Mike Holmgren

“You put a tremendous amount of energy, your whole body and soul into something, and you need to win once in a while. Otherwise, it becomes too hard.”

“I took a leave of absence for a year to coach at San Francisco State under Vic Rowen, fully intending to go back to high school.”

“I was a business major in college, so I knew economics.”

“I had a rule - I didn't have a lot of rules - and one of them was we're going to operate from a mutual respect. I won't embarrass you, and I don't expect you to be embarrass me.”

“It's special for me to coach the team Lombardi coached.”

“People ask me often, 'Why did you leave Green Bay? You had the best quarterback, you were going good and all that.' But I've always been one for challenges. Try to build something up, try something new, challenge myself.”

“I've always wanted to buy a bookstore. You know, sell some of those muffins and a little coffee. I don't care if we make any money. I don't want to lose a lot of money, but we could visit with people and get books.”

“As an organization, I think you owe it to the vast majority of people who go to the game and want to watch the game and enjoy the game and feel good about bringing their kids or their wife or their grandma to the game.”

“I think I'm a pretty good coach, but there are a lot of good coaches, a lot of young coaches.”

“I never had anything planned, like, 'When I'm 40 I'll be coaching here.' A number of people in our profession have done that, but my thing was always, wherever I was coaching, to work hard, do the best you can, and if it happens, it happens.”

“The fans are very, very important in the team's success. Instead of acting up, you're cheering for the team.”

“The important thing, I think, going into any organization, is that all of the principles, all of the decision-makers are pointed in the same direction, with the same motives, the same desires, and then you have a chance.”

“I was teaching history and coaching both tennis and track along with football. I felt like I had the best of both worlds. I was pretty comfortable. I thought I would be doing what I was doing for the rest of my life.”

“Coaches who want to coach in the NFL usually don't go to the high school level for 10 years. They know where they want to go early.”

“You've got to find the quarterback. Once you find the quarterback, you can fix the other things.”

“I think one of my strengths is kind of knowing people and getting a good read and a feel for what that person's strengths might be.”

“If I hire a coach, he's the coach and will run what he knows and is comfortable with. Will it be part of the process? Absolutely. But I am not going to interfere that way as the president.”

“Everyone has to understand what the role is - what the role of the player is, the role of the coach is. You're hired to do something. You're paid to do something.”

“The mentor thing is overblown to me. I'm going to coach the player. I'm not going to have another player coach the player. They can be friends but when it comes to what I want him to do on the football field, that's my call, not another player's call.”

“I'm a football coach. It seems the league is cyclical and hiring young guys... but experience in the NFL still means a heck of a lot.”