Bill Walsh Team Quotations

Consistent motivation usually comes from a consuming desire to be able to perform at your best under pressure, namely, the pressure produced by tough competition. If a player needed me to light a fire under him by turning the other team into a demon, he was lacking something I couldn't give him.

There is another side [to ego] that can wreck a team or an organization. That is being distracted by your own importance. It can come from your insecurity in working with others. It can be the need to draw attention to yourself in the public arena. It can be a feeling that others are a threat to your own territory. These are all negative manifestations of ego, and if you are not alert to them, you get diverted and your work becomes diffused. Ego in these cases makes people insensitive to how they work with others and it ends up interfering with the real goal of any group efforts.

We had an excellent coaching staff, a great attitude among the players and that youthful enthusiasm, It was a team that really shouldn't have been where we were.

Once a Marine, always a Marine. The challenge and the camaraderie with players and coaches, no one experiences anything like that but in team sports, especially football. It's almost like a chemical dependency. Whereas losses used to destroy them, now they have the wisdom to be able to move on easier.

Notre Dame is very difficult because the expectations and the impatience of the alums is overwhelming, ... They want it to be like it once was and I'm not sure it ever will be. He presented them with a tremendous first season (10-3 in 2002) but he never really had a quarterback who could carry the team and win for him.