"The coach's job is to get the best players and get them to play together"
About this Quote
The subtext is where it gets interesting. “Get the best players” smuggles in a specific worldview: outcomes are primarily a function of stars, not systems. “Get them to play together” then frames culture as a managerial act of persuasion, not an emergent property of incentives, governance, and trust. In a corporate setting, that phrasing flatters the leader as orchestrator, the one who can harmonize competing egos through sheer will and charisma.
Context sharpens the irony. WorldCom’s collapse wasn’t a failure to hire smart people or even to “align” them; it was a failure of accountability, transparency, and ethical constraints. Ebbers’ quote illustrates a perennial corporate temptation: translating complex institutional risk into a locker-room parable. It’s a seductive metaphor because it implies cohesion is the main problem worth solving, when sometimes the real problem is the rules of the game, the referees, and whether the score is being honestly kept.
Quote Details
| Topic | Coaching |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ebbers, Bernie. (n.d.). The coach's job is to get the best players and get them to play together. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-coachs-job-is-to-get-the-best-players-and-get-121524/
Chicago Style
Ebbers, Bernie. "The coach's job is to get the best players and get them to play together." FixQuotes. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-coachs-job-is-to-get-the-best-players-and-get-121524/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The coach's job is to get the best players and get them to play together." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-coachs-job-is-to-get-the-best-players-and-get-121524/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.

