Mike Krzyzewski
Mike Krzyzewski
Michael William Krzyzewskiis an American college basketball coach and former player. Since 1980, he has served as the head men's basketball coach at Duke University. At Duke, Krzyzewski has led the Blue Devils to five NCAA Championships, 12 Final Fours, 12 ACC regular season titles, and 13 ACC Tournament championships. Krzyzewski is also the coach of the United States men's national basketball team, whom he led to two gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Olympics. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth13 February 1947
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
You should crave this opportunity, to be in that moment. It's exciting. The beauty of the tournament is you have one pitch. You hit it or you miss it. If you hit it, you get another pitch.
I just told the guys to go out and have fun.
I just felt it (Friday) at practice, that we were finally in the NCAA Tournament. Southern did us a favor by playing so well. We needed to get on to the next thing.
I don't think we ever completely adjusted to the physicality of this game.
I think coaching is confused at times as being an arrow that only goes to a player. Those players send arrows back to you, and that's where a relationship is developed. I don't make a player, and a player doesn't make me a coach. We make each other.
The other thing I knew I had was a high level of competitiveness.
Actually, the Kentucky moment was better than winning the two National Championships, because it was the epitome of what I try to get from a team in a crisis situation.
There are five fundamental qualities that make every team great: communication, trust, collective responsibility, caring and pride. I like to think of each as a separate finger on the fist. Any one individually is important. But all of them together are unbeatable
When a leader takes responsibility for his own actions and mistakes, he not only sets a good example, he shows a healthy respect for people on his team
When you first assemble a group, it's not a team right off the bat. It's only a collection of individuals
Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school.
I'm still not a great reader, but my wife is and my daughters are, and I envy them. I think I got into a bad habit of trying to do something all the time, instead of trying to sit down and take my time a little bit.
When I was growing up, there weren't any Little Leagues in the city. Parents worked all the time. They didn't have time to take their kids out to play baseball and football.
When I went to high school, an all-boys' school, a Catholic school, I tried out for football, and I didn't make it. It was the first time, athletically, that I was knocked down.