Billy Donovan
Billy Donovan
William John Donovan, Jr.is an American professional basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association. He previously spent 19 seasons at the University of Florida, where his Florida Gators men's basketball teams won two NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championships in 2006 and 2007. Donovan has more wins than any other coach in the history of the Florida basketball program, and he coached the Gators to more NCAA tournament appearances,...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth30 May 1965
CityRockville Centre, NY
If it were something where he was riding a motorcycle and he was popping some wheelies and he got hurt, than maybe I would be a bit more concerned. It was just a freak accident.
I got choked up. When 19 years passes by and you go back, to hear the people cheering the way they did and to honor me that way, I was extremely humbled. I was shocked, taken back, and I didn't expect anything like that.
I get great pleasure seeing our kids enjoy the game. It's not about me or how young I am. But it's about the people you coach all the time, and I get a lot of pleasure seeing our kids celebrate.
I get great pleasure seeing our kids enjoy it, our administration enjoy it, our fans enjoy it. It's not about me.
If that happened, I'd be really disappointed in our team. We're playing against a team that really out-performed us a couple of weeks ago in Columbia. The final score says 6 points, but we were down by 15 in the second half, we were dominated in the game. I would hope our guys would be excited about having the opportunity to compete again and play again.
If someone wants to say, 'What Florida has done to this point in time means absolutely nothing... the regular season doesn't mean anything... the Southeastern Conference tournament championship means nothing.' That's fine.
He was almost in tears because, for the first time in his life, he wasn't getting an opportunity to play. I told him, this is going to come to an end this season. And when it does, your time is here.
He has a great passion and vigor for life. He has great respect for people - where they come from, what their heritage is and what their beliefs are.
He has a great, great vigor for life.
We don't have the luxury of making a mistake on the backboard, and we make mistake after mistake. For every time one of our guys gets praise for blocking a shot, when they don't, they give up position by leaving the floor too early.
When I looked at it, I thought it was pretty serious. That's something that we'll have to be careful with. We have an off-day (Sunday) and then we'll re-evaluate it.
We did it with mirrors a little bit.
There is a point where somebody's going to do something and there's going to be a major problem. I hope it doesn't happen.
We're a different team. I don't know if it's better or good or what it is, but it's different with different roles. I don't know how much we'll take from last year's game. It's a new day, new season, new opportunity.