Every person has a different view of another person's image. That's all perception. The character of a man, the integrity, that's who you are.
Steve Alford
I feel blessed that I had an opportunity to be in the Big Ten for four years as a player and be in the Big Ten as a coach for eight years. To get 12 years in a conference like the Big Ten - it's a first-class league with great towns and great fans.
I never dreamed I would coach at UCLA. It was not one of those things in my coaching career I thought would happen. It's a tremendous blessing, and I'm going to make the most of it.
I'm a Christian first. I'm a family guy second. As much as I like coaching, as much as I like basketball, it's third, fourth, or fifth down the line.
You control what you do offensively, defensively. You're controlling who you play, how you want to play.
I've said all along it's a humbling experience being at UCLA. Extremely proud, extremely blessed to be at an institution with all this tradition.
When I was a freshman and sophomore, I got booed every time I was put in the game. Then, in my junior and senior years, my dad got booed every time he took me out.
I never in my wildest dreams thought I would get even one play at Indiana, let alone 25 years later, walk Bruin Walk, walk UCLA where Coach Wooden built his legacy.
There are certain people in our business that you don't replace - Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzyewski, and you don't replace John Wooden, either.
If you keep your eyes fixed on Christ, He's going to reward you.
The two places that I had most imprinted in my mind and in my memory were UCLA and Indiana. To play at one and coach at the other is unbelievable.
The majority of the Big Ten towns are college towns. The colleges are kind of what run the towns.
It's all about persevering. You know you're going to be tested. If you keep your eyes fixed on Christ, He's going to reward you.
Fans will come if you have a good product.
I grew up in Indiana. My first four years of elementary were in the gym where Coach Wooden went to high school.
It's been an unbelievable thing for me to walk Bruin Walk and walk past Coach Wooden's statue, a guy that when I was in elementary school, it's Coach Wooden winning his final championship, his 10th in 12 years.
Everything that UCLA stands for, it's top of the food chain. So you either look at those things as burdens or you look at them as blessings. From day one, I've told my staff we're going to look at it as a blessing and do everything we can to build champions.
I got to work for some great administrators at great institutions, and I had an opportunity to coach great players. Iowa is no different.
My children see me being coach enough. I gotta make sure they see me being dad.
Christian, non-Christian, we're going to miss the mark. We're going to make mistakes. How you handle those mistakes and get more fundamentally sound spiritually in dealing with those mistakes I think have a direct impact - not only on your spiritual life, but those around you.
Sometimes it's forgotten that players are coming to college to get a degree.
A freshman has only about 25% of his degree completed. They go off to play professional basketball, and to assume they will come back and get the degree done five, six, seven years later, I don't see that happening.
There are very few LeBron James and Kobe Bryants.
I don't know anything about the hotel business.
That first group of Manchester players allowed me to enjoy coaching at a very young age that motivated me to do it. If it wasn't good, I might have made a career change.
One of the things you don't usually mess with is happy.
The Olympics is nothing I ever dreamed about. I dreamed about playing for Coach Knight and Indiana.
I just go back to my roots. I was literally born 26 miles from Martinsville High School where Coach Wooden grew up, and then my dad coached there for four years.
Jabari Parker is one of the best, if not the best, I've seen on tape. He's so hard to guard. You've got to guard from 23 feet. He can shoot it, or he can go one-on-one from there. He can post. He's so fast and long.
I've been in basketball a long time, and nobody is more of a competitor than I am.
It's our job to put a good product out there, and fans will come. If they see a good product, a good style, fans will come.
