Billy Donovan gives Gators poignant fall camp message: 'The harder it is, the better it is'
In the dog days of fall camp simply putting one foot in front of the other and giving it a full effort at practice can be grueling. It’s one of the reasons coaches often bring in guest speakers to motivate players, and Florida had one of the best on Tuesday: former basketball coach Billy Donovan.
Donovan joined Billy Napier‘s Gators to discuss the key to winning big.
And he would certainly know a thing or two about that, having reached four Final Fours and won two national championships at Florida. Donovan began explaining the purpose of his visit, in a video released by the Gators social media team.
“I’m really, really honored to be here,” Billy Donovan began. “What I’ve tried to do throughout my time I have always been really, really passionate about what really goes into winning. Like what does it take to win at the highest level? The No. 1 thing I did, when we ended up winning back-to-back national championships, what are the things that really the best teams that I’ve been around had and what did the teams that weren’t so great, what didn’t they have?”
The answer might be more simple than you’d expect.
“You guys have to love each other. There has to be a deep love for each other,” Donovan said. “If I’m going to say to you guys 20 years from now, ‘Hey, tell me about what happened on Saturday afternoon on December whatever date.’ You guys are not going to remember what happened on a date 20 years ago. But if I said, ‘Hey, tell me about your teammate. Tell me about your teammate.’ You’ll be able to talk about your teammate pretty openly and honestly.”
The former Florida coach, who boasted a .715 winning percentage during his days with the Gators, further drilled down what he meant by embracing your teammates and becoming close with them.
It’s more than just a mantra. Billy Donovan’s back-to-back title teams were among the most tight-knit in college basketball history, one of the reasons the ’04s ultimately made the decision to return to school after winning their first national title.
“And here’s what I would tell you,” Donovan said. “As you guys share this room, as you guys share a jersey, it can’t be just sharing a jersey and a locker room. It can’t be that. You’ve got to start to think about, ‘What are my teammates going to tell their kids? What are my teammates going to tell their grandkids about what it was like to play with me?’ That’s your legacy. Your legacy is your relationship with each other.”
“You can have all the experience you want, but if you’re not connected as a group and have each others’ backs, it doesn’t make a difference what you have. That’s what the great teams have. All the great teams. And it’s hard. Like that’s what it looks like. And you guys have got to think about do you guys have that mentality or is it, ‘Man, I’m sore, I’m tired. This is the fifth day of training camp, man, I can’t wait till we start playing games.’ You’re missing the point.”
Billy Donovan finished with something that’ll likely make the next few days of fall camp a little easier to find motivation for.
“The harder it is, the better it is,” he said. “The harder it is, the better it is. You’ve got to put the work and the investment into it for each other. You don’t have a choice if you want to win.”