Mike Krzyzewski Quotes - Page 6

The worst thing we can do is put the (other) team in a one-and-one.

When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to become a priest.

Encourage members of your team to take the initiative and act on their own.

If you win a National Championship, or you win two, people think you have not only seen the Holy Grail, but you've embraced it. Basically, I do what a lot of people do, but I've been able to win.

I was very pleased with the entire selection process. The manner in which it was conducted included all parts of United States' basketball, from the professional level to the colleges and high schools. Everyone was considered.

When I went to high school, an all-boys' school, a Catholic school, I tried out for football, and I didn't make it. It was the first time, athletically, that I was knocked down.

It's always an honor to be ranked high, but whatever is said about you, you take it and then take a realistic look at yourself and who you are.

I've tried to handle winning well, so that maybe we'll win again, but I've also tried to handle failure well. If those serve as good examples for teachers and kids, then I hope that would be a contribution I have made to sport. Not just basketball, but to sport.

My parents didn't really understand too much about sport. At that time, we were in a Polish community in the inner city of Chicago, and I was the youngest of a bunch of cousins. Polish families are real big, with cousins and aunts and uncles.

When I was growing up, there weren't any Little Leagues in the city. Parents worked all the time. They didn't have time to take their kids out to play baseball and football.

Turning down the Lakers was tough, but it is always good to renew your vows to the loves of your life.

I believe work is good. There is dignity in work. I also believe that a hard-work ethic forges strong leaders.

It is the ultimate honor for a coach to be his country's coach.

People have to be given the freedom to show the heart they possess. I think it’s a leader’s responsibility to provide that type of freedom. And I believe it can be done through relationships and family. Because if a team is a real family, it’s members want to show you their hearts.

Every leader needs to remember that a healthy respect for authority takes time to develop. It’s like building trust. You don’t instantly have trust, it has to be earned.

Leaders have to search for the heart on a team, because the person who has it can bring out the best in everybody else.

When I had troubles, I'd go out - with basketball, you can do it by yourself, too. So you'd go out and shoot, and you'd fantasize.

Why do you play a game? I play a game to see how good we can be.

We travel in Duke stuff... They can have a hat, but it must be a Duke hat.

Therefore, as a player, as a coach, even though we might have lost in a season or not won a championship, it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy that I'm going to win some time. I've never felt myself a loser.

Sometimes in a defeat, you can set the stage for future victory. I wanted them to feel good about what they had accomplished. Not to like losing, but to like the success that they had.

That's another thing, we made up games. We didn't have equipment. When it snowed, we would play slow motion tackle football. We would play hockey, but we wouldn't skate. We just made things up. I loved doing that.

Throughout the season, I look into my players eyes to gauge feelings, confidence levels, and to establish instant trust.

There are kids don't want to do something because they're afraid of looking stupid to their peers. There comes a time when they start protecting themselves, instead of extending. I want to make sure that they're always trying to extend themselves.

Even though we want huge individual egos, our collective ego is unbelievable.