Beyond Basketball Read online

  Culture is a continuum. This means that it is not merely a matter of creating a culture, but perpetuating it. Those who have been in the organization for the greatest amount of time pass on the values and the message of the organization to those who are just entering. A recent trend in college basketball has seen many players leaving college early or forgoing their college career entirely to enter the NBA. While this has become virtually unavoidable, it does have a significant effect on the culture of individual programs and college basketball as a whole.

  Recruiting is a key aspect of growing a culture. When my staff and I decide which kids to recruit, we don’t merely look at the youngster’s athletic ability, statistics, and grades, we look at how they treat their parents, how they interact with their classmates, and what other ways they contribute to their communities. One of my favorite things is when we go for a home visit and the player has his best friend with him, a friend who may not even play basketball. This shows that, at a young age, he understands that it’s not all about him and he is willing to share his life with those close to him: an indication that he is willing to look beyond himself and become a part of something greater.

  Culture is passing on the values and teaching the standards that you have learned as an upperclassman to the young players on the team. I can remember many practices during the 1986 season when my starting backcourt of Johnny Dawkins, a senior, and Tommy Amaker, a junior, would completely dominate our second team.

  Quin Snyder was a freshman on that second unit and would leave a number of practices feeling down and defeated. Johnny and Tommy would take Quin off to the side and tell him about when they had gone through those experiences as well. It was all a part of developing as an individual player and as a part of the Duke Basketball culture. They reminded Quin to keep working hard and keep listening to the coaching staff and that eventually it would all work out. Quin became a starter the next season and was one of our captains and major contributors on the 1989 Final Four team. He, in turn, spent time passing the lessons he learned on to Christian Laettner, who was a freshman on that 1989 team. Teaching culture is not just a leader’s task; everyone on the team is responsible for passing the values, standards, and traditions on to the next generation. Christian passed it on to Grant Hill, Grant Hill to Jeff Capel, Jeff Capel to Trajan Langdon. And so on. And so on.

  Dependability

  Dependability is the ability to be relied upon. To always be there trying to do your best.

  I have always admired Cal Ripken. Playing in a record 2,632 straight games, he earned a reputation as baseball’s “Iron Man.” What that means to me is that Cal played when he was sick, injured, tired: times when many other people would not have. It would be amazing to be Cal Ripken’s teammate; you knew you could always depend on him. He was always there, giving his all. I try to encourage in my teams the importance of showing up and being at your best each and every day. Being able to depend on one another gives us the greatest chance of collectively achieving our goals.

  Just like Cal Ripken was for the Baltimore Orioles, my brother, Bill Krzyzewski, is the Iron Man of our family. He retired recently as a captain in the Chicago Fire Department, after thirty-seven years of service. In all of those thirty-seven years, my brother never missed one day of work. Whether it was a small fire or a terrible one, you could count on his being there and doing whatever was necessary to get the job done. Whenever I would go to the firehouse for a visit, some of Bill’s men would take me aside and tell me how lucky I am that he is my brother. “He is always there for us,” they would say. “We would follow him anywhere.”

  Bill is three and a half years older than I and we didn’t really “run in the same circles” growing up. Our interests and talents were different and so were our friends, but we were always brothers. I could always count on that. If there was a problem, Bill would take care of it. He would handle it in the best possible fashion and he would never, ever say, “You owe me.” He didn’t do it because he wanted anything in return, he did it because he was my older brother and he loved me, and that is what older brothers are supposed to do. We all need heroes. My brother is my hero.

  Dependability is not only about being there physically, but being there at your best. It is about loyalty and commitment, about being someone on whom your teammates can count. You don’t have to have a master’s degree to teach dependability; you teach it by example. I learned it from Bill.

  I have often told my brother, “I could never be as good a brother to you as you have been to me. You are the guy I have counted on and looked up to for my whole life.”

  My greatest honor is when my hero, my Iron Man, looks back at me and tells me, “I love who you’ve become.” Knowing that my brother was always there for me has helped me immensely. I tell Bill, “I love who we have become.” All this would not have happened unless Bill was there.

  Empathy

  Empathy: the ability to walk in another person’s shoes.

  As a coach, a parent, or a leader of any kind, one of the most important things that you can feel for one of your “teammates” is empathy. If someone believes that you can identify with their situation and understand their feelings, they are more apt to trust you, which leads to faster responses to situations and better conclusions.

  Empathy is important not only in coaching man-to-man defense, but in helping to soothe a daughter with a broken heart. In either situation, though the feelings involved are completely different, empathy means having the ability to, most literally, feel what the other person is feeling. Then they will never feel alone.

  Showing empathy for someone can help them to develop empathy for others. My oldest daughter, Debbie, who is now an incredible mother to her four children, told me an amazing thing. She told me that I taught her how to empathize. And I remember just the moment she was talking about.

  She had come home from Duke after a rough breakup with a longtime boyfriend and was completely heartbroken. She cried and talked to my wife, Mickie, for hours. Finally, emotionally exhausted, she fell asleep lying across her bed. She said that the first thing she remembers after that is waking up with me sitting on the bed next to her and gently patting her back. When she turned to look at me, I was crying too. “Dad, what’s wrong?” she asked. I replied, “I just feel so sad for you.” It was true. Her heartbreak was my heartbreak too; that’s what makes us a family and the greatest of teams. For a person to know that someone else understands their feelings really validates those feelings. Once acknowledged or validated, the person has a greater chance of moving on to something better, instead of being a prisoner of that particular feeling.

  Part of being on any team, and a family team in particular, is trying to truly understand what each of your teammates is going through. If you feel true empathy, it can be a beautiful thing. Their difficult times become your difficult times and, likewise, their successes become your successes. Either way, your collective moments become better, less sad, or more celebratory. Someone else feels what you feel. It is not about each of us individually but, rather, all of us together. Empathy brings your group closer together by allowing all members of the group to feel as if all of their feelings are truly a shared experience.

  Enthusiasm

  Enthusiasm is a great interest or excitement. When you are enthusiastic, you are a catalyst to those around you. Your unabashed love and emotion for what you are doing is contagious.

  As a coach, many people may think that my job is about giving: giving instruction, giving advice, giving encouragement. But when I look into the eyes of someone like Chris Collins, it is hard to explain how much I receive in return. Chris was the captain of the 1996 team and is now one of my assistant coaches. When he was a player, I saw the enthusiasm written across his face, and it fueled me. I was lucky to coach him and now am fortunate to have him on my staff, where he can share his enthusiasm for the game of basketball with our current players.

  Chris Collins was the embodiment of enthusiasm. He loved to get the
crowd into the game; he loved to slap the floor; he loved to get excited. Quite simply, he loved to play basketball. But my favorite part about Chris’s enthusiasm is that it was not singular. It was plural. He would be even more excited about a great play made by a teammate than one he made himself.

  Chris was a part of our Duke teams during a very difficult stretch, one in which we went from having a 28–6 season in 1994 to being 13–18 the following year. This was the year in which I was forced to take off the majority of the season due to my health, and it created a time of great concern for the future of the program. Let’s just say it was a difficult time to be enthusiastic.

  When I returned to coaching in 1996, Chris’s senior year, we had a great group of young men, but the talent level was not as high as other Duke teams I’ve coached. In January, we headed to North Carolina State for a conference road game. We had lost four games in a row and our record in the Atlantic Coast Conference was 0–4. Since we had placed last in the ACC the previous year, many feared we were headed in that same direction. In many ways, it felt as if the direction of not just our season but our program hung in the balance of that game. We could win and be rejuvenated or lose and have our morale further decreased.

  In a hard-fought battle, Chris’s unwavering enthusiasm served as the emotional backbone for the rest of our team. N.C. State was ahead 68–63 with 1:30 to go in the game. Jeff Capel drove to the basket and had his shot blocked and the ball began to go out of bounds near half-court. Chris chased down the ball and dove over the scorer’s table to send it back inbounds to Ricky Price. But Chris did not stop there. He immediately got up and ran back onto the court, receiving a pass from Ricky and hitting a three-point shot to cut State’s lead to two. With the short amount of time left on the clock, we made the strategic decision to foul and send N.C. State to the free throw line. After they hit both of their free throws, Jeff Capel drove and quickly scored on the offensive end, putting us within two points once again. With 16 seconds left, we fouled again, and this time the State player missed the front end of a one-and-one free throw opportunity.

  On our last possession of the game, Chris dribbled up the court to where we had drawn up a play for him to hand the ball off to Ricky Price. However, instead of handing the ball off, Chris’s instincts told him to shoot. With six seconds left on the clock, he fired up a three-pointer and, after spending what felt like forever bouncing on the rim, the ball fell through the net. We won 71–70.

  Chris remained our leader for the rest of the season, in which we finished 18–13 overall and 8–8 in conference play. The N.C. State game had been a springboard for Chris and the rest of our team. During the last month of the season, Chris was not only our emotional leader, he was our best player, averaging close to 27 points a game. His contagious enthusiasm led us to the NCAA tournament in a year we were not expected to make it. The following year, and in fact the next five seasons in a row, we won the conference regular season championship.

  Chris Collins’s undying enthusiasm set the program back on the right path. Despite the difficult times, Chris never allowed his spirit to be defeated, and as a result he was the catalyst for getting the Duke program back on the path to success. Being excited about playing and being a part of a team is easy to do when you are winning 30 games a year and contending for championships. But it becomes more difficult when you are losing, when fans and the media are taking shots at you, and when it feels as if nothing is working. Chris’s enthusiasm was particularly impressive because he showed it at a very high level even when it was difficult to do so.

  I often refer to Chris as “the bridge.” He is the guy that led us over a difficult season and connected the success of the 1994 Final Four team with the future success of Duke Basketball. In 2000, Chris returned to Duke as an assistant coach. That 2000–01 season, we won our third National Championship. I was so happy to share that with Chris Collins, who deserved it as much as any kid I have ever coached.

  Of his time at Duke, Chris has said, “If there’s one thing that I would like to be remembered for when I leave Duke, it’s that that kid just really loved to play the game.” And Duke fans will never forget the enthusiasm of Chris Collins.

  Excellence

  When I sign autographs for kids, I almost always put the same message: “Always try your best.” If they get nothing else from meeting me, I want them to remember these words.

  Excellence is not measured the same way for everyone. A .500 season may be a perfect standard of success for one team, while a National Championship is the standard for another. Define your own success and failure; only you know whether or not you have given it your all. The persistent pursuit of excellence determines winners, not the score of the game.

  To be excellent, you must be yourself. Do the very best that you can do. In giving your best every day, improvement will come naturally. Giving your all makes you better; it’s that simple. Remember that there is a vital distinction between excellence and perfection. If you ask a young person to be excellent, he or she may think, “Oh, man, I have to be perfect? I can’t do that.” But if you ask him or her to just give their personal best, anybody can do that.

  In the context of a team, there are many times when you are not the best individual on the team in a particular activity. You can sometimes have the tendency to look at the best person and say that he or she is excellent and you are not. This is a big mistake. Each person can be excellent, but one person may have more ability or expertise at a given time and in a given situation. This happens every year on a basketball team. What I tell my players is, “You have to run your own race individually while we are running our collective race as a team.”

  In 1998, Elton Brand and Shane Battier were both freshmen and starters for us at Duke. Elton became one of the best players in the country his first year and was National Player of the Year the next. Shane was not at that level of play immediately, but still played excellent basketball. He was a starter and was named National Defensive Player of the Year as a sophomore. Shane averaged only about 9 points a game that season, far fewer than Elton’s 17. However, he always had a high opinion of his accomplishments and he was never jealous. He never felt frustrated about his efforts because he did not compare them to Elton’s. Elton left Duke before his junior year and was the number one pick in the NBA draft. Shane stayed and became an all-conference player, and in his senior year was the National Player of the Year, just like Elton had been. They both ran different races, and achieved equal excellence.

  Another part of seeking and maintaining excellence is always surrounding yourself with others who have high personal standards. Sometimes, when you are not at your best, someone else will be, and they can help raise you to that level.

  I learned about excellence from my college coach, Bob Knight. I was the point guard for Coach Knight at West Point for three years. During that time, I learned what it meant to pursue excellence. Coach demanded that from us every day and it was a great lesson for me to learn. Coach Knight is one of the best leaders I have ever known.

  After I graduated from West Point and finished my five-year service commitment to the United States Army, I was presented with the opportunity to join Coach Knight’s Indiana University staff as a graduate assistant. This was another great chance for me to be around him and his team. During this experience, I met some other excellent coaches, most notably Hall of Fame coaches Henry Iba and Pete Newell. Both of these legendary coaches told me that I had an incredible opportunity to learn from the best in Coach Knight. And they gave me some advice that I will never forget. They told me to learn absolutely everything I could from Coach, to soak up his theories and philosophies, his genius for the game, and his ability to motivate. But they also told me not to try to be Coach Knight or anyone else, but to take everything that I learned from him and fit it into who I am as a person, a leader, and a coach. Essentially, they told me to be myself.

  It is overwhelming to tell someone that they have to be Michael Jordan or Grant Hill
or Ernest Hemingway or Albert Einstein. They will think it impossible. Our goal should not be to be our heroes, but rather to learn from them and then do the best possible job of being ourselves. That is how I define excellence.

  Failure

  Winning does not define who I am. Don’t get me wrong—I am competitive and I love to win, but it does not define me.

  Growing up, I knew what I was good at and I stuck to it. As a result, I became captain of my high school basketball team, a member of the national honor society, and vice president of my class. But going to school, playing basketball, and leading—these were all things that came naturally to me. I played it safe and I didn’t venture beyond what was comfortable and easy for me.

  My first real experience with failure came when I went to West Point. There, failure was a common occurrence for me. I didn’t know how to tie a knot, I didn’t know how to swim, and, growing up in inner-city Chicago, I had never had much experience with the great outdoors. At West Point, you were expected either to already know these things or learn them very quickly.

  I learned so much at West Point both as an individual and as a member of a team. A major part of this learning process was stepping out of the realm of what came naturally, attempting new things, and, sometimes, failing at those things. I learned from West Point, and have tried to pass the message along to my teams, that progress is impossible if you only attempt to do the things that you have always done.