Beyond Basketball Page 2

  As a leader and a career-oriented individual, you must take care not to allow one aspect of your life to so consume you that you neglect the others. Your family and friends are there to remind you when you need to “act now” on regaining some balance and when getting back on the right and healthy track is “badly needed.” At a time in my life when my career had stirred up some very intense emotions, I was reminded to put time into the other parts of my life, and it ended up changing all of us for the better. Balance can put things in perspective, can bring you joy even when you are down, and can allow you to be at your best in all aspects of your life.

  Belief

  Those three magic words “I love you” are words that are important and meaningful in any culture. But there are four words that are not said nearly enough by families interacting with kids or people interacting in a team environment.

  In all forms of leadership, whether you are a coach, a CEO, or a parent, there are four words that, when said, can bring out the best in your team, your employees, and your family.

  “I believe in you.”

  Those four words can mean the difference between a fear of failure and the courage to try. When you look someone in the eyes and tell them, “I believe in you,” you are letting them know, “You are not going to take this journey alone. I’m not going to allow you to.” When someone believes in you, it helps you to overcome the anxiety that comes as a result of feeling alone. Belief raises your confidence level and allows you to try things that are impossible to do by yourself.

  On a team or in a family, belief makes each individual stronger and also fortifies the group as a whole. You know that there is somebody there to catch you if you fall, and someone to give you that extra push when you need it to overcome an obstacle.

  When a group shares belief you share the brunt of any defeat, making it easier to turn a mistake into a positive. Likewise, successes feel even better because you share the rewards. You have all been a part of the success. In an atmosphere of belief, both wins and losses are shared.

  Belief does not occur naturally; you have to work for it, earn it, and continue to deserve it. The basis of belief is in individual relationships. If I lie to you, I create a breach in that relationship, and it becomes more difficult for you to believe what I say. As powerful as belief can make you and your team, it is also fragile. You have to take care of it.

  BELIEF IN ACTION

  When I think about belief, the first person that comes to mind is my associate head coach, Johnny Dawkins. My first couple of years at Duke were difficult times. In two seasons, I had a 27–30 record, and many critics were anxious to see me fired. In our first couple of seasons, my staff and I had tried to recruit a large number of kids and had fallen short on most of them; we had cast our net too wide. So we changed our strategy. We decided that we were going to be much more focused in our recruiting effort, giving us a chance to form meaningful relationships with the few kids we were trying to bring in.

  Johnny Dawkins was a highly touted high school standout from Washington, D.C. I can remember spending time with him and his family in the living room of their home and I remember his spending time with my family at ours. My four-year-old daughter, Lindy, even handed him a note asking him if he was coming to Duke, providing “yes” and “no” boxes for him to check. Johnny and I bonded instantly. I knew he was something special.

  Recruiting in those days was more difficult for me because I had no résumé to show. I didn’t have a winning record and we had not won any championships. So, in recruiting Johnny Dawkins, who was being pursued by all of the top schools, I was really asking him to believe in me, even though I didn’t have any tangible reasons to offer as to why he should.

  He was our first major recruit, our first major talent, and our first McDonald’s All-America. I can never emphasize enough what Johnny’s commitment to me and to Duke meant to our future success. As much as a great player needs a start, needs someone to believe in his ability, a coach needs a start too. I did not always win at Duke. There was a time when we were nowhere near the top of the college basketball ranks. I needed someone to believe in me. Johnny did that and I am so thankful that he did.

  After coming to Duke and having an incredible career, scoring more than 2,500 points and being named National Player of the Year, Johnny was a lottery pick in the draft and had a long and successful career in the NBA. And, as much as Johnny showed belief in me, I always believed in him as well. If he missed four or five shots in a row, I would remind him to keep shooting, to treat every shot like it was his first. Because we both exhibited mutual belief, we developed an amazing bond as a coach and a player. Following the example set by him, we have continued to have success in recruiting some of the top high school players.

  As if he hadn’t already done enough, Johnny came back to Duke as a coach, and our bond continued to develop as head coach and associate head coach. And there is no one more qualified to pass on our shared belief to others than Johnny Dawkins, whose power to believe got this whole thing started.

  Johnny was a trailblazer. His commitment to Duke and our mutual belief stands as the foundation of the tradition we have established for our program: a foundation of strong belief. My assistants and I continue to go into the living rooms of talented young men and tell them that we believe in them and ask if they, too, will believe in us. And, thanks to Johnny Dawkins, the example has been set. When those youngsters agree to believe in us and we commit to believing in them, great teams, players, and traditions are born.

  Care

  When you care about someone or something you show genuine concern for that person or thing, in good times and bad.

  In the development of our basketball teams, care is as crucial an aspect as any. You want to care about one another as individuals, have empathy and compassion. And you also want to care about each other’s performances on the court. When you care about one another and about your purpose, you are compelled to put your feelings into action.

  Care is so important to a team because, if you want to change limits, there are going to be times when members of the team make mistakes. When you make a mistake, and you know it, you become very vulnerable. The immediate responses of those on your team, those you trust the most, will determine how you perceive your mistake. It can make you feel fearful of making that mistake again. Or you can feel that you put yourself on the line, and even though you did not succeed, you know that your teammates care about you and you will not hesitate to step up again. You never want to let a mistake be the last time an individual dares to try. Care makes you more confident. You know that you have someone’s unconditional support. It creates an atmosphere that breeds success and gives you the confidence to try again.

  Care is developed by fostering individual relationships. This means not only caring about how the team does on the basketball court but caring about their lives off the court and taking the time to get to know who they really are as a person, not only as a basketball player. Several times a year, my wife, Mickie, and I will have the team over to the house for an afternoon. We will serve a casual meal, put football games on the television, and allow the guys to relax and be themselves. Additionally, I will often meet with the players one-on-one and ask them questions about their lives: their families, their girlfriends, their classes. These are all opportunities to show my team that they are not merely basketball players to me. I genuinely care for each and every one of them, and after our time together while they are at Duke, I will continue to care about them. I absolutely love when my former players call me to ask for my input or advice, or even just to catch up. It is the ultimate proof that I have been successful in showing that I do care for them.

  CARE IN ACTION

  After our 1999 season in which we played in the National Championship game, I was at home recuperating from hip replacement surgery. Our great player and leader Trajan Langdon had graduated, and three of our players had decided to leave the program early to pursue a career in the NBA. O
ne player transferred to another school. From a team that was one of the best in the nation and won 37 games, we now had only three veteran players returning. In many ways, I began to feel down and alone. Chris Carrawell, Nate James, and Shane Battier, who would become our team captains for the following season, came to visit me. They set up three chairs next to my bed and we sat there and had a long discussion about what was to come. The first thing they said to me was, “Coach, how are you doing?” Such a simple question but, for me, it carried so much meaning. They were asking how I was doing after my operation but also how I was doing in coping with the loss of so much of the team. My answer was a completely honest one. “I am okay now that you guys are here.”

  These three guys had taken the initiative to come to my house and show me that they cared. While I was experiencing much doubt about the upcoming season, this meeting revived me. By the time they left, we were all talking about where we were headed that year, and because they had shown such care for me, I was able to tell them confidently that I thought we were going to have a great team and a great season. I looked at them and said that we were going to be good and then asked them, “Do you believe it?”

  The response I received from Chris Carrawell is one of the greatest things a player has ever said to me. He said, “Coach, if you say it, I believe it.”

  The next season, we finished 29–5 overall, were ACC regular season champions with a 15–1 record, and ACC Tournament champions. The following year, Shane Battier and Nate James were leaders on our 2001 National Championship team. After a difficult time for me and the Duke program, those three players showed me that they truly cared. It gave me the foundation of support I needed to move on positively and develop my team to the highest level. All because they cared.

  Challenges

  After meeting with some success, it is often difficult for a leader to maintain a high level of passion. One way to avoid getting into a rut is to ensure that you are not doing the same thing over and over each year. I try to see each season as a new challenge because I have a new team to work with, new opponents to encounter, and often new ideas and theories to try. Approaching each season in this manner helps keep me fresh.

  I think it is important not to get into a personal comfort zone. To avoid this, I try to constantly take on new challenges, to test limits, and, often, to discover that those limits were never really there. Approaching the same challenges with fresh eyes and taking on entirely new challenges isn’t easy, but it can help you discover things about yourself that you may have never known, even at fifty-nine years old!

  Over recent years, I have taken on such challenges as motivational speaking, the building of the Emily Krzyzewski Family Life Center, and an XM Satellite Radio show. And in the fall of 2005 I accepted one of the greatest challenges of my career.

  It was a great honor when Jerry Colangelo, managing director of USA Basketball, offered me the position of United States National Team coach for three years, culminating with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. However, there were some personal issues within my family that needed to be discussed before I accepted the honor. My wife, daughters, and their husbands, while realizing the magnitude of this opportunity, were concerned that such a large undertaking would make my already busy schedule simply impossible. Additionally, they brought up health concerns that often accompany being overworked and exhausted: legitimate concerns, considering that sickness and exhaustion kept me from coaching my team the second half of the season in 1994–95.

  At a dinner with my entire family, each raised their worries about the undertaking, and the discussion was at times contentious and emotional. But I explained how I feel about challenges, how they keep me fresh, young, and hungry. When everyone understood that I saw this position as an incredible honor, a chance to serve our great country, and a new personal challenge, they all took a deep breath and understood. When approaching new challenges, it is imperative that you have the support of those who love you most. Now that I know their support is there, I can throw myself into this experience knowing that, even if I fail, my family will have my back.

  No matter how successful you believe yourself to be, you can never feel as if you’ve reached the absolute pinnacle. There are always new and wonderful challenges out there, and part of maintaining success is knowing when you need to accept them. I am rejuvenated, I am nervous, I am eager, and I am so excited to discover what amazing things I will learn as a result of taking on this new challenge.

  Collective Responsibility

  We win and we lose together.

  The best way I can describe collective responsibility is to point to a scoreboard. At any point in the game, when you look up there, there is no one individual’s name. Instead, it shows the team name: Duke, the Chicago Bulls, the USA. This means that in no way does a single individual win or lose a game. Each game, and indeed each moment within a game, is the responsibility of the entire team.

  On a team that wins and loses together, there is no such thing as blame. Blame is a destructive force within a group and has no place in the locker room of a true team. When somebody does something well, we all do it well. When somebody makes a mistake, we all make the mistake. Outsiders, like opposing fans and the media, can say what they will: Christian’s missed free throws lost the game for Duke, or Sean’s last-second three-pointer is the reason we won. But behind closed doors, we know beyond any doubt that this is not true. If we won, we did it together. If we lost, that responsibility belongs to all of us as well.

  Handling the responsibility for wins and losses together removes the burden from one individual’s shoulders and distributes it among each member of the team. Sometimes a load is too heavy for one to carry alone. Just imagine: what could you do if you believed you could not fail? Being on a team that embraces collective responsibility puts you in that position. You, individually, cannot fail. That atmosphere is conducive to high-level performance and places you and your team in the position to be bold and unafraid, and if you should lose, you are not alone.

  One concept I have always tried to instill in my teams is the idea that you play for the name on the front of your jersey and not the name on the back. In other words, you play as a member of the Duke team, not for the name that appears across the back of your jersey. When your team embraces that concept, then we competed in a game and we either won or lost.

  J.J. Redick is the all-time leading scorer in Duke Basketball history, the leading scorer in Atlantic Coast Conference history, and the NCAA’s leader in three-point shooting. He was a great player for us, the National Player of the Year. In our 2005–06 season, the media focused an incredible amount of attention on the young man, tracing how many points he needed to hit his next milestone, praising him when he had scored 30 or more points in 14 games (a Duke record), and chastising him when he had an off shooting night.

  Because of the incredible amount of personal pressure placed on J.J. to score points for us and the added pressure of chasing and breaking so many records, it was often difficult for him to remember that the fate of our team and our season did not rest squarely on his shoulders.

  In J.J.’s final game at Duke, we played Louisiana State University in the Sweet Sixteen. He had his worst game of the season, going 3 for 18 shooting. We lost. When J.J. came out of the game with nine seconds left, he was completely distraught. In his own mind, he took full responsibility for the loss and knew that there would not be another game to make amends. His teammates and coaches tried to console him, but it was to no avail. It really took a couple of weeks before J.J. was able to believe that it was not his fault. We had to remind him that if it were not for his performance throughout the season, we never would have been in the Sweet Sixteen. J.J. had allowed our entire team to take collective responsibility for all 32 of our wins during the season, and this time he needed to allow us, as his teammates, to help take responsibility for the LSU loss.

  Earlier in the season, J.J. was able to pass the lesson of collective responsibility on
to one of the younger members of our team. He embraced being a part of a team and, though he was very hard on himself, he knew the importance of collective responsibility. Our first loss of the season was to Georgetown in late January by a narrow three-point margin. With six and a half seconds left on the clock, we had a chance to tie, but our freshman point guard, Greg Paulus, dribbled into a bad situation and was unable to get the ball to J.J. for a shot. When the buzzer sounded, J.J. walked off the court with his arm around Greg. “I told him it’s okay,” he said afterward. “We win together, we lose together.” Moments like that make me proud to be a coach.

  J.J.’s reaffirmation of our team philosophy of collective responsibility was a reminder to Greg that his play did not decide the game for us. We lost that one together. But because we all maintained responsibility, we were able to win many more games together, finishing with a 32–4 record and becoming both the outright ACC regular season and ACC Tournament champions. We were collectively responsible for a great season.

  Commitment

  Aside from the vows I took with my wife, Mickie, thirty-seven years ago, the most life-altering commitment of my life came from my first athletic director at Duke, Tom Butters.

  In 2004, representatives from the Los Angeles Lakers came into my living room and offered me $40 million to become their coach. In the days that followed, my family and I did our best to evaluate who we were and where we were going. In that time of self-analysis, I called my former AD.

  “Mike, what are you calling me for?” he asked, surprised to hear my voice.