I'd rather play with 10 people and just get penalized all the way until we have to do something else rather than play with 11 when I know that right now that person is not sold out to be a part of this team.
— Mike Singletary
Players respond to coaches who really have their best interests at heart.
I am sure there is a right way and a wrong way and in today's life, there are many different rules of being politically correct.
My first game, I played the first play of the game and called a timeout and got sat down, got benched for the rest of the game, and we won the game. It was the longest day of my life. Long day. Very embarrassing.
It's very important that you focus on winning games and being consistent down the stretch. I think that's what we're focused on. All of the other stuff about who wins and who loses and how many wins do we need, if we're focusing on that, then that's not good.
The thing that I want to do, the most important thing to me is winning. How we do it, I really don't care.
Sometimes you get to a place in life where you feel you've made some choices, and maybe they weren't the right choices, and that it's all coming to an end.
Because too many times in life there's just one person that I met, just one thing that I heard, one movie that I saw, one song that was sung, that changed my life. So I'm always trying to stay awake to be in the moment, and capture the moments when they come, because they come and go all the time.
I'm sure there's a right way and there's a wrong way. The bottom line is you have to do what you think is right.
If a dad does his job, we don't need prisons, we don't need jails. That's what I saw growing up.
Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.
Players have responsibility, and if they don't do their job, certain things happen. Coaches have responsibility. If they don't do their job, things happen.
Nobody intimidates me.
All I know is, I was trying to win the football game. And the bottom line is, you have to do what you think is right. You have to go with your gut. And if you don't do that, then I think you regret a lot of things later on.
When you look at a family, if you have a family that never interacts with each other, never has strong conversation with each other, never has disagreements, nine times out of ten you have a very cold family and they're not going to be, at the end, they're not going to be close.
The No. 1 thing is you want to be able to win the game, and we're going to do whatever we have to do to win the game.
One thing I want you to understand is if I make a decision, it's my decision.
The fact that I was a believer, a Christian, everybody immediately thought this guy's a minister, he's so nice and, oh by the way, he can play a little bit. The other thing for me is being undersized. What a great story, what an overachiever, kind of like Rudy.
'How' is a great thing to know. 'Why' is the ultimate. I'm the 'why' coach. Why are we doing this? Why are we not doing that? Why is this not working? Those are the things I want to know.
I feel that a great coach is one that has a vision, sets a plan in place, has the right people in place to execute that plan and then accepts the responsibility if that plan is not carried out.
I think you can be the greatest orator of all time, the greatest motivator of all times, but if those players know that you don't care about them, and you don't try to understand them, then they're never going to hear what you have to say.
I want winners. I want people who want to win.
Every day I've got to get up and make a decision. I have an opportunity every day to affect young men and the coaches that are around me, the entire organization and the entire community.
Before we can talk about a championship, we have to practice like a championship team.
You want to learn everything that you possibly can, chew it, digest it, and take it for what it is, and then move on.
The bottom line is winning. I want to do what we need to do to win football games.
You never really know about a quarterback until he plays in a real game.
I think a man becomes less than a man when he begins to compromise on what he believes is right.
I've really gained an appreciation for what coaches do since I returned to the NFL.
Our quarterback is going to be Alex Smith.
I just feel that after the season that we have to sit down - as well as myself, everybody - and try and look at what gives us the best opportunity to move going forward.
