team.
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I’ve never felt my job was to win basketball games – rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.
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We should not have to push you to work hard, you should work hard because you want to be a great player.
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At one point, I said to the officials that you guys haven’t called walking for 20 years, now you don’t know what it is. When you call walking, you’re about half right.
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For me to get an award from the press, I know there’s been no favoritism.
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This is like the town council just hired a new marshal to clean up the town, I guarantee you, if I stay here long enough, they’ll get rid of me, too.
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The red I wear is Indiana’s red, not Moscow’s red. Indiana was here long before communism.
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A great way to test the conditioning of your team is the two-mile run.
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I think that we as a people are always prone to think about, well, tomorrow will be a better day.
BOBBY KNIGHT