Basketball Coach Quotes
Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes

Coach K Quotes

Since Krzyzewski can be a difficult name for some people, Mike Krzyzewski is often simply called Coach "K".

Coach Krzyzewski (Coach K) has been coaching Duke over 25 years now and has brought the university three NCAA Championships over that time frame.

Coach K was an assistant on the 1992 Olympic "Dream Team" and is slated to coach the United States national basketball team through the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Reading Mike Krzyzewski Quotes/Coach K Quotes is a special treat. Mike Krzyzewski Quotes offer words of encouragement and inspiration. When you're allowing a couple of Coach K Quotes to filter through your brain, you're usually learning something important about leadership.

As part of our Basketball Coach Quotes Series, we bring you "Mike Krzyzewski Quotes", or if you like, "Coach K Quotes".

When you're done enjoying the following Mike Krzyzewski quotes (Coach K quotes), you can visit our Great Basketball Quotes for hundreds of more basketball quotes.

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Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes (1-5)

• "To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless."
• "If a team cannot perform with excellence at a moment's notice, they probably will fail in the long run."
• "I always won in my imagination. I always hit the game-winning shot, or I hit the free throw. Or if I missed, there was a lane violation, and I was given another one."
• "Leaders have to search for the heart on a team, because the person who has it can bring out the best in everybody else."
• "In leadership, there are no words more important that trust. In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team if success is going to be achieved."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(6-10)

• "Mutual commitment helps overcome the fear of failure—especially when people are part of a team sharing and achieving goals. It also sets the stage for open dialogue and honest conversation."
• "Visualize a wagon wheel as a complete team. A leader might be the hub of the wheel at the center. Now suppose the spokes are the connecting relationships the leader is building with people on the outer rim of the wheel. If the hub is removed, then the entire wheel collapses. In a situation like that, if a team loses the leader, the entire team collapses."
• "When you first assemble a group, it’s not a team right off the bat. It’s only a collection of individuals."
• "The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions. Not me. I don’t want to be a manager or a dictator. I want to be a leader—and leadership is ongoing, adjustable, flexible, and dynamic. As such, leaders have to maintain a certain amount of discretion."
• "Making shots counts, but not as much as the people who make them."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(11-15)

• "When you are passionate, you always have your destination in sight and you are not distracted by obstacles. Because you love what you are pursuing, things like rejection and setbacks will not hinder you in your pursuit. You believe that nothing can stop you!"
• "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."
• "A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on "x's and o's" as compared to time spent learning about people."
• "Leaders show respect for people by giving them time."
• "I believe God gave us crises for some reason—and it certainly wasn’t for us to say that everything about them is bad. A crisis can be a momentous time for a team to grow—if a leader handles it properly."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(16-20)

• "People want to be on a team. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They want to be in a situation where they feel that they are doing something for the greater good."
• "Encourage members of your team to take the initiative and act on their own."
• "Courage and confidence are what decision making is all about."
• "Communication does not always occur naturally, even among a tight-knit group of individuals. Communication must be taught and practiced in order to bring everyone together as one."
• "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."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(21-25)

• "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."
• "The thing I loved the most - and still love the most about teaching - is that you can connect with an individual or a group, and see that individual or group exceed their limits."
• "That's why basketball was so good, because I didn't really need you or anyone else to play it. It would be better if we played four-on-four or five-on-five, but I could go out there alone."
• "Confrontation simply means meeting the truth head-on."
• "During critical periods, a leader is not allowed to feel sorry for himself, to be down, to be angry, or to be weak. Leaders must beat back these emotions."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(26-30)

• "When you cleanse yourself of a big victory, you may open yourself up to the opportunity for an even bigger victory."
• "It takes courage not only to make decisions, but to live with those decisions afterward."
• "Believe that the loose ball that you are chasing has your name on it."
• "The second time, I was involved in probably one of the great games in the history of college sport, when we beat Kentucky in '92 for the Eastern Regional Championship. Rick Patino and his team played great, and so did we."
• "That's what I do now: I lead and I teach. If we win basketball games from doing that, then that's great, but I lead and teach. Those are the two things I concentrate on."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(31-35)

• "In high school, in sport, I had a coach who told me I was much better than I thought I was, and would make me do more in a positive sense. He was the first person who taught me not to be afraid of failure."
• "I try to see each new season as a new challenge because I have a new team to work with, new opponents to encounter, and often new ideas and theories to try."
• "Once you win a National Championship, how do you do that again? How do you get the passion to do that again? We won it again right away, the next year. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't give myself an opportunity to enjoy the first one."
• "I believe a big part of leadership is about winning the moment."
• "Courage gives a leader the ability to stand straight and not sway no matter which way the wind blows."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(36-40)

• "With accomplishments comes confidence and with confidence comes belief. It has to be in that order."
• "Don't worry about losing. Think about winning."
• "A leader's responsibility to his team is paramount. It overshadows even his own personal feelings at any given time."
• "Effective teamwork begins and ends with communication."
• "Confidence shared is better than confidence only in yourself."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(41-45)

• "Erect no artificial walls that might limit potential, stifle creativity, or shackle innovation."
• "A leader has to be positive about all things that happen to his team. Look at nothing in the past as failure."
• "Leaders should be reliable without being predictable. They should be consistent without being anticipated."
• "A leader may be the most knowledgeable person in the world, but if the players on his team cannot translate that knowledge into action, it means nothing."
• "My ambition in high school was to be a high school coach and teacher, and that's still what I do: teach."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(46-50)

• "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."
• "Actually, the Kentucky moment was better than winning the two National Championships, because it was the epitome of what I try to get from a team in a crisis situation."
• "Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they ."
• "Parents can really help, but they can also really hinder the development of their youngsters."
• "You have to work hard at staying in contact with your friends so that the relationships will continue and live on… Friendships, along with love, make life worth living."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(51-55)

• "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."
• "Too many rules get in the way of leadership. They just put you in a box . . . . People set rules to keep from making decisions."
• "In our program, the truth is the basis of all that we do. There is nothing more important than the truth because there’s nothing more powerful than the truth. Consequently, on our team, we always tell one another the truth. We must be honest with one another. There is no other way."
• "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."
• "For a college basketball player or coach, to reach the Final Four is la-la land. You've achieved, you've got your stamp of approval. My first team to do that was in 1986. Then we did it in '88, '89 and '90."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(56-60)

• "I always wanted to teach."
• "Playing sport was somewhat frivolous, but I liked it. I rebelled a little bit, and wouldn't go to music lessons and things like that, but I would go and play ball. My parents learned to love it because they saw how much I got out of it."
• "Everybody wants to take responsibility when you win, but when you fail, all these fingers are pointing."
• "I have a rule on my team: when we talk to one another, we look each other right in the eye, because I think it's tough to lie to somebody. You give respect to somebody."
• "I think you're not a human being unless you have doubts and fears."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(61-65)

• "I've been so fortunate in my life that my family has never been jealous of my success. They have shown true love and commitment to me by being supportive. They shared in it."
• "I think some parents now look at a youngster failing as the final thing. It's a process, and failure is part of the process. I would like it if the teacher and the parents would connect more. I think that used to be, but we're losing a little bit of that right now."
• "If you have talent with teamwork, you've got a chance to be a championship team."
• "I had a really bad temper, when I was growing up. Sport helped me channel that temper into more positive acts."
• "Imagination has a great deal to do with winning."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(66-70)

• "When a leader takes responsibility for his own actions and mistakes, he not only sets a good example, he shows a healthy respect for people on his team."
• "There are five fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring and pride. I like to think of each as a separate finger on the fist. Any one individually is important. But all of them together are unbeatable."
• "Goals should be realistic, attainable, and shared among all members of the team."
• "You develop a team to achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone. All of us alone are weaker, by far, than if all of us are together."
• "Discipline is doing what you are supposed to do in the best possible manner at the time you are supposed to do it."

Mike Krzyzewski Quotes
Coach K Quotes(71)

• "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."

END: Mike Krzyzewski Quotes/Coach K Quotes







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