Bill Parcells Quotes: Best Sayings of a Coach Legend!

Reading Bill Parcells quotes is like perusing Einstein’s equations if they were written for sports. When it comes to the NFL, Parcells is always knowledgeable, gritty and extremely REAL. Not only did Bill leave his mark on sports, he left us with a treasure trove of phrases to remember his illustrious career by.

For example, here’s a quote by Bill on inspiration from those coming before him:

“Some guys are just very, very interested in their sport and their predecessors. I know I was a guy like that when I was a young coach. I wanted to know about George Halas, I wanted to know about Jim Lee Howell, guys you don’t even know. I wanted to know what they were like. So I read whatever I could get my hands on.”

Yes, as all of us can attest, Bill Parcells is a WINNER. He rose to fame as a coach with the New York Giants in the 80’s. While there he won a staggering two Super Bowls. It’s not easy for a team to win one Super Bowl within the same decade, nevertheless two of them.

However, his stellar coaching did not just end with his tenure with the Giants. Parcells is the only NFL coach in history to lead 4 different franchises to the playoffs and 3 to a conference championship game. WOW!

Furthermore, the New England Patriots, New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys all got to enjoy Bill Parcells at the helm of their team as the Head Coach. Parcells is now an inductee of the NFL Hall of Fame. Going in with the 2013 class.

What a guy. And what a career. Now let’s enjoy some of his famous quotes!

Bill Parcells Quotes: Best Sayings of a Coach Legend!

The only players I hurt with my words are the ones who have an inflated opinion of their ability.

Losers assemble in small groups & complain, winners assemble as a team & find ways to win.

I’ve been around enough to know what it takes to get a team to reach its potential, and I want players who want to reach their potential.

You don’t get any medal for trying something, you get medals for results.

Blame no one. Expect nothing. Do something.

Confidence is only born out of one thing ­ demonstrated ability. It is not born of anything else.

You cannot dream up confidence… cannot fabricate it. [Moreover] cannot wish it. You have to accomplish it.

Accept false steps as opportunities to learn. It’s one thing to hate failure, it’s another to fear it.

You lose with potential. You win with performance.

In the end, I’ve found, people like the direct approach. It’s much more valuable to them to have a leader who’s absolutely clear and open than to have one who soft-soaps or talks in circles.

Success is never final, but failure can be.

Potential means you haven’t done anything yet.

The time to worry is before you place the bet – not after the wheel is spinning. Once it spins, you forget about it.

We’re not playing solitaire out here.

If you’re sensitive, you will have a hard time with me.

A good teacher creates an environment which allows the student to succeed.

Don’t ever let good enough be good enough.

Bill Parcells Quote: More Wisdom from a NFL Legendary Head Coach

Ready for some quotes by the great Bill Parcells? We thought so you Feens! Well, get scrolling in order to read some more insights from Big Tuna.

My entire life has been spent thinking about this game. That’s pretty narrow… I don’t view myself as a person who’s well-versed in very many subjects. I’m not proud of that.

Any penalty – I’ve told you a hundred times – can be eliminated by concentration or good judgment.

There is winning and there is misery.

Resourceful coaches strive to have more ways to win than the other team.

Individuals play the game, but teams win championships.

You ask yourself, ‘What do you want your legacy to be?’ I’m content at this point to say, ‘Those who follow me.’ Romeo Crennel, Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, to name a few. I think I’ve got a pretty good group, so far.

I don’t like celebrity quarterbacks. We don’t need those. We need battlefield commanders.

Look, coaching is about human interaction and trying to know your players. Any coach would tell you that. I’m no different.

I only want my team to play to its potential, as I perceive it to be. I really don’t have any regard for anyone else’s perception.

Well, I’ve had a long standing relationship with Gatorade and they’ve been very, very good to me. And I believe in their products, I really do. I’ve used them for many, many years.

Don’t tell me about the pain. Show me the baby.

I’m trying to keep my own house from burning down. I can’t worry about someone else’s house.

My expectations are greater than the average fan’s but, I’m more realistic than the top prognosticators.

I talked to the team a lot about staying power. You never find out if you have that until you’ve been beaten down a few times.

The more you prepare beforehand, the more relaxed and creative and effective you’ll be when it counts.

Bill Parcell Quotes Continued

I like linebackers. I collect ’em. You can’t have too many good ones.

Winning coaches look for opportunities to praise. Anything that reflects a commitment to the team is praiseworthy.

It’s a lot easier to lose than it is to win. It’s easier, but it’s not more comfortable.

Knowledge is confidence. And confidence lets you play fast.

I’d like to be somewhere near Lawrence Taylor so I can keep an eye on that sucker.

I don’t look at a problem and put variables in there that don’t affect it.

No matter how much you’ve won, [or] how many games, no matter how many championships, how many Super Bowls, you’re not winning now, so you stink.

Why would you live your life worrying about something that’s not going to happen?

I spent a lot of time with my teams, especially in the East Coast teams, talking about dealing with the elements a lot of time, and a lot of instruction about field position and those kind of things. I like that variable.

My job is to call attention to the things that I think are the difference between winning and losing. If I can’t do that then I have failed as a coach.

I grew up under demanding people, that demanded things from you, expected you to toe the mark.

If the players don’t trust the coach, it is a problem, and vice versa.

What sets disciplined people apart? – The capacity to get past distractions. Focus on the task at hand.

There’s a line, players usually don’t cross it and coaches usually don’t cross it. Every once in a while you get a little temper tantrum on both sides, I certainly have had ’em. I’m not proud of those.

Big Tuna Bill Parcells

Bill is always tough-as-nails in approach; but his methods get results.

You are what your record says you are.

You can easily separate ‘team guys’ from ‘me guys’ by how they accept coaching. The guys that accept it are about winning.

A coach wouldn’t throw you to the wolves if he didn’t think you had some wolf in you.

You get too old to lose. When you were a young guy, you bounced back from losses.

Look, when you are starting to put something together, you want the pudding to come out good. You’re trying to put in the right ingredients.

It’s a very easy thing to say, ‘Go get a backup quarterback.’ Now tell me where to get them. You just can’t dial them up.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a quarterback who thinks playing quarterback is just about passing.

If I have affected someone in a positive way, that means a lot to me.

When Super Bowl time comes around, I get jealous.

If you got anything to you at all as an athlete and a competitor, you don’t care what the circumstances are. You still got competition.

Creatures of similar plumages habitually congregate in places of closest proximity.

I love the game. I think it’s a great game because you find out a lot about yourself. You test your mettle every week. There’s no grey area, there’s instant gratification and there are no quarterly reports. We’re not just doing a little bit better. You know every Sunday what happened.

I’ll call somebody ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ if they make a dumb or stupid play. I don’t know any other word for it, and if they don’t like the word, that’s too bad.

Nowadays, if you are afraid of confrontation, you are not going to do very well.

When you don’t know that you don’t know, it’s a lot different than when you do know that you don’t know.

Bill Parcells Book -And Final Words

Want to learn more about the amazing Bill Parcells? We suggest picking up his book, Parcells: A Football Story. PARCELLS details this coach’s long, storied and influential career. You can get it on Amazon for a little less than $20. Enjoy the read and these final quotes!

You can only really yell at the players you trust.

The thing I really look for in this business is there are guys who are into football and there are guys who are in the profession for other reasons.

It’s better to decide wrongly than weakly. If you’re weak, you’re likely to be wrong anyway.

The media dwells mostly on negativity.

Part of buying the groceries is having a philosophy and trying to stick to it as best you can, knowing that occasionally you may make an exception. But, you do so knowing you’re attempting to do it for a certain reason and you have to be very careful not to try to make too many exceptions, because then you wind up as a franchise with a team full of exceptions, which is not what you want.

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