Top 55 Kelvin Sampson Quotes

My dad has always been my role model.

The most important thing in the world to me is my faith and my family.

As an outsider, when you think of Indiana, you think about a place that not only has championships but a championship tradition.

We have the wrong people chasing Osama bin Laden. It ought to be athletic directors and reporters. They’ll find you.

In this business, a lot of coaches are running around thinking they’re the reason their teams are winning.

I have never intentionally provided false and misleading information to the NCAA.

Nobody believed in us. Everybody made fun of Houston basketball. I can’t say I blamed ’em.

When you decide to go into coaching, obviously you don’t forget why. That’s to help develop young people, help them chase their dreams, help them reach their goals.

With federal recognition, the Lumbee Tribe would become a full player in Indian country, no longer second class Indians in the eyes of the federal government. As such, we would employ our substantial skills and abilities to help correct problems faced by Indian country and make significant contributions.

Washington State was a tough recruiting spot.

One of the ways to use your depth is to play with speed.

It was never my intent to come back to college.

Sometimes Kellen calls me ‘Coach.’ Sometimes he calls me ‘Pops.’

I learned quickly in the NBA that you keep one eye open at all times and one ear closed. You can’t react to everything you hear or see.

There are incredible decisions made in a 48-minute game with a 24-second shot clock and the last two minutes of a game.

If you are an Oklahoma football fan, you have one of the best football programs in the nation.

You choose who you want to be.

I didn’t realize the difference between coaching college and coaching the NBA. It’s a totally different animal.

It’s a big deal to get to the NCAA Tournament.

Being Native American, we were different than everybody else, but I never felt like I was different.

I just coach my team. I just focus on coaching my team.

Karen is as good a coach’s wife as I’ve ever been around, and she’s better than most. She loves basketball and has a great understanding of my responsibilities, my possession.

You coach at a have-not school, and you have to have a competitiveness and a resolve and resiliency about you that’s different, or you’ll never make it. You’ve got to find a way to do more with less.

Scott Skiles was a master tactician – they’re all masters, but he is elite. He knew how to manipulate his team from an X’s-and-O’s standpoint.

Iowa State’s a great team; I know how tough they are in Ames.

Some guys have all this talent, and you wonder why they can’t put it all together. Well, they don’t do any of the little things.

In basketball, there are no trap games. If you walk out on that court and lose a game, it’s because the other team beat you. You played poorly. But there’s no trap game.

I’m really proud of what we are building at the University of Houston, and hope I spend the rest of my career here.

The University of Houston is a program that should have national relevance.

My personality is more like my mother’s. She was fiery. She had more of a temper. I always thought she had enough determination that she could do anything. She could fix anything. I think all children need that feeling from their parents.

You’re not a loser in anything until you quit. Don’t quit.

When I was at Oklahoma, I didn’t think it could get any bigger than that.

I was not real good at anything. I was just OK at everything.

The one thing about Lumbee people is that there’s so many stereotypes about Native Americans, especially reservation Native Americans, and we all tend to get lumped under that umbrella. But the Lumbee are non-reservation. I grew up no different than anybody would in normal American communities.

I learned to be more flexible offensively, to not talk as much in practice.

One of the things I enjoy most about what I do is I can give my father joy.

Getting to the NBA really helped me personally on a lot of levels. I liked it so much that I wanted to stay there.

The most overrated thing is that you’re a good defensive team because of your coaching. No. You’re a good defensive team because you care and because it’s important to you.

The coaching community is really tight-knit.

I didn’t want to end my coaching career as an assistant in the NBA.

Tough teams win when the shots are not going.

I used to think 63 was old.

Any time you work with your son, it’s special.

Pembroke is my foundation. Everything that I’ve become is because of those people.

Kevin McHale was a master communicator and knows how to coach stars, and that’s a unique gift because you take an old-school guy that’s used to coaching his way, he’d have a hard time coaching them cats now, but Kevin knows how, and he has the patience of Job.

Indiana basketball is bigger than one person.

Sometimes players just take a little while to develop.

I always talk about my dad because he was a coach, and I became a coach.

My heading was NBA head coach. I didn’t want to be back in college for a lot of reasons.

I’ve always been a goal-oriented person.

The people who know me, know me. Those are the only ones I worry about.

I never thought the NCAA violations for the phone call would ever rise to the level it did.

I liked coaching in an underdog situation.

I learned a lot in the NBA.

Scott Skiles is one of the best coaches in the NBA, someone I observe and learn from on a day-to-day basis.