Don Meyer Team Quotations

Shared suffering makes a team a team.

Play off your great player... great teams have a go-to player and they play off of him.

As a coach, you're just trying to figure out how to keep a team on edge. You've got to find that edge.

The team is an extension of the coach.

To be a team, you must be a family.

Parents would rather have their son get all-state than his team win the state championship.

Our goal as a team is to keep playing as a group for as long as we can because you will never have that team again. It is like a dying limb, you have to prune it off and let another one grow in its place. That is the way you have to do it, but it still hurts losing these guys and that team because they and you have put so much effort into building a team. Even if you win that last game (and a national championship), it hurts badly because the players know they will never have that same special group of guys together on the same team again. Somebody always goes and somebody new always comes in.

You can pick captains, but you can't pick leaders. Whoever controls the locker room controls the team

Tough minded enough to do the necessary things--this is the epitome of what a team is.

Players who are late say that their time is more important than the team.

If you are a good team, your offense is born on the defensive end.

Recognize and reward players who put the team first, not just the gifted ones.