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Motivation Quote by Bill Parcells

"Something goes wrong, I yell at them -"Fix it"- whether it's their fault or not. You can only really yell at the players you trust"

About this Quote

Parcells is admitting, with that gruff clarity only a football lifer can get away with, that “yelling” isn’t just heat - it’s a management tool. “Fix it” is less a command than a worldview: the scoreboard doesn’t care about excuses, and neither does he. The line “whether it’s their fault or not” is the tell. He’s describing a culture where responsibility is contagious. If a breakdown happens near you, it’s yours to solve, because waiting around for blame to be assigned is how teams lose on third-and-long.

The sharper subtext is in the second sentence: anger is selective, even when it looks indiscriminate. Parcells isn’t “tough on everyone”; he’s investing his most intense attention in the people he believes can metabolize it. You don’t waste a hard coaching moment on someone fragile, disengaged, or already checked out. You correct the players with the psychological stamina - and the status - to take a public jolt and turn it into sharper execution next snap.

It’s also a quiet rebuttal to the modern assumption that trust equals gentleness. In Parcells’ model, trust buys you pressure. It’s a transactional intimacy: I’ll come at you hard because I think you can handle the truth, and because I need you to carry standards when I’m not in your ear. Coaching, here, isn’t therapy; it’s accountability theater, staged to produce competence under stress.

Quote Details

TopicCoaching
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Parcells, Bill. (2026, January 16). Something goes wrong, I yell at them -"Fix it"- whether it's their fault or not. You can only really yell at the players you trust. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/something-goes-wrong-i-yell-at-them-fix-it--98269/

Chicago Style
Parcells, Bill. "Something goes wrong, I yell at them -"Fix it"- whether it's their fault or not. You can only really yell at the players you trust." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/something-goes-wrong-i-yell-at-them-fix-it--98269/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Something goes wrong, I yell at them -"Fix it"- whether it's their fault or not. You can only really yell at the players you trust." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/something-goes-wrong-i-yell-at-them-fix-it--98269/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Bill Parcells (born August 22, 1941) is a Coach from USA.

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