Our Rick Pitino quotes showcase the strategic mind and wit of a hall of a fame basketball coach. Iona College recently signed by Iona College, Pitino’s resume includes head coaching roles at Boston University, Providence College, University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, the New York Knicks, and the Boston Celtics.
Best Rick Pitino Quotes
Deserve victory.
Those who work the hardest are the last to surrender.
Dreamers are not content with being mediocre.
Don’t coach mad.
Success is a choice.
The more you lose, the more positive you have to become. When you’re winning, you can ride players harder because their self-esteem is high. If you are losing and you try to be tough, you’re asking for dissension.
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Good Rick Pitino Quotes
Failure is good. It’s fertilizer. Everything I’ve learned about coaching I’ve learned from making mistakes.
The only way to get people to like working hard is to motivate them. Today, people must understand why they’re working hard. Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.
Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer.
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The basic premise of my system is to fatigue your opponents with constant pressure defensively and constant movement offensively.
It’s better to have a good player with the basketball in late-game situations than to have plays.
At Boston University, I motivated negatively, and I found that although it can work at first, by the end of the year, everyone is dying for the year to end, and you have lost them. In the last two years at BU, I motivated positively and got much better results.
The key to coaching is not what you do but the way you do it. The intangibles, and the motivational parts of the game are the most important facets of it.
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike has authored three basketball books and is the editor of Sports Feel Good Stories.
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