Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K)

Kate Bowler: This is Everything Happens and I’m Kate Bowler. Okay. Today we’re having a conversation about greatness and grit with someone who knows a thing or two about winning. Our guest, the legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski, or Coach K, led the Duke men’s basketball team to over a thousand victories and five national championships and led the U.S. team to three Olympic gold medals. No big deal. This conversation was part of a live event at Duke University, or one that you can watch on YouTube, too. We’ll link it in the show notes. You can even watch his urge to walk around stage and coach the whole room. And hey, if you’re not a basketball person or maybe not a Duke basketball person, first, I forgive you. Second, stay with me. This conversation isn’t just about stats and trophies or being a camera crazy. It’s about the deeper stuff like trust, resilience, and what it means to see greatness in others when they can’t quite see it in themselves. Because Coach K doesn’t just build teams, he is obsessed with building character. So pull up a courtside seat, and by that I mean a cozy spot in your living room or in your car, or just keep on walking if you’re walking. This is a conversation about the wins that shape us and the losses that change us. And without further ado, the legendary Coach K. I had heard that you like to start your games sometimes by writing a word on the whiteboard to focus a conversation. And I thought maybe we might want to start similarly. You’re going to write a word that will be maybe a theme word for our conversation. I don’t want to judge yours. Let’s just give it a whirl.

Mike Kryzyzewski: How about something I feel.

Kate: If you want to give me an emotion.

Mike: I do

Kate: It would be–

Mike: Here’s what I…

Kate: Okay, just give me one second, because I feel like you’re already more talented. Okay, do you want to go first or second?

Mike: Yeah. Might my word is hopeful. I’m hoping that you’re going to fulfill your duties here.

Mike: Because right now I’m a little nervous about it. I’m nervous about…

Kate: For them.

Mike: And you.

Kate: Fair. So then this feels equally impossible. I wrote best friends.

Mike: It’s possible.

Kate: Well, I like hopeful.

Mike: How do you erase this?

Kate: This is where the cry box comes in. I’ll just put that there in case you decide to feel more emotions. I don’t want to rush you. You have this unbelievable ability to see greatness in other people. And I am. I imagine that’s a little. Rare of a quality given that most of us don’t feel like we have much inside of us to share other than indigestion. And you have one player in particular, Shane Battier, who wasn’t sure that he had greatness inside of him, but you were sort of hoping he’d figure out pretty quickly.

Mike: Yeah, well, Shane, we’ve always recruited good guys and they’re outstanding players, but they’re really good guys. So we recruited talent with character. We didn’t recruit talented characters, and talented characters sometimes think they’re better than they are. Sometimes talent with character doesn’t believe they’re as good. They know they’re good, but they don’t know where I think they can go. And between Shane’s sophomore and junior years we needed him to step up and become the SEC Player of the year and eventually a national player of the year. So he was working in Chicago doing an internship, and I called him one morning and I said, Shane, it’s Coach K and says, yeah, Coach. I said, when you went to bed last night, did you look in the mirror and say, I’m the best player in the SEC? And he said, No. And I hung up on him and, now this is all true. And the next day I called him again, said, Shane, it’s Coach K, and I said, this morning when you were going to work, did you did you think about being the best player on our national championship team. He said, Coach I’m– and I hung up on him again and the next day I called and he said, Coach, don’t hang up. And I said, Well, I won’t hang up if you don’t hang up on yourself. And you’ve gone to a level that most players would love, but you’re capable of so much more. And I told them the four words that I think are the most powerful words on this planet is when you can look at someone and say, I believe in you. You know, And I want you to believe in you. I got chills thinking about it because, yeah, I’ve had that experience with so many of these guys and they respond. And Shane then went bonkers, and he was as good a leader as we’ve ever had and as good a representative for Duke University as there could be. He’s just magnificent. And he’s a little bit cocky now. Now, I have to tell him no, you’re not that good.

Kate: How do you know when someone is ready to hear I believe in you?

Mike: You know, you get to know them, you know? When I recruited John Scheyer, I was 17 years old. 16, 17. And I told him, like I told all the guys we recruited, I’m going to be one of two, maybe two, three people, I hope there are more, in your life that will always tell you the truth. And you can count on me telling you the truth. And I said, I want you to do that with me. And what happens then if you develop that level relationship, the single biggest thing that you can develop is trust. And if we got it going, we’ll see in about 40 minutes if we get there. I call it the speed to trust.

Kate: Yeah.

Mike: And in other words, I have a relationship with John. It went to the highest level of speed to trust because if I said anything to him, he believed it. And as soon as he said something to me, I believed it. But he had to mature and get there and he did. And, you know, he’s doing the same thing with the guys that are on this Duke team and the guys he’s recruiting.

Kate: Yeah.

Mike: And I think it’s the thing. It’s the biggest value of our program. Trust. Although there are others. But trust is the is the key one.

Kate: Yeah. It’s so beautiful to think about people, and there’s a lot of pastors here tonight. There’s a lot of people who really have all kinds of communities at the heart of how they think about being successful. It’s really lovely to think about like that part of the job is being like, how quickly can we get to a place where you trust me to tell the truth to you? And I trust myself that I’m able to hear yours?

Mike: Yeah, but sometimes the truth is hard to take. It’s not just I believe in you.

Kate: Wouldn’t that be nice to just leave it at that? And we’re good. Thank you. I improve nothing.

Mike: So, like, that first night when, you’re a recruit now. I saw you play. You got a lot of work to do. Anyway, so, like, you’re a recruit right now. First time I said, you know, eye to eye contact. Trust. But there’s going to be a time, like a tense moment in a game where there’s a time out and you’re not playing well. And I’m going to tell you to get your head in the right spot instead of where it is right now. You have to believe me then too. And it can’t be like, man, you know, he’s picking on me or whatever. We can’t have that relationship. We got to cut through the tough times quickly and the good times will be a lot easier quicker. And so with Shane, with John, to me, that’s the thing I enjoyed most about my coaching career was the relationships with all those guys. So that’s why, you know, we have what we call a brotherhood and we have each other’s back. Bbut it’s based on being honest with one another. Being truthful with one another.

Kate: Your mom was such an important part of your life. And I wonder when you’re thinking about greatness, whether she, I wonder whether your mom saw greatness in you or whether she was just very busy cultivating goodness.

Mike: I know she believed in me. And you know, my guys would say that they’ve all heard this. And I always told all of them, you know, you guys need to be as tough as your mothers. And I said, like my mom, she showed up every day. I never knew she was sick. I never knew she was tired. And she was there for me all the time. Dave Ellis, who has a cutting sense of humor at times when he says, you know, man, I was scared to meet Mrs. Krzyzewski. And then all of a sudden, she walked in and she’s just this sweet lady. I’m supposed to be as tough as her. And I said, and you weren’t. But my mom only had an eighth grade education and she was a cleaning lady in the Chicago Athletic Club in Chicago. But she taught me the dignity of work. And to be precise, you have a job to do. You get it done. But also, where do you learn your values of trust? Respect? Faith? You know, your faith and all that. So when someone says, you know, who is your mentor, who do you follow? I said, really, my mom and dad were my mentors. Other people taught me and I learned from a bunch of people. But if they didn’t till the ground, till the soil the right way. And they did that. When I went to West Point, she was a major reason I went to West Point. I didn’t want to go to West Point. And I was going to go to Creighton or Wisconsin to play basketball. And Bob Knight was my college coach, and he had come in. And when he came to visit my parents, when he left, my parents said, you’re going to West Point. I said, I’m not going to West Point. And they said, that’s where presidents go. And I said, I don’t want to be president. I want to be a point guard. So I told Knight, no, coach Knight no. And in an ethnic, maybe in every family, but in a Polish family, in Chicago, there are two storey houses they’re caled flats. We lived on one floor. My aunt and uncle lived on another. And when my parents didn’t want me and my brother Bill to know what they were talking about, they spoke in Polish. And so after I said no, for two straight weeks, my mom and dad would speak in Polish and they would go and pretend this was Polish, ‘blah blah blah stupid,’ ‘blah blah blah Mike.’ This is all true. It’s like two weeks. And finally I said, alright, I’ll go. And then it was difficult. It was right at the end. I call it the best decision I never made. But I trusted my mom and dad, and they believed in me. They believed that I could do that. And then once you got there, you were also taught you finish what you start/.

Kate: Yeah.

Mike: So again, it turned my whole life around.

Kate: Yeah.

Mike: And eventually to be coaching here and U.S. Teams and all that, you know. And it’s because of Emily and Bill. And there’s no, no question.

Kate: And I also read that West Point was a time of tremendous failure for you as you failed.

Mike: Why do you? Is this a point? Are you going to bring out all my bad qualities?

Kate: Tremendous failure I see here, you failed both swimming and gymnastics classes at West Point just to confirm or deny.

Mike: Not gymnastics, swimming. No, this was crazy. So at West Point, they make you fail. I don’t understand why people don’t accept the fact that part of getting better is failure. You know, so otherwise you get an app for a new talent instead of developing a talent. And so at West Point, we had a saying failure is not a destination. And so swimming. So I grew up in the inner city of Chicago. There weren’t pools. There were fire hydrants. And Lake Michigan, you only went up to your waist, alright. So the second day at West Point, you go through a thing called Beast Barracks and you do a swimming test. There’s a pool that’s seven feet. Which is cheating, you know, I mean, you can’t start on the two foot. So the upperclassman gives you a ten pound rubber brick and then says swim as far as you can with the brick. I said, sir, I can’t swim. And he said, jump in. So you jump in, you go to the bottom of the pool. The weight goes to the bottom. They pull the weight out first. And then they take you up. So my whole freshman year, my plebe year, three times a week, I was in the rock squad with about 30 other guys. And at 7:00 Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, we went there. And I still remember the guy, Mr. Serge, he was all in white and we’re hugging on to the side of the pool, you know. And he says, gentlemen, remember, there are no walls in the ocean. And we’re looking at this guy like he’s nuts. We’re in the Army. Not the Navy. I’m not in Annapolis. I’m at West Point. I’m going to be in a tank or a jeep. I don’t need to know how to swim. The fact is, you have a mission. You have something to do. You get it done. Like no excuses, like you get it done, so. Yeah, Kate I was lucky, I got a double dose. I played for one of the great coaches of all time in Bob Knight. And I was the point guard and captain. So I really learned about basketball and leading a team. And then I went to the best leadership school in the world. Like, even though it didn’t seem like you were lucky when those things were going on, I really was very, very lucky to have that happen.

Kate: Man, that’s going to stick with me. The ocean? Yes. There’ll be three more questions about that.

Mike: And by the way, the gymnastics–.

Kate: You’re like, let the point stand.

Mike: Like, why do you climb a rope? And why do you have to do things on that thing they call a horse?

Kate: Yeah.

Mike: Get a horse. Why do you do those thing? And so I’m not against people doing them. It just was never in my– what’s your goals and your dreams? Climbing a rope, swimming and doing all kind of crazy things on a horse. That’s not what I want.

Kate: That makes me so happy.

Kate: We’re going to be right back after a break to hear from our sponsors. Don’t go anywhere. I want to talk about the early years of you leading, because I know there’s a lot of people in this room who lead in their communities and their families, in their companies, in their churches. And frankly, leading is an incredibly vulnerable position. Leading out front, everybody watches. Everybody thinks they can do your job. Not that anyone has ever insinuated that, but it’s just a strangely vulnerable position to get used to, especially before you’ve had an incredible track record, you just have the sheer effort of trying. I wonder what advice you might be able to give people who are really just feeling the vulnerability of leading right now.

Mike: Well, I think leadership is the best profession in the world. And it’s exciting because every day is different. And as a leader, you have you have a chance to get a group of people use their talents together to accomplish something good. What I’m lecturing on now are speaking on right now with leadership, I call it the three A’s of leadership. And the first A is agility. Like if you’re a quarterback and you call a player at the scrimmage line and you see that the play isn’t going to work, so you call an audible. You’re point guard, you’re bringing the ball down the court, you’re supposed to run a play, but you see something more opportunistic. So a really good leader is agile and you’re more agile if you have the second A. And that’s being adaptable and obviously adapting with A.I. with new technology and all that. But the single biggest thing I think a leader has to adapt to is communication. For leaders, though, if you have the opportunity to lead with your groups, you know, it’s really cool if I know your son’s birthday or an anniversary or something going on, like, man, they think of me. But what if we’re involved at something? And I said, Hey, how do you feel about what we’re doing? Or what do you think about what we’re doing? It hits you in a different place. You mean you want to know what I think or feel? Yeah, I want to know that. And what that does, I think it empowers the people on your team where they have ownership. They feel part of it. The other thing a lot of people think leaders are people who solve problems. And that’s cool. You know, that’s part of it. But the real outstanding leaders have this communication system where their team anticipates problems. And so they never occur. And that’s where that agility comes in. If you have the people around you, instead of me asking, you’re telling we have that level of relationship. But those two are not good enough without the third A. And that’s accountability. And I truly believe in accountability. And it’s not alive and well right now. You know, people don’t like to hold somebody accountable. And accountability is just meeting the truth head on. And the toughest accountability thing I ever had was with the US team in 2008 Beijing, and it was with Kobe Bryant, who is at that time was the best player in the world. And I love coachiing him and we miss him. And we’re getting ready to go to Beijing. And we’re in Shanghai playing our last exhibition game. And we’re doing great. And Kobe started taking Lakers shots. Nothing against the Lakers now because JJ’s coaching. But they were bad shots. There weren’t US shots. So during the, there was a free throw and while the free throws going on, LeBron James came and players don’t always say things, they look. So he looks at me like there’s going to be a mutiny. And I said to him, I said, Don’t do anything. I’ll take care of it. And players of that stature will always give you another look. And I said, I promise you I’ll take care of it. So the rest of the game, we win the game, but you can tell we’re disintegrating a little bit. So that night I stayed up literally, this is a true story, all night with my staff because I have to hold Kobe Bryant accountable. So I’m thinking the next morning comes and I see Kobe. I said, Kobe, I need to talk to you. He said, Of course, coach. And we go into a team room and I look at him, and he’s got these piercing, beautiful eyes. He’s as good a player as I’ve ever had the opportunity to be with. And I said, Look, yesterday you took really bad shots and I want to show them to you. So we had them on tape. I said, if you take those shots, we will not win the gold medal. We won’t win a medal. We won’t have a team. And I looked at him and he’s looking and I said, yeah. And I said, do you understand? You can’t take those shots. Now I’m waiting for World War three, right. And he looks at me and he says, okay. And my heart dropped. I said, I stayed up all night for okay. So now I’m like, LeBron, I can’t believe that he actually said that. He says, coach, that won’t happen again. So fast forward three weeks later, we’re in the toughest game I’ve ever been a part of up until that point since the gold medal game in Beijing against Spain. And they have the Gasol’s and everybody and we’re beating them. They come back. We have a two point lead with eight minutes to go. Time out, our ball. And you could just feel the tension. All three of my daughters, my wife are like this in the stands. And I start drawing up a play. And the guy that I held accountable put his hand on my hand and he said, Coach, we don’t need a play. I get chills just thinking about this stuff, man, it’s one of the great moments. And he said, We’re wired for this. We’re ready for this. And then LeBron says something, Carmelo Anthony and Dwayne Wade and all of a sudden we leave the bench without a play that may have worked or may not have worked. But I forgot to tell you, there’s a fourth A. And it’s called attitude. And we left the bench, they left the bench with a winning attitude. And as a result of the winning attitude, they not only made one play, they made play after play after play. And we won the gold medal. And what I’m saying is being agile, adaptable and accountable develops a winning attitude with your unit where you can win, man. You know, you can make play after play and it’s not the leader’s play. It’s our play, you know? It’s what we do. And so I believe in this stuff. Look, I believe in it because it works.

Kate: Yeah. The ability to wrap people into this story that’s bigger than yourself. I mean, it’s a really, it’s a really beautiful thing to see up close. And it reminds me of, I went to the basketball dinner last year, which I think is a tradition that you started. But it was kind of lovely, well, so it’s it’s this incredible tradition with family and friends and players and I was sitting with this lovely couple where it was a husband and a wife and this very basketball looking son. He was very tall. And he picking up things like this.

Mike: Their hands are big.  Hopefully they use a knife and fork.

Kate: The family was like absolutely over the moon to be there. And they were all absolutely deeply invested in the Duke team and in Duke and especially in John. Like, apparently John had been this incredible mentor to this son and just loved them and appreciated them and wove them into this story of who we are. And by the time I’m sitting next to them at this dinner, they are just beaming with love toward a story that they feel incredibly a part of. And the dad wass like, well, I and I just I just pray for John all the time. And as someone who thinks a lot about God and the fact that you’re not technically allowed to ask God to make you win certain things, I was like, really? Like, what do you pray for? And he was like, I pray for love. There’s love in winning and there’s love in losing. And I thought, you know, as someone who thinks a lot about the love I learned in losing, when things come apart, the way people can encircle you, the beauty of things you took for granted, that part made sense to me. But when I watched you all, when he said there’s love in winning, I thought, I think there’s richness there that I hadn’t really, really thought about.

Mike: You know, before every game, I’m Catholic and my wife’s Baptist and we get along. They sing more than we do. And it’s English. It’s not Latin. And they say amen a lot, and I would always say a quick prayer. I would never ask about winning. I said, just help me do my best. And so really funny story, in 1986, to me, one of the truest special teams ever in any sport here at Duke was my 86 team, and we’re playing Navy with David Robinson to go to the Final Four. And they’re really good and we’re really good. We’re number one in the country again. But before the game, I said, I, I don’t want to be sacrilegious, but, you know, God, not Navy. No, it’s true. And we beat them pretty good so, thank you. But I believe faith is big. It keeps you with everybody and in family to me is the most important. And what we try to do with our basketball program is make that a family, and I think we did. I think John and Marcell are doing the same thing. And that’s a differentiator. And when people, when you’re recruiting people and you’re bringing people in and they not only see, but they feel. And I think when the young men and their families come and visit us, they see great things, obviously, but they they feel welcomed and they feel a family atmosphere.

Kate: A lot of the the beauty and what I get to see in communities is the way that they learn to rely on each other, but relying on each other is not easy. And it usually only comes when our individualism is sort of brought to a screeching halt, not because we wanted it to. And I know you had a season like that where you would have rather just keep working hard forever and ever. But in 95, you really were brought to a screeching halt, both physically and mentally. And I wondered if you could tell us about what brought you there..

Mike: During that year, I got the start of all my two knees replaced, two hips replaced an ankle replaced and back operations. And we had gone to seven Final Fours in nine years, and been number one and all that. And I was worn out. And then I had a back operation a couple of days into practice and I was supposed to be out for a month and I was back in two days. And by December I was just, that was it. And so I had no feeling. I mean, I could touch, but, no emotion. None. And we have a great president here in Vinceand his wife and that and I’ve worked for great presidents here at Duke. And one became the guy that I held with esteem. And that was Keith Brody. I mean, I would watch tape of us beating Las Vegas, and I said so I can’t do that anymore. You know, I don’t feel it. And we took about three months of therapy. And finally I got it back. Butt I stopped being a micromanager. And I started making sure that everyone was in power. I changed my leadership style and at that time, my middle daughter, Wendy, she was you know, she’s a psychologist. And on campus, we didn’t have anything really developed yet where a guy would be comfortable as an athlete to do that. So Keith and my daughter Wendy started counseling for our team and now we have magnificent things here. But because of that happening to me, I wanted to make sure that wasn’t going to happen to the guys on my team and I really didn’t look at that before that time, you know, like, come on, you got to go. And I don’t know if it resonated in our society at that time either, but when it resonated with me and going through it, I said we we need to do something.

Kate: Yeah. What was lovely too, about Keith Brody was he had this amazing way of making you feel like your problems could be broken down into very concrete steps. Like he was so ready to help you solve your problem. And I will admit that when it comes to my personal crises, like, I’m a bit of a nightmare to help.

Mike: A what?

Kate: A bit of a nightmare. Thanks for making me say that again.

Mike: You know, that was the scouting report on you and I thought we thought we were going to get through the game before we had to tackle that. But I’m ready for it. I’m ready for it.

Kate: Were you a nightmare to help?

Mike: I was just a real levelheaded good guy.

Kate: We’re going to take a quick break to tell you about the sponsors of this show. We’ll be right back. For all those, I know you were just a couple of years past full time coaching into this speaking, and I wonder if you have any advice to think about closing tonight for all those who might be in a transition right now between one thing and another, between one job and another, or between empty nesting or starting something. You’re a master of transition.

Mike: Well, I’m curious. And so if you are, then you’re a lifelong learner. And so you never feel like you’ve learned everything. And so to me, life is still incredibly interesting. And it’s even more interesting because I don’t have to depend on those guys in the striped shirts. They are despicable. If we could eliminate that, well not eliminate. But anyway. No, people are, the most interesting thing on earth is a human being. And to me, these last two and a half years, I’ve been able to, I advise for the NBA right now and I’m still really in tune, and John and I have a great relationship, but I like getting out there and learning about people. You have time for one last story?

Kate: Let’s get in there.

Mike: So, my first practice with the U.S. team, we’re in the gym, obviously, and we’re running a fast break drill. And Jason Kidd, who is the coach of the Dallas Mavericks, a great Hall of Fame player, and he’s leading the fast break. And LeBron’s in one, Wayne and Dwayne Wade’s in another. And ball’s going everywhere. And not where it’s supposed to. So I said, Yo, yo, yo, you guys, come on over here. And this was one of the great moments for me in coaching, this moment that I’m going to say. So before I say anything, J. Kidd says, Coach, that’s on me. You know, I’ll tone it down. As soon as he said that, 3 or 4 of the guys said, no, no, no. We’ve never played with anybody like you. Let us adjust, I’m going to cry really this is so damn good. Let us adjust to your talent. And talent makes talent better if talent can work together.

Kate: Yeah, that’s right. Well, thank you for seeing greatness in us. Thank you for seeing greatness in the communities that we get to serve. And can we just say thank you to the winningest coach of tonight?

Mike: Thank you very much.

Kate: My son Zach is 11 years old, and this year he wanted to join a team for the first time, like a sports team. And if you know me, like since you know me now, which is to say, you know that I’m not like the sportiest human that ever sported. I was totally terrified for him because baseball is not exactly something you just know how to do. But he wanted to try and I had to let him, knowing that all the words that people associate with kids and hobbies like are they a natural or are they a prodigy, or just all the values that get connected to children trying and sports is just something I was sort of hoping to opt out of. I think it turned into a lesson for both of us. The parent who is desperate to allow her kid to try, but only in a limited way, and the kid who really wanted to get out there, but also then immediately figured out that trying is really, really hard. And I won’t say that he became a natural prodigy, that baseball is in all of our future. I will say that there’s something really magical about a team. There’s something about watching other adults, other trusted people pour into your kid, allowing other people to encourage, even reprimand your person, and in doing so, help them learn to test themselves against the limits of what they didn’t know they could do. And what is so lovely about teammates who like scream and cry and cheer each other on in every win and loss. And you know what I learned in this whole thing? There is crying in baseball. There’s so much crying. But there was something Becky Kennedy said, that amazing parenting expert. She’s like, look, we’re just we’re not going to be perfect at things and we’re trying not to be terrible, but in everything, we’re just trying to stay in the learning zone. I loved that. Let’s just all stay in the learning zone because there is love in winning and there’s also love in losing. In both, we are becoming. And hey, I’d love to know what you learned from being on a team. Call me or leave me a voicemail at (919) 322-8731 or write me on social media. I’m @katecbowler. I would love to hear your funniest or most meaningful team stories. So, darlings, I thought we could bless the feeling where we’re not necessarily winners all the time, but we really want to try. So here we go. May you have enough. Enough forgiveness to survive other people’s failures. Enough courage to get back up again and again and again. Enough people to remind you that you always have a team. Enough profanity to tell the necessary truth and a whole lot of grace to survive a world in which everything happens. And hey, it is the season of Lent, which is the season for losers everywhere. When God is on the losing team to keep the basketball metaphor going, and we have some ways that you can join in for free, we have a daily devotional and conversation guides that you can use as a group. So whether you want to do it by yourself or with other people, get them all for free at katebowler.com./lent. And a big thank you to our funding partners, Lilly Endowment, the Duke Endowment and Duke Divinity School, and to the team behind everything happening at Everything Happens. Jess Ritchie, Harriet Putman, Keith Weston, Baiz Hoen, Gwen Heginbotham, Brenda Thompson, Iris Greene, Hailie Durrett, Anne Herring, Hope Anderson, Kristen Balzer, Elia Zario, Katherine Smith and Megan Crunkleton. Thank you. This is Everything Happens with me, Kate Bowler.