Mike Krzyzewski was explaining why he re-upped for three more years of volunteer service to coach the U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team. He unconsciously fingered the gold medal ring he earned for coaching the U.S. to victory in Beijing while trying to sum up the experience.
“My grandfather came with two suitcases on a boat from Krakow, Poland, to Ellis Island,” said Krzyzewski. “He worked in a coal mine in Pennsylvania. Two generations later, his grandson coached the U.S. Olympic team. I’m not sure I can explain it any better.
“And that’s what I tried to tell my players. When they had their hand over their heart and the U.S. flag was being raised, I wanted them to think of all the people who’d put them in position to be celebrating that gold medal.”
Commitment, responsibility, gratitude. It’s what he learned as a cadet at West Point. Krzyzewski was in Napa to accept an award on behalf of the V Foundation for Cancer Research, and he spoke of raising money the same way he spoke of coaching his Olympic team.
“I spent the last six months of Jim [Valvano's] life seeing him almost every day,” Krzyzewski said of the popular coach and broadcaster who died in 1993. “He wanted to win. He wanted to beat cancer. But if he couldn’t, he wanted to win by starting a foundation. He had a vision and he had standards.”
Standards. It’s a simple word, but, according to Coach K, it’s how the U.S. won the gold medal in China. That philosophy will be in effect at the World Championships next summer in Turkey and again at the Olympic Games in London in 2012.
“We didn’t have rules for the team,” he said, “we had standards. The players took personal responsibility to the uniform and to each other. There was a standard for how to act in public, for how to practice, for how to compete. We didn’t lie to each other, we showed up on time and we didn’t have excuses. It was a collective responsibility.”
Krzyzewski had three leaders on the team: Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd and LeBron James. One surprised him immediately.
“The very first day of practice, Kobe came to me and said, ‘Coach, I want to defend the best player on the opposing team every single night.’ I said, ‘Kobe, I saw you score 50 points a game this year 10 times,’ and Kobe said, ‘I want to defend the best player on the opposing team every single night — and, Coach, I will destroy him.’”
Krzyzewski was 36-1 in his first three-year stint as coach of the national team. After the U.S. fell to bronze in the 2004 Olympics, then lost to Greece in the semifinals of the 2006 World Championships (Coach K’s first major international tournament), Krzyzewski decided the U.S. team would be playing for three things: the gold medal, a renewal of spirit for USA Basketball and renewed respect around the world.
The Hall of Fame coach, now 62, said the experience was so satisfying that he didn’t hesitate to sign on again.
“We achieved what we set out to do,” said Krzyzewski, “but we still had the feeling, for each other and the journey. Why wouldn’t we want to do it again?”
Krzyzewski will become the first coach to lead multiple U.S. Olympic teams since the famed Hank Iba, who won gold medals in 1964 and ’68 and also coached the controversial 1972 team that lost to the Soviets in the gold medal game.
Bryant, James and Dwayne Wade are already leaning toward coming back to play.
“The team can’t be exactly the same, said Krzyzewski. “Even if I got all 12 players back, they’re going to be older and some of the roles will change.”
Some have said Coach K’s national commitment has hurt his program at Duke. Before he was named coach of the national team in 2005, Duke was 648-187 in his 25 years, where he went to 10 Final Fours and won three NCAA titles. But in the past four years, the Blue Devils have gone 112-28 without a single trip to the Final Four.
“I am absolutely a better coach now, and it will show,” said Krzyzewski. “I had day-to-day input from the greatest players on the planet, along with my assistants Jim Boeheim and Mike D’Antoni. I learned different ways to practice, different ways to get ready for competition. And I learned that this game is more about feel and chemistry than I ever thought before.”
There won’t be many spots available for the 2010 World Championship and subsequent Olympic team. Two weeks ago in Las Vegas, Krzyzewski and Jerry Colangelo, the managing director of USA Basketball, held a minicamp to look at some of the young players who’ll be trying to earn a place — among them Kevin Love, Brook Lopez, Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, Greg Oden, Andre Iguodala and Russell Westbrook. By all accounts, only 6-9 Kevin Durant stood above and beyond.
“We’re very far ahead of where USA Basketball had been,” Krzyzewski said. “I want to develop the attitude that even being an alternate is an enormous honor.”
Krzyzewski said the personal relationships he developed with the players is partly why he wanted to return. One day in practice, Coach K, who has no tattoos, told LeBron that he was thinking about getting a huge one on his back that said, “The Chosen One.”
“I don’t think so, Coach,” LeBron said. “That one’s been taken.”
Source: http://www.cbssports.com/cbssports/story/12047579
