Joe Blair Quotations

I had made up my mind at the end of the summer last year that this would be my final season in coaching. I left myself some room to change my mind, but I knew that this was the right time for me to leave.

From a coaching standpoint, it's been an interesting year and a good year because the kids who are playing for me suck up the knowledge of the game like leeches. They just want to learn and get better.

I don't think about that during the season. I will take stock at the end of the year and see what the situation is with the program and see if I still have the enthusiasm for it.

The only thing that really dampened this season was the losing. I had a great time with this team. Those kids were great. Really, only the losing was a negative.

That changed the whole perspective. But from my point of view, I wasn't going to walk down to Sheila (Murphy) and tell her when I found out 'Hey, I'm going to walk away now.' We knew it was going to be difficult. But the kids have been great.

There are three stages to the game. There's learning the game, competing and winning. We're still between learning and competing. That's just the stages of development.

I've always felt that this was a young man's game and that we should do everything to let younger coaches come up and get the opportunity. That's the way I felt.