110+ Bobby Knight Quotes On Death, Winning And Michael Jordan

Bobby Knight is an American basketball coach who is best known for his time as the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball team from 1971 to 2000. He is one of the most successful and controversial college basketball coaches of all time, leading the Hoosiers to three NCAA championships and 11 Big Ten Conference titles. Knight is also known for his volatile temper, which has led to numerous incidents both on and off the court. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Bobby Knight on death, winning, michael jordan.

Top 10 Bobby Knight Quotes

1. The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare.
2. Discipline is knowing what to do. Knowing when to do it. Doing it to the best of your abilities. Doing it that way every single time.
3. Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win.
4. If the NBA were on channel 5 and a bunch of frogs making love were on channel 4, I'd watch the frogs, even if they were coming in fuzzy.
5. In order to achieve to achieve positive results, one must work for them, not hope for them
6. Everybody wants to be on a championship team, but nobody wants to come to practice.
7. Don't fight the rabbits. If you fight the rabbits, the elephants are going to kill you.
8. I've never felt my job was to win basketball games - rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.
9. A coach should never be afraid to ask questions of anyone he could learn from.
10. BS is just what it stands for, an MS is More of the Same, and a PhD is Piled Higher and Deeper.

Bobby Knight Short Quotes

• All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.
• Your biggest opponent isn't the other guy. It's human nature.
• The red I wear is Indiana's red, not Moscow's red. Indiana was here long before communism.
• I don't have to wait until the next morning to regret something I did that was kinda dumb.
• Competitive drills enhance quickness.
• Good basketball always starts with good defense!
• A great way to test the conditioning of your team is the two-mile run.
• I'm an unemployed teacher right now and I'm looking for a place to teach.
• My practices were not set up to be easy or enjoyed.
• Basketball is a full court game, so every drill must be done full court.

Bobby Knight Quotes About Winning

As his team prepares, a coach's entire being must be concentrated on winning games. — Bobby Knight

Superiority and success doesn't favor good effort or self-esteem... The mentally precise and physically fit win, while the mediocre and obtuse take solace in hopeful cliches. — Bobby Knight

Everyone wants to win, but not everyone is willing to prepare to win. — Bobby Knight

There are two real keys to winning. You've got to have good players: no coach won with bad players. You win with good players. That is number one. Number two is, when we are playing, let's say we are playing Michigan, and they had a really good press: we've got to solve that press. — Bobby Knight

During my 40-year coaching career at West Point, Indiana and Texas Tech, my teams reached the Final Four on five occasions, winning the national championship three times. — Bobby Knight

So when I hear a guy after a game-winning home run say or gesture that God was on his side, I think to myself, 'He's saying God screwed the pitcher. — Bobby Knight

The key is not the will to win... everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important. — Bobby Knight

I'm not sure I've ever been around anybody that wanted to win more or worked harder than Michael Jordan. — Bobby Knight

We just got our ass beat by a much better team. It happens once in a while. Does every team win every game? — Bobby Knight

Bobby Knight Quotes About Preparation

To me, the most enjoyable part is the practice and preparation — Bobby Knight

I just love the game of basketball so much. The game! I don't need the 18,000 people screaming and all the peripheral things. To me, the most enjoyable part is the practice and preparation. — Bobby Knight

From my standpoint, I would make it very difficult on the NBA to even have any association with college basketball. I think it's ludicrous the way they take kids away that are certainly not prepared to play. — Bobby Knight

In my dealings with the press, I was like the guy who goes into the cathouse and the madam gets him prepared and looks at him and says, "Who are you going to satisfy with that?" And he looks back at her and says, "Me." That's kind of my sense of humor at times. — Bobby Knight

I'm not sure that an athlete is prepared to be a role model. He has a lot of attention paid to him that he shouldn't have, and then the athletes tend to think of themselves as better than they are. — Bobby Knight

I don't believe in luck, I believe in preparation. — Bobby Knight

Bobby Knight Quotes About Successful

Practice structure determines success. — Bobby Knight

The structure of your practice is the main reason for your success or lack of success as a coach — Bobby Knight

Failure, to me, is not having the desire to try. Having the desire to try is in it own way success. — Bobby Knight

Bobby Knight Quotes About People

When we're playing a good scoring center, we tell our team that it is not our defensive man's job to stop the center. It's the responsibility of our perimeter people to stop the ball from going inside. — Bobby Knight

I think that we as a people are always prone to think about, well, tomorrow will be a better day. Well, why will it be a better day? And I think the more that we believe in doing things better, doing the right thing rather than hoping that that's going to happen, let's make it happen. — Bobby Knight

As I've said, basketball has been, I think, a real cooperative venture. There have been a lot of people that have been involved in it: coaches, administrators - not recently - fans and nobody, nobody any more so than students over the years. — Bobby Knight

I, fortunately, have never worried about irritating people. — Bobby Knight

You can't imagine the number of people in professional sports who have come up to me and said, "God, you treat those assholes like I'd like to treat them." And my question is, "Then why don't you?". — Bobby Knight

People want national championship banners. People want to talk about Indiana being competitive. How do we get there? We don't get there with milk and cookies. — Bobby Knight

A primary goal of teaching anything is the advantage that learning gives to people over their competitors who haven't been as well taught. — Bobby Knight

I don't think that political history is full of a whole lot of tremendously honest people. I have never found any fault about that as far as Mr. Trump is concerned in my relationship with him. — Bobby Knight

People change over the years, and that changes situations for good and for bad. — Bobby Knight

Trump is not national: he's international. He's known all over the world. He has established businesses all over, and he has given jobs to thousands and thousands of people all over the world with these businesses that he has put together. — Bobby Knight

Bobby Knight Quotes About Trump

I don't know what a conservative is, you know, but I do know what good people are. And that's where I sit with Donald Trump. — Bobby Knight

I think what Mr. Trump has is this - he has experiences. He has put more things together in businesses around the United States, around the world. And he's had some things that didn't go exactly right. He's been able to find a way to resurrect those things. He's been able to make some changes. — Bobby Knight

If we want the best pitcher, let's get Bobby Feller. If want the best football player, let's get Jimmy Brown; the best basketball player, let's get Bill Russell. If we want the guy who can do the best job for the United States - let's get Donald Trump. — Bobby Knight

I'll tell you one thing about Donald Trump: There will never be a Benghazi in a Donald Trump administration. — Bobby Knight

From my mother to people that I've known in my lifetime, they've tried to settle me down a little bit. Now I'm trying to do the same thing to my man Trump. — Bobby Knight

Probably nobody in America has come close to setting up as many jobs for people with his business as Donald Trump has. — Bobby Knight

We need a Donald Trump more than we've ever needed anybody since George Washington. — Bobby Knight

Bobby Knight Quotes About Years

Walking has been ridiculous in college basketball the past 15 years. — Bobby Knight

I'm a teacher. My mother was a teacher. I spent 40 years as a teacher. — Bobby Knight

At one point, I said to the officials that you guys haven't called walking for 20 years, now you don't know what it is. When you call walking, you're about half right. — Bobby Knight

Bobby Knight Quotes About Basketball

Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one. — Bobby Knight

You don't play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball. — Bobby Knight

The biggest difficulty in getting to the top of the ladder is getting through the crowd at the bottom. — Bobby Knight

Passing is your best weapon against man to man. Dribble penetration is your best weapon against zone. — Bobby Knight

I think that to stop an offense, you must go to the heart of that offense. If it is a particular move, a screen, the break, an outstanding scorer, whatever it is that they like to do and rely on, you have to work in your plans on taking that completely or as much as possible away from them. — Bobby Knight

I've always felt that, you know, the Almighty has a lot of things to do other than help my basketball team. — Bobby Knight

Perform drills that force your players to think — Bobby Knight

As coaches we talk about two things: offense and defense. There is a third phase we neglect, which is more important. It's conversion from offense to defense and defense to offense. — Bobby Knight

Offense is not equal opportunity — Bobby Knight

I have always maintained that in basketball the importance of the mental to the physical is about four to one. — Bobby Knight

Bobby Knight Famous Quotes And Sayings

We talk in coaching about "winners" - kids, and I've had a lot of them, who just will not allow themselves or their team to lose. Coaches call that a will to win. I don't. I think that puts the emphasis in the wrong place. Everybody has a will to win. What's far more important is having the will to prepare to win. — Bobby Knight

Good planning avoids the need for fixing up a project that plowed ahead without thought... about potential pitfalls. — Bobby Knight

If my primary purpose here at Indiana is to go out and win ballgames, I can probably do that as well as anybody can. I would just cheat, get some money from a lot of people around Indianapolis who want to run the operation that way, and just go out and get the best basketball players I can. Then we'd beat everybody. — Bobby Knight

Positive wish: 'The sun will come out tomorrow.' Negative reality: 'Yeah, and it will flash brand-new daylight on the same old mess unless something is done to clean it up. — Bobby Knight

And I would be the first to admit that probably, in a lot of press conferences over the time that I have been in coaching, indulging my own sense of humor at press conferences has not been greatly to my benefit. — Bobby Knight

I always designed my practice plans the night before and then made tweaks a few hours before practice began — Bobby Knight

This is like the town council just hired a new marshal to clean up the town, I guarantee you, if I stay here long enough, they'll get rid of me, too. — Bobby Knight

If I came in to recruit your son, I would tell you, your wife, and your son, that I will be the most demanding coach your son can play for. — Bobby Knight

The goal is to make practice more difficult, physically/mentally, than anything your players will face during a game. — Bobby Knight

When my time on earth is gone, and my activities here are passed, I want they bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass! — Bobby Knight

I want to say to you Indiana people that I owe you a big, big debt of gratitude because nowhere in the world is a sporting group followed more than this state follows basketball. And I just want to thank you for the opportunity that I had to coach in this state - it will always be something that I will cherish. — Bobby Knight

What is the best thing you can do in a close game? Drive to the basket and put pressure on the defense! Not jack up jump shots — Bobby Knight

I watched the guy that hits a home run, and he comes across the plate and he points skyward, like thanking for the help from the Almighty to hit the home run. And as he does that, I say to myself, 'God screwed the pitcher.' And I don't know how else you look at it. — Bobby Knight

Writing was far more of an art in the sports world than it is now. — Bobby Knight

I don't think I have ever been out of control. — Bobby Knight

There are times when my passion for basketball led me into confrontations that I could have handled a lot better. I've always been too confrontational, especially when I know I'm right. — Bobby Knight

My dad was a very quiet person, and unbelievably tough. But my grandmother gave me my first look at negative thinking to bring about positive results. When I was just a little guy, anytime I came to my grandmother and said I wish for this or that, Grandma would say, 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.' — Bobby Knight

What the hell is a Republican? What the hell is a Democrat? I don't care. I've always urged people to make sure you vote for the right guy. — Bobby Knight

If you're not careful, you can get a grossly over-inflated opinion about your popularity. — Bobby Knight

Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done the best way it can be done, and do it that way every time. — Bobby Knight

The single most important aspect of coaching is running effective practices — Bobby Knight

Well, I think it's pretty much established that I just didn't have any interest in coaching in the pros. — Bobby Knight

From the time I started teaching, when I was 21, I've always signed my name Bob Knight. My college coach called me Bobby, still does. But I have never introduced myself to anybody in my adult life in any way other than, "I'm Bob Knight." — Bobby Knight

For me to get an award from the press, I know there's been no favoritism. — Bobby Knight

I think that it's perhaps harder to learn from victory than it is from defeat. I think that we don't want defeat. We don't want defeat in sport. We don't want defeat in life. How are we going to be beaten? All right. We have to deal with those things. What's going to cause us to lose the game, whatever the game might be? — Bobby Knight

I don't understand the NBA in that, each time they bring in a one-and-done kid, they have to release a veteran player on a roster. I don't understand why their players association condones that. — Bobby Knight

I think a great idea would be involving our various military services along the border all the way from San Diego to Houston. We've got military bases all over the country. We can just move some people down there and let those cartels who are doing a lot of hurt to the youth of America, let those cartels fight against the Marine Corps. — Bobby Knight

Everybody hears, but few listen. — Bobby Knight

I enjoyed needling the press. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't have done it. Writers have rarely played, so as a coach, you have antagonistic feelings about some guy writing up the story of the game who's never even attempted to play it. — Bobby Knight

A quick way for any player to make himself better is to think about what he himself doesn't like to play against — Bobby Knight

We should not have to push you to work hard, you should work hard because you want to be a great player. — Bobby Knight

If I were involved with the NBA, I wouldn't want a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old kid to bring into all the travel and all the problems that exist in the NBA. I would want a much more mature kid. I would want a kid that maybe I've been watching on another team, and now he's 21, 22 years old instead of 18 or 19, and I might trade for that kid. — Bobby Knight

You play ball against yourself; your opponent is your potential. — Bobby Knight

I learned at an early stage that the most important thing I could do for my players was to give them the tools necessary to beat their opponent. — Bobby Knight

We've gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking and that's why I'm glad I'm not coaching. You see we've got a coach at Kentucky who put two schools on probation and he's still coaching. I really don't understand that. — Bobby Knight

America has the greatest reputation in the world for helping others whenever and wherever disaster strikes. Now, more than ever,it's important for us to contribute to those who are in need. Your assistance is really beneficial and will be greatly welcomed and appreciated. — Bobby Knight

It has always been my thought that the most important single ingredient to success in athletics or life is discipline. I have many times felt that this word is the most ill-defined in all of our language. My definition isas follows: 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it it that way all the time. — Bobby Knight

I've never predicted anything. All I have ever said is, that we will do the very best we can. — Bobby Knight

I don't think my dad ever raised his voice to my mother or to me, ever. — Bobby Knight

Major League Baseball has the best idea of all. Three years before they'll take a kid out of college, then they have a minor league system that they put the kids in. I'm sure that if the NBA followed the same thing, there would be a lot of kids in a minor league system that still were not good enough to play in the major NBA. — Bobby Knight

My overall point is that 'one and dones' are not healthy for college basketball. I should not have made it personal to Kentucky and its players and I apologize. — Bobby Knight

A big part of teaching is being emphatic. Maybe I'm right or wrong, but part of my approach was that when I said something, the kids understood exactly what I meant and what I wanted. — Bobby Knight

I hate casual shooting. Every shot is preceded by working to get open and catch and shoot under game like conditions — Bobby Knight

The thing that bothers me the most about the media is simple accuracy. — Bobby Knight

I'd probably be better off without trying to satisfy me, with my sense of humor. There are things that I have said that are funny to me, but they weren't to somebody in the press. So that hasn't worked to my benefit. — Bobby Knight

I'm not sure what a conservative is. I don't know whether a conservative is a guy that goes to bed too early or maybe doesn't sleep long enough or just what the hell he might be. I don't know. Maybe he's a guy that - you know, he just wants to be real quiet. — Bobby Knight

I've always been a great fan of the state of Pennsylvania. One of the people - one of the people that I admired the most in college athletics was Joe Paterno. — Bobby Knight

I think the ability to motivate might be interpreted as the ability to lead, or to show people their goals or, perhaps more important, what their potential is - as a person as well as a player. You've got to show players that being part of a team will carry over to the experience of becoming part of society. — Bobby Knight

Learn to do things right and then do them right every time. — Bobby Knight

There are as many guys in coaching who do a lousy job as there are in the media. Those are two professions that are a lot alike. There aren't a hell of a lot of really good coaches or writers. — Bobby Knight

Life Lessons by Bobby Knight

1. Bobby Knight taught that hard work and dedication are essential to success, emphasizing the importance of practice and preparation.
2. He also showed that a strong team mentality is key to success, as he was known for his ability to bring out the best in his players.
3. Finally, Knight demonstrated the value of discipline and accountability, both on and off the court, in order to achieve success.