110+ Pat Summitt Quotes On Teamwork, Success And Accountability

Pat Summitt was an American basketball coach who served as the head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball team from 1974 to 2012. She was the first NCAA Division I coach to reach 1,000 career wins, finishing her career with 1,098 wins. Summitt was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Pat Summitt on leadership, teamwork, success.

Top 10 Pat Summitt Quotes

1. Offense sells tickets, defense wins games, rebounding wins championships.
2. Here's how I'm going to beat you. I'm going to outwork you. That's it. That's all there is to it.
3. Class is more important than a game.
4. We communicate all the time, even when we don't realize it. Be aware of body language
5. Belief in yourself is what happens when you know you've done the thing things that entitle you to success.
6. If you want to be in the game you better shoot 75% from the line.
7. Teamwork doesn't come naturally. It must be taught.
8. Rebounding wins championships, you need to emphasize it and work with kids on it.
9. Loyalty is not unilateral. You have to give it to receive it.
10. God doesn’t take things away to be cruel. He takes things away to make room for other things. He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.

Pat Summitt Short Quotes

• I hate to sound this way but, 'Why me? Why me with dementia?'
• I want to go to practice. I want to be in the huddles. That's me.
• I'd wake up in the morning and I would think, 'Where am I?' I'd have to gather myself.
• Put the Team Before Yourself.
• You can't always be the most talented person in the room. But you can be the most competitive
• There is an old saying: a champion is someone who is willing to be uncomfortable.
• I think sometimes for me that sounds like almost being selfish. I am not about personal records.
• I haven't ever really had a goal to break that record or catch John Wooden.
• I think helped our players in terms of being able to fight through some adversity along the way.
• I mean, we're always trying to evaluate and tweak things and get better.

Pat Summitt Quotes About Teamwork

Teamwork is what makes common people capable of uncommon results. — Pat Summitt

To me, teamwork is a lot like being part of a family. It comes with obligations, entanglements, headaches, and quarrels. But the rewards are worth the cost. — Pat Summitt

Teamwork does not come naturally. Let's face it. We are born with certain inclinations, but sharing isn't one of them. — Pat Summitt

Teamwork is really a form of trust. It's what happens when you surrender the mistaken idea that you can go it alone and realize that you won't achieve your individual goals without the support of your colleagues. — Pat Summitt

Sit up straight, listen and participate. — Pat Summitt

Pat Summitt Quotes About Success

Success lulls you. It makes the most ambitious of us complacent and sloppy. In a way, you have to cultivate a kind of amnesia and forget all of your previous prosperity. — Pat Summitt

If you don't want responsibility, don't sit in the big chair. To be successful, you must accept full responsibility — Pat Summitt

I am about helping each and every student athlete that selects to wear the orange, you know, be successful at Tennessee individually and as a team. That type of record is certainly not anything that I have aspirations to reach. — Pat Summitt

You can't have any quit in you if you want to be successful. — Pat Summitt

Success is all a matter of perspective. It depends on where you start from, and where you want to end up. — Pat Summitt

Individual success is a myth. No one succeeds all by herself. — Pat Summitt

The willingness to experiment with change may be the most essential ingredient to success at anything. — Pat Summitt

I want to continue to do is to help these young women be successful. .. You don't just say goodbye at the end of their playing careers and end it there. — Pat Summitt

Success is a project that's always under construction. — Pat Summitt

Pat Summitt Quotes About Accountability

Accountability is essential to personal growth, as well as team growth. How can you improve if you're never wrong? If you don't admit a mistake and take responsibility for it, you're bound to make the same one again. — Pat Summitt

Admit to and make yourself accountable for mistakes. How can you improve if you're never wrong? — Pat Summitt

Responsibility equals accountability equals ownership. And a sense of ownership is the most powerful weapon a team or organization can have. — Pat Summitt

Pat Summitt Quotes About Winning

Our emphasis is on execution, not winning. — Pat Summitt

My parents taught me a long time ago that you win in life with people, and that's important, because if you hang with winners, you stand a great chance of being a winner. — Pat Summitt

We do not win championships with girls. We win with competitors — Pat Summitt

You spend more of the game preparing to win in the final seconds. And that is what separates winners from losers. — Pat Summitt

There are some concrete ways to create a winning attitude. But nothing beats practicing it. When you prepare to win, belief comes easily. — Pat Summitt

Sometimes you learn more from losing than winning. Losing forces you to reexamine. — Pat Summitt

Make Winning an Attitude. — Pat Summitt

Pat Summitt Famous Quotes And Sayings

I've always put great emphasis on the academics and getting your degree. It's important because basketball is short term. The long term is what are you gonna do after college and after you no longer can bounce the ball. — Pat Summitt

Discipline yourself, so no one else has to. — Pat Summitt

I think that it was a great feeling and probably a little bit more special because of the length of time that had passed before we won, but I think more importantly, it was just a great feeling because this team had such strong leadership and they had great chemistry. — Pat Summitt

Silence is a form of communication, too. Sometimes less is more. — Pat Summitt

Actually, when I saw it in USA Today, I just, Candace Parker was, we were warming up in practice and she was underneath the basket shooting and I just said, 'Hey Candace! I enjoyed what I read in the paper today about your decision [to stay].' She just started laughing and I did too. So I haven't discussed it with her. — Pat Summitt

I think you can challenge people, but you don't want to break people down. But you've got to sometimes just pull them aside and say, you know, you're OK but you could be better. — Pat Summitt

Coaches who start listening to fans often wind up sitting next to them. — Pat Summitt

Attitude is a choice. Think positive thoughts daily. Believe in yourself. — Pat Summitt

If I was renowned as as tough coach, I also wanted to be a caring one — Pat Summitt

You're wondering what a bale of hay has to do with success. Well, there's a trick to loading hay. You have to use your knee. What you do is, you put your right knee behind it and half kick it up in the air. That way you get some lift on it. ... My point is, there are certain ways to make a hard job easier. — Pat Summitt

Attitude is a choice. What you think you can do, whether positive or negative, confident or scared, will most likely happen. — Pat Summitt

If I'm not leading by example, then I'm not doing the right thing. And I want to always do the right thing. — Pat Summitt

Winners are not born, they are self-made. — Pat Summitt

The best way to handle responsibility is to break it down into smaller parts. Take care of one small thing at a time. — Pat Summitt

With attitude, you can determine your own performance. — Pat Summitt

You can't pick and choose the days that you feel like being responsible. It's not something that disappears when you're tired. — Pat Summitt

Know your strengths, weaknesses, and needs. — Pat Summitt

I really felt like we had to have a go to player. — Pat Summitt

I learned so much from Sue about the Xs and Os of the game of basketball. — Pat Summitt

A lot of kids just want to go play basketball, but they don't know to play and they don't have the skills to play. I think just the skill development right off and then play all you can, but don't sacrifice your skill development by just playing and not working on the specifics of the game. — Pat Summitt

By doing things when you are too tired, by pushing yourself farther than you thought you could - like running the track after a two-hour practice - you become a competitor. Each time you go beyond your perceived limit, you become mentally stronger. — Pat Summitt

I think the most important thing I thought is, I thought about recruiting and what we need in recruiting. — Pat Summitt

Attitude lies somewhere between emotion and logic. It's that curious mix of optimism and determination that enables you to maintain a positive outlook and to continue plodding in the face of the most adverse circumstances. — Pat Summitt

It's my experience that people rise to the level of their own expectations and of the competition they seek out. — Pat Summitt

I think I can help others just by my example. — Pat Summitt

I never ask Candace Parker if she was thinking about leaving because I never had any reason to believe she would. I just kept the focus on the team and on Candace and the role she played for us. — Pat Summitt

I have a love-hate relationship with losing. I hate how it makes me feel, which is basically sick. But I love what it brings out. — Pat Summitt

If I aint happy, nobody's happy. — Pat Summitt

Discipline is the only sure way I know to convince people to believe in themselves — Pat Summitt

When you grow up on a dairy farm, cows don't take a day off. So you work every day and my dad always said, 'No one can outwork you,' — Pat Summitt

In order to grow, you must accept new responsibilities, no matter how uncertain you may feel or how unprepared you are to deal with them. — Pat Summitt

I was a little concerned about it when State Farm approached me because, you know, I've never done a commercial by any means, but I tried to look at it as something that would be good for our game. We've never had a women's basketball coach represented in that fashion and I love State Farm for the fact they really support the women's game. — Pat Summitt

It's harder to stay on top than it is to make the climb, Continue to seek new goals. — Pat Summitt

I think basketball has changed tremendously and for the better. I think that obviously the game is better. I think the skill of the players are better, the strength, the overall athleticism, the teamwork involved. I think coaching is better. We have more exposure for our game than ever. You know, our sport has grown significantly in really the last five years. It's pretty amazing. — Pat Summitt

Losing strengthens you. It reveals your weaknesses so you can fix them — Pat Summitt

I don't give out compliments easily. — Pat Summitt

Combine practice with belief. — Pat Summitt

Value those colleagues who tell you the truth, not just what you want to hear. — Pat Summitt

Most people get excited about games, but I've got to be excited about practice, because that's my classroom. — Pat Summitt

I love teaching I think more than anything. It's the opportunity to just teach young people and teach the game. You teach more than basketball. You teach life skills. The teaching part of it is something that I am passionate about. I look forward to every practice. A lot of people say well, I enjoy coaching, but I see myself as more as a teacher. — Pat Summitt

Bringing together disparate personalities to form a team is like a jigsaw puzzle. You have to ask yourself: what is the whole picture here? We want to make sure our players all fit together properly and complement each other, so that we don't have a big piece, a little piece, an oblong piece, and a round piece. If personalities work against each other, as a team you'll find yourselves spinning your wheels. — Pat Summitt

See yourself as self employed. — Pat Summitt

Group discipline produces a unified effort toward a common goal. — Pat Summitt

Discipline helps you finish a job, and finishing is what separates excellent work from average work. — Pat Summitt

Competition got me off the farm and trained me to seek out challenges and to endure setbacks; and in combination with my faith, it sustains me now in my fight with Alzheimer's disease. — Pat Summitt

Anyone can quit, but it takes a strong, committed person not to quit when times are tough. — Pat Summitt

Change equals self improvement. Push yourself to places you haven't been before. — Pat Summitt

I just think they were just a team that really enjoyed the process and allowed our coaching staff to enjoy the process. — Pat Summitt

There is always someone better than you. Whatever it is that you do for a living, chances are, you will run into a situation in which you are not as talented as the person next to you. That's when being a competitor can make a difference in your fortunes. — Pat Summitt

She taught me that it's ok to let down your guard and allow your players to get to know you. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. — Pat Summitt

I want to keep coaching as long as I can. I love teaching and working with student athletes and I love being at the University of Tennessee. — Pat Summitt

The person, the student, the athlete, all are considered equal. — Pat Summitt

The greatest strength any human being an have is to recognize his or her own weaknesses. When you identify your weaknesses, you can begin to remedy them - or at least figure out how to work around them. — Pat Summitt

When you choose to be a competitor you choose to be a survivor. When you choose to compete, you make the conscious decision to find out what your real limits are, not just what you think they are. — Pat Summitt

If it doesn't bother you, it won't bother them. — Pat Summitt

I didn't say a lot. I didn't throw anything. That's not my style. I did think about it though. — Pat Summitt

I won 1,098 games, and eight national championships, and coached in four different decades. But what I see are not the numbers. I see their faces. — Pat Summitt

You have to make shots. That's the bottom line. — Pat Summitt

A competitor continually sets new goals. He feels the need to keep raising the bar. If the fist goal is to make the team, and he achieves it, he immediately resets the goal to: I want to be a starter. — Pat Summitt

There is nothing wrong with having competitive instincts. They are survival instincts. — Pat Summitt

In the absence of feedback, people will fill in the blanks with a negative. They will assume you don’t care about them or don’t like them. — Pat Summitt

The absolute heart of loyalty is to value those people who tell you the truth, not just those people who tell you what you want to hear. In fact, you should value them most. Because they have paid you the compliment of leveling with you and assuming you can handle it. — Pat Summitt

No one feels strong when she examines her own weakness. But in facing weakness, you learn how much there is in you, and you find real strength. — Pat Summitt

It is what it is. But, it will be what you make it. — Pat Summitt

I've got a great staff and great support system, and I'm going to stick my neck out and do what I always do. — Pat Summitt

Nine-tenths of discipline is having the patience to do things right. — Pat Summitt

The ultimate goal of discipline is to teach self discipline. — Pat Summitt

I'm interested to see where a combination of faith and science will take me. — Pat Summitt

I think the only thing that I really thought about, I am always every year thinking about how I can get better, how my stuff can get better, how our team can improve. — Pat Summitt

Life Lessons by Pat Summitt

1. Pat Summitt taught the importance of hard work, dedication, and discipline in order to achieve success.
2. She also emphasized the importance of teamwork and the power of positive reinforcement in order to create a successful team.
3. Pat Summitt showed that with the right attitude and leadership, anything is possible, no matter the odds.