Top 80 Don Meyer Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Proper prior planning prevents pitiful poor performance.”

— Don Meyer

2. “We can always do it better.”

— Don Meyer

3. “It doesn’t cost anything to be nice to people.”

— Don Meyer

Featured in: Common Sense Quotes, Have a Great Day Quotes, Friday Morning Quotes

4. “To be a team, you must be a family.”

— Don Meyer

5. “Shout praise and whisper criticism.”

— Don Meyer

6. “Complacency is the forerunner of mediocrity. You can never work too hard on attitudes, effort and technique.”

— Don Meyer

7. “There’s only one thing we can control, and that is how hard we play.”

— Don Meyer

8. “The key to success is to do the next right thing right.”

— Don Meyer

9. “Shared suffering makes a team a team.”

— Don Meyer

10. “I have learned that peace is not the absence of trial, trouble, or torment but the presence of calm in the midst of them.”

— Don Meyer

11. “To those who much has been given, much is expected.”

— Don Meyer

12. “When you watch the game, be a student of the game.”

— Don Meyer

13. “Go from good to great because good is the enemy of great.”

— Don Meyer

14. “Discover your gift, develop your gift and then give it away every day.”

— Don Meyer

15. “To win it all, winners have to be obsessive about the fundamentals and doing the little things right.”

— Don Meyer

16. “We always need to be prepared and work hard in practice so we can be just like the farmer who has put that fourth cutting of hay in the barn. After he does that, he can feel good about what is going to happen the rest of the winter.”

— Don Meyer

17. “The team is an extension of the coach.”

— Don Meyer

18. “Time doesn’t fly when you are not happy.”

— Don Meyer

19. “Successful programs consist of people working hard, working together, while never worrying about who gets the credit.”

— Don Meyer

20. “Every day you teach attitude.”

— Don Meyer

21. “What you accept in victory, you must accept in defeat.”

— Don Meyer

22. “Administrators are like pigs; don’t wrestle with a pig because you both get dirty and the pig likes it.”

— Don Meyer

23. “Have character, don’t be one.”

— Don Meyer

24. “When you get to be my age, you don’t buy green bananas because you may not be around to eat them.”

— Don Meyer

25. “It is foolish to expect a young man to follow your advice and to ignore your example.”

— Don Meyer

26. “If you can do something and not blow your own horn, it sure sounds a lot better.”

— Don Meyer

27. “Defense involves three things: courage, energy, intelligence.”

— Don Meyer

28. “You never realize the value of coaching until your children play for a coach.”

— Don Meyer

29. “Your program must have an overriding purpose which is clearly visible and which teaches lessons beyond winning.”

— Don Meyer

30. “Positioning, anticipation and technique create quickness. Therefore, you can always get quicker.”

— Don Meyer

31. “Shared suffering: one guy messes up and everyone runs. One guy does well and everyone benefits.”

— Don Meyer

32. “Habits are critical for players. They cannot think and play well at the same time.”

— Don Meyer

33. “A coach who is not teaching leads to the worst thing in a program – players not learning.”

— Don Meyer

34. “Be what ya is, ’cause if ya be what you ain’t, ya ain’t what ya is.”

— Don Meyer

35. “You can pick captains, but you can’t pick leaders. Whoever controls the locker room controls the team.”

— Don Meyer

36. “The only thing success should do is make you more humble.”

— Don Meyer

37. “Anytime you get an award as a coach, you’ve got to be the ultimate fool to think it wasn’t your assistant coaches and all the players responsible for the award.”

— Don Meyer

38. “You aren’t going to win championships unless you make layups and free throws.”

— Don Meyer

39. “The ability to rebound is in inverse proportion to the distance your house is from the nearest railroad tracks.”

— Don Meyer

40. “It doesn’t matter where you coach, it matters why you coach.”

— Don Meyer

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

— Don Meyer

42. “Ten minutes after you lose that last game, you start working on next season.”

— Don Meyer

43. “Winning a postseason game is like winning five regular season games. There is just no feeling like it. Everything is magnified. Every free throw, turnover, shot and play.”

— Don Meyer

44. “Discipline and demand without being demeaning.”

— Don Meyer

45. “Simplify the game as much as possible. When you add, you must subtract.”

— Don Meyer

46. “The worst day coaching is better than the best day doing anything else.”

— Don Meyer

47. “Plays are not as important as players, and players are not as important as teammates.”

— Don Meyer

48. “If you want to thank me, go do something for somebody else.”

— Don Meyer

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

— Don Meyer

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

— Don Meyer