Phil Jackson is a role model, and basically a coaching idol of mine. He's someone I really tried to model some of my coaching philosophies after.
I've got a lot of respect for a handful of coaches, and there's a lot of great stuff put out there on film. So, I always want to stay up to speed on those current trends and figure out if you can steal something that fits your players and your system. I'm certainly not afraid to steal from some of these great coaches.
I love Jim Tressel. I think he's a fabulous guy. He's overall been a strong example for all coaches.
Zidane was one of the best players that I have seen. Now as a coach, I try to learn as much as possible from him. He knows a lot because he was an exceptional player.
It wasn't until Joe Maddon called me in 2006 when I thought about pursuing a coaching career.
Guardiola, Zidane, who's doing a great work, Tite, also doing a great job in the national team, Simeone. These are managers I would like to work with some day.
I feel like I've been very blessed to have some great mentors through the years, starting with Don James, who was my college coach, who really inspired me to want to be a coach, which is not something that I really had in mind.
Some guys are just very, very interested in their sport and their predecessors. I know I was a guy like that when I was a young coach. I wanted to know about George Halas, I wanted to know about Jim Lee Howell, guys you don't even know. I wanted to know what they were like. So I read whatever I could get my hands on.
I wanted to become a college coach. I got game films of all the good college coaches - Pete Newell at California, Eddie Donovan with St. Bonaventure, Ken Loeffler at LaSalle.
I always said in my career as a footballer, I owe everything to Newell's. But as a coach, I owe everything to Paraguay.
Thanks to Conte, I got the urge of coaching, and I thank him for that.
I'm not coach D'Antoni. I have to coach to my version of pace-and-space. We all steal from each other, but a lot of us have stolen from him.
I just go back to my roots. I was literally born 26 miles from Martinsville High School where Coach Wooden grew up, and then my dad coached there for four years.
I'm a modern coach when it comes to training. I pick a lot of things up and I watch a lot of training sessions and follow a lot of leagues around the world.
