Nick Saban explains the difference between a mistake that deserves getting chewed out and one that deserves encouragement “I always sort of had a lot of respect for the fact that any player that’s a competitor wants to do well. And I think when you start with that, you have a better perspective because you look at things from their perspective, not your perspective. And I think that’s very helpful.” “Sometimes when guys are not doing intangible things, whether it’s giving effort or focusing or making mental errors or things that they can actually control, that is something that you can’t tolerate. And you really want to maybe sometimes get after a guy a little bit for it.” “But when guys are doing those things and just not having success, I think that’s when you want to pat them on the back and get them to believe in themselves and have an understanding if they continue to do things the right way, they will eventually have success.” “And every player’s different. Sometimes you got guys that are obsessive-compulsive type personalities that are really hard on themselves, and I don’t think you need to get on those guys because they’re already getting on themselves.” “Then you have other guys that may not be self-starters, and you got to push them a little bit more to get them to be what they’re capable of being. I think all those things were factors in how you kind of approach a player and try to get him to be the best he can be.” “I always tried to focus on the individual and not look at it like one size fits all, and try to take the best approach with that particular guy to help him have success.”

Dan Quinn says Pete Carroll is the best leader he’s been around because his greatest leadership traits showed up when the air got thin “Best leader would be Pete Carroll. The reason why, confidence in big moments, where other people might have been tight.” “I can remember my first year there as defensive coordinator. We’re going to the Super Bowl, and we were practicing at the Giants and we were flying at practice. It was the same practice in New Jersey that we had a couple weeks before when we were getting ready to play the NFC Championship Game.” “That told me something. When the air gets a little thin, people can change. When the air got thin with him, man, ‘Isn’t this awesome?’ It just made you feel relaxed.” “We were going to New Jersey to play Peyton Manning. It was like, ‘Man, this is awesome. It’s going to snow. This is perfect.’ He was just chewing his gum and had this energy like, we put the work in. We knew we were going to play well.”