I had the great pleasure of knowing a very fine pilot named Bill Giannotti. He used to teach pilots how to fly B17's and B24's during ww2.
He was giving me my checkride for CFI way back when and the subject of pulling back or pushing forward came up to get best braking.
its as simple as this. if you are flying a big modern jet, get on the ground, get your spoilers out and push forward a bit, reverse and brakes. having flown a jet that when selecting reverse the nose would come up ,this is good advice.
if you are flying a light single or twin (think piper arrow or seneca) get down, retract flaps and pull back a bit.
I have also flown the 737 (into midway too) I would plant it, make sure spoilers deployed, keep the nose down and get on brakes and reversers pronto especially that snowy night. IF YOU ARE NOT STOPPING firewall reverse (risking some damage to engines, compressor stalls, even kicking up sooooo much snow you might not see) and hold brakes until the anti skid cycles and keep on them to a complete stop.
Normal stopping has reverse out and not on the brakes till about 100 knots, increase brakes as you bring the engines to idle, be sure you are at idle before cancelling reverse.
sadly, there are visual illusions that might make a pilot think he is slowing down, when this happens a pilot MIGHT, repeat MIGHT cancell reverse too early.
sometimes you have to keep reverse till you are going backwards ;-)
jon