Player Quotes - Page 158

Teaching has definitely become a big part of my life in the past ten plus years. As it often does for many dedicated players. Because you can have some great gigs.

[We need] someone like Don Sickler, who is an amazing trumpet player and who is also a publisher and amazing producer and composer and arranger. There's a lot of ways you can make a contribution.

We had Bob's [Gordon] records, and he's on Clifford Brown's first record as a leader. I believe it was Clifford Brown's first record as a leader and had the original versions of Daahoud and Joy Spring that were arranged by Bob's best friend, the West Coast tenor player named Jack Montrose, who I later met.

When I got to Performing Arts, within the first week, a few days, Bill Charlap walked in and couldn't read music but he's playing all these solos from Keith Emerson of ELP, and Rick Wakeman from Yes. Real impressive rock piano and keyboard things. And we had really, truly amazing young 13-14 year old classical players in our year who had been practicing six, eight hours a day for eight years. So it was like "Whoa."

We were poor [with my mother], and we didn't have too much. So we sat on the floor and we had a record player, and that's all we had in that room in the apartment. But we had whatever we had. Six records and a record player and it seemed like magic. Seven or eight years old, you know.

eah, you don't get a lot of meatheads doing improvised theater to begin with, and that's always been my thing. I talk about the nerd/meathead dichotomy on my podcast a lot, but there was a time when I was doing UCB full-time and playing men's league rugby in New York City, and I was like the funniest, artsiest rugby player, and the bro-iest improv comedian. I've always managed to sort of be in both sides.

That makes me think of spandex-covered football players. It's not me. I'm in rhinestones and velvet, not spandex.

Jeter is a six-tool player...I've never eaten with him so I can't tell you if he has good table mannners, but I would imagine he has those too.

I dont like to waste notes, not even one. I like to put the right note in the right place, and my influences have always been those kinds of players. Keith Richards comes to mind, and I really like Nils Lofgrens soloing, because hes so melodic. I love John Lennons rhythm playing, and George Harrison was an incredible guitarist.

Before I met Jesus I wanted to be a professional pool player.

And because technology is moving so rapidly, things become obsolete very, very quickly. In 15 years time, Will Caster is probably going to be in some weird room in Vegas where people are plugging quarters into him. Who has a mini-disc of a laser disc player? It's over!

A lot of players go into a restaurant and ask for a special table. I go and stand in line with the working people. It's very easy to get spoiled playing professional sports.

When everyone has good players, teaching will be a telling difference.

Since the most important responsibility of a coach in regard to the actual playing of the game is to teach his players properly and effectively to execute the various fundamentals of the game, he is first of all a teacher.

If a player's not doing the things he should, put him on the bench. He'll come around.

The best players don't win championships. The best team players win championships.

You cannot attain and maintain physical condition unless you are morally and mentally conditioned. And it is impossible to be in moral condition unless you are spiritually conditioned. I always told my players that our team condition depended on two factors / how hard they worked on the floor during practice and how well they behaved between practices.

A gifted player, who is not a team player, will ultimately hurt the team.

I wanted my players to always be searching, especially for truth. I wanted them to know what they believed and be able to defend it. Truth will always stand the test of scrutiny.

The player who puts the ball through the hoop has ten hands.

I discovered early on that the player who learned the fundamentals of basketball is going to have a much better chance of succeeding and rising through the levels of competition than the player who was content to do things his own way. A player should be interested in learning why things are done a certain way. The reasons behind the teaching often go a long way to helping develop the skill.

The person who is afraid to risk failure seldom has to face success. I expected my players to make mistakes, as long as they were mistakes of commission. A mistake of commission happens when you are doing what should be done but don't get the results you want.

I never yelled at my players much. That would have been artificial stimulation, which doesn't last very long. I think it's like love and passion. Passion won't last as long as love. When you are dependent on passion, you need more and more of it to make it work. It's the same with yelling.

I always talked to my players about today. It's the only day that matters.

Once you become a good person, then you have a chance of becoming a good basketball player.