20 Quotes by Tom Heinsohn

I think my broadcast partner Mike Gorman said it best. He said there's a generation of fans who know me as a player and there's a generation of fans who know me as a coach and now there's a generation of fans who think I'm Shrek!

You gotta learn that if you're gonna take the last shot of the game, it's either gonna go in, or it's not gonna go in, and you're either gonna be the hero or the goat.

What I know is that if you're going to play half-court, you'd better have the greatest executioners of half-court basketball. If you run, you test the stamina and willpower of the other team. That's what I learned as a player.

Anybody that shoots a hook shot, whatever hand, I jump up and cheer because it's the easiest shot, it's the best tweener shot.

About the time you think you are getting to know the moves in this game, someone comes along and does everything but undress you on the basketball floor. Standing there under the basket with your hands cupped - and finding that you dont have the ball in them - is a great little old leveler.

In every game, there's three teams out there. There's the two basketball teams and the team of officials. If the two teams are evenly matched, it can come down to number of possessions. If one out-of-bounds call goes the wrong way, that can be the difference.

My mother bought me a brand new suit for going away to college. We were poor, but she wanted me to have that. It was a powder blue suit with peg pants - you know, skinny at the bottom. I think I made quite an impression with that.

I try to put all I am as a person into what I do. My intelligence, my emotion. I've done that in everything.

As the wonderful agony begins for 1964-65, I sometimes wonder why I do it. I've got an insurance business going on the side, and it is starting to grow nicely. Selling insurance fulfills me, in a way, like basketball. But basketball keeps calling me back. I suppose I'll play until I can't keep up with the kids any longer.