Coach K reveals which are the two most important standards he set at Duke that enabled him to have success
Mike Krzyzewski is undoubtedly among the best and the most prominent basketball figures ever. His coaching career spanned over four decades, and his accomplishments and records will be held for a long, long time from now on. He spent most of his career with the Duke Blue Devils, where he spent 42 years.
In those 42 years, Coach K developed a couple of rules that enabled his success. These rules allowed him to win five NCAA titles with the team and reach the Final Four an astonishing 13 times in his career. Not only that, but those rules also allowed him to maintain his connection with his players.
"Everyone talks about like your goal is to win the national championship, which that's good," he said. "That's a good goal, but what do you do on a daily basis? There has to be common ground for everybody."
The foundation of coach K's success
In the recent episode of the Glue Guys podcast he talked about those standards.
"The two standards that I've always had was when we talk to each other, we look each other in the eye. And the second is we always tell each other the truth," Coach explained to his host and former player Shane Battier. "I said, like, if I'm recruiting Shane and I tell him, I'm going to be one of the few people in your life that will always tell you the truth. I promise you that. And I want the same in return. So like, boy, your shoes are really nice. Those slacks are, you know, that top sucks."
He called those rules their "shared values" and explained how the players and the coach always have a shared goal. However, that is not enough because they also need some standards for day-to-day conversation. He also explained how those rules made it easier to connect to his players during the game.
Coach K's approach to communication
He explained how the player has to trust his coach and how it goes both ways, and that is why he would never lie to them, even after a bad game or a bad play.
"There's going to be a time out where you come to the bench and you're not playing well. And I look at you and I say, you need to get your head out of your butt, man. And you can't shrivel up and say, like, that's the truth," he said on the podcast. "Same thing, you just hit two threes and go, man, keep it going. And what happens then? So he and I trust one another."
Coach K says that building trust is the foundation of "establishing a great organization," and the speed of trust is the most important thing in building it. Because he has no time to check his players' statements, he just has to trust them and believe they said the right thing. Players also have to believe in their coaches because they are the ones who will eventually help them get to the league.
If that is his advice for everyone, then listen to it because he has results to back him up. After all, Krzyzewski recorded 1,202 career victories in the NCAA, making him the winningest coach in Division I ever. Not only that, but he also coached the U.S. Men's National Team and led them to multiple gold medals in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics, which is just one reason that countless players thanked him for his mentoring and development.
