Timeout with Coachie

“You don’t want to be one of those guys who raises questions about all the problems but doesn’t bring solutions. I hate the guy, who’s never had to look for a job, telling the guy who’s unemployed how to look for a job.”

“I wrote a book called The Smart Take From the Strong. … I keep on telling everybody it’s sold-out.”

“I’m never ashamed of anything I tell anybody. You know what I mean? … And if I say something bad, I’m going to stick to it.”

“I follow the news closely. I’m very upset with the way our government’s behaving. It’s the fault of the people. When you have a democracy, it depends on enlightened interest of the citizens. If they’re not aware of what’s going on, you’re in trouble.”

“It doesn’t impress me, it depresses me that you can’t learn from the masters of the game.”

“I used to say that to my assistants at Princeton, ‘Let’s give a good account of ourselves.’ I thought it was funny, because we were going to win.”

“Midtown’s not bad. There’s a lot of good places to eat there. But if I had to do it over again, it’s nice walking across the street to the arena to work.”

“The Princeton offense has been misnamed. And I’m tired of correcting the people who misuse it. Because there are elements of that offense that were very prominent with the Boston Celtics. That’s where I copied it. There were elements of that offense that I copied from the New York Knicks. Two pro teams. If I tell guys in the pros about that, they don’t bother to do the research to see if I’m telling the truth or not. But I am. That’s one thing. The second thing is most of the offense is that they’re sharing the ball. One guy doesn’t have the ball in his hand all the time. And each guy is required to be a player. Which means to shoot, dribble and pass. Which is why a lot of the teams in the pros don’t use it, because you have guys that can’t shoot, you have guys that can’t pass and you even get guys that can’t dribble.”

“You don’t need an affirmation of what you’re doing when what you’re doing works well.”

“You can’t confuse confidence with complacency.”

“I coached a lot of games, and never felt once we couldn’t win.”