Jimmy Smith Quotations

We are a good basketball team. Don't let anyone fool you, we can be as good as we want to be. Tonight we ran up against another good basketball team.

We're in a position where we're flying under the radar. We're not being talked about on TV shows. When they mention teams in the playoffs, it's like the Jaguars are the last one. That's fine. I like it that way. When we beat New England, that says it all.

We're more settled. A new regime means changes, and things have settled down.

We're just so excited because we've been through a few losing seasons, where it's been just miserable around here, and now we're winning and glad we're in the playoffs. We're just happy about life right now and everything's great.

We've won five in a row, but if we start playing a little bit harder and a little bit smarter, we can be a good basketball team. We're not playing quite up to what I believe our capabilities are, but we're in a tournament and you got to win to advance. The big thing is that we got the win tonight.

We ran the same offensive and defensive plays in the first six minutes as the rest of the game. We just started to play South Lenoir basketball. Tonight was just a good team effort. We showed a lot of heart tonight.

My first recording, a guy came down to Philadelphia and heard me play and he introduced me to Alfred Lion.

I don't have to say anything. You guys know. Now is the time to make plays. That's exactly what I do. That's why I'm here.

I'm all about getting training from somebody that used to work with NBA players. That aspect really stood out from the other schools, being able to have a person work with you that used to work in the NBA because that's where I want to go.

I did my first recording. It was called The Champ.

I always hear it. I just liked the way it set up. They said Jimmy is losing a step that he can't do it anymore. It's been the story of my career. It's always been people saying I couldn't do it. I knew I could do it. You knew I could do it. There's always a handful of people.

I always had the facial hair so I looked older than I was.

He has found out by going up there, life is certainly different in the big city and in the business. He's found you have to have your guard up to be apart of it and still be who you want to be.

He looks rested. He was bouncing around out there. As bad as it was for him to have the injury, it may turn out to be a good thing as he's rested and looking sharp.

Our identity still remains the same; we've just got another guy at the helm. He's the quarterback. He has a strong arm. Our backup is a quarterback, too. He's mobile. We've got the best of both worlds, if you ask me. Quarterback isn't the issue for us right now.

People like the idea of the trio and so I did mostly trio.

My mom would have liked it that I patterned myself more after Jimmy Reed.

That's tough. You need some breathers along the way.

My boys told me they'd rather play than practice.

Michael Coleman, now that was a boy that taught me some stuff too.

We had our chances. We just would get a run and then make mental mistakes. But (Clinton's) a well-coached basketball team with some good players.

We had our chances but we didn't play smart. And I can't blame them for that; that's my responsibility when they don't play smart. We didn't look like a well-coached team out there at times but we played hard.

Three months. I was playing the organ for three months. It was a challenge for me in the beginning.

Yeah, you know everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.

We are dedicated to making our roads safer for everyone, that's why we've had this program for 19 years now.

We won't take people from bar to bar, but if they give us a call we will take them home. There's no way to measure how many lives this program may have saved during the years it has been in operation, but we feel that this has been a very valuable community service for everyone on the roadways during New Year's Eve and early New Year's Day.

We knew it wasn't going to be easy. But we've become a second-half team this year. I don't necessarily like it that way -- we don't like to have to come back. But we have matured enough to be poised and do whatever we have to do to come away with a win.

When you have passion on the court, good things are going to happen. We have tried to play this year without passion and we just can't do it.

We'll win games so we won't have the problem later this year. It's understandable.

When someone passes away like that, you tend to remember that person like a saint. He wasn't a saint. But he handled himself all the time like people around him were important to him all the time.

We all know Fred is the catalyst of this offense and to see him get that gain up the middle, it's a big boost for the whole team.

There is nothing Kirby would not do for you. You were never able to pay him back.

Very tough, especially when you look on the opponent's side and you don't see Peyton (Manning) touching the ground. How much pounding can a guy take?

Brandon's the heart and soul of our basketball team. He was possessed early in the game but the guys stepped up well in the second half in his absence.

There's not a one of these cakes worth less than $100.

Put those guys in those dark jerseys, those heat-seeking, heat-soaking dark blue jerseys.

And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.

A lot of rookies wish they could open up the season like he did.

It's just so tough in high school for young men to get a 15-point lead and maintain the intensity and the concentration.

It wasn't worth risking his future. He was mad with me because he wanted to play. But I'm not going to jeopardize a young man's future. He's a baseball/football player playing basketball and I love him for it.

That's the best quarter (of basketball) I've ever coached. It wasn't just the points, but the way we got them. The effort on defense.

The atmosphere's not there. Our team's excitement wasn't there. But the biggest thing is we got a victory.

It was like this in 1996 (when the wild-card Jags reached the AFC Championship after two upset wins on the road). We just kind of flew under the radar, and we didn't get a lot of respect. We like it like that.

I just came from Aspen, Colorado and they had fifteen kids I played for and they all played horns.

I know we have great fans. I'm going to blame it on the weather.

I like it that way. When we beat New England, that says it all.

I'm concerned that we're not putting up a lot of points. We need to step it up and make more plays.

I heard Mr. Wild Bill Davis. I heard him play in 1930 and he told me that it would take me fifteen years just to learn the pedals, the pedals of the organ and I got mad.

I played with Sam Lay, Jimmy Reed, Big Walter Horton, Big Moose Walker, and all those guys.

I played with Eddie Taylor's son, Tim Taylor and Carey Bells son Lurie Bell.

Byron made a good call. He told me to run a slant and go. Fortunately I ran a good enough route for him to make the easy throw.

He's what makes this offense go. When he's back there, we're at another level.

I am not happy with the work that we put in. We made a lot of mistakes on offense, something that we can't have. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

All the colleges I played, most of the colleges, they were white.