As a coach, one thing that used to frustrate me was one player would make a bad decision, and that's all you would read about in the papers all over the country. We have so many athletes do so many wonderful things for other people, and you never read about it.
No matter how bad someone has it, there are others who have it worse. Remembering that makes life a lot easier and allows you to take pleasure in the blessings you have been given.
There are certain things in this world we all have in common such as time. Everybody has sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, twenty-four hours to a day. The difference is what we do with that time and how we use it.
Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they're making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that's the difference.
Had I been a great athlete, I'm not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.
I'd say handling people is the most important thing you can do as a coach. I've found every time I've gotten into trouble with a player, it's because I wasn't talking to him enough.
My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961. The pay wasn't much, so to get $300 more per year, I agreed to coach the golf team. I didn't even know how to keep score, and really, my main job was not to wreck the van on the way to tournaments.
When I work a game as an analyst, all I do is look at the game like a coach. Why was something successful? What makes it work? I just try to use my expertise and whatever insight I have to the game.
We are not going to win because you have a new head coach, any more than you are going to fix a flat tire by changing the driver. We will win the minute all of us get rid of excuses as to why we can't win and stop wallowing in self-pity.