Charlie Rose

PMCF  05/11/2009 04:28 PM Report

'The striped highways are the longest highways'

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In part, a very team focused conversation, where Rose named a few principal starters - beginning with SHANE BATTIER - each of whom was then well-praised by a very pleased Father/Teacher/Coach Krzyzewski. This Duke Blue Devils team, the one that won it all during the 2000/2001 season, also included Jason Williams and Mike Dunleavy.

The victory brought Coach K. the rare, and fantastic distinction of having won 3 titles in NCAA Basketball. But the Coach, a very clever, tactical, and sometimes infuriatingly humble man, took in the totality of the victory this way: "The next shot is not when you miss a shot, it's when you've made a shot." What he meant, of course, was that you don’t simply scramble for an impressive and, Lord willing, an ameliorating play, only after you missed a shot; but also once you’ve made a shot. Coach K. is looking to the future; and not taking time to celebrate this recent, glorious past.

Once again, Charlie Rose, a fellow North Carolinian (Mike Krzyzewski, of course, being an ex. pat. from Chicago, IL) is at his friend with short and simple questions - - the kind that yield wonderful, and often surprising, answers. Why did Michael William Krzyzewski, a gentleman who attended West Point, and rose to the rank of Captain in the American Armed Forces, decide to teach basketball?

"I've always loved reading… [and the] most impressive people in my life, besides from my mom and dad, have been teachers; whether it be the Priest at Webber High School, the Nuns at St. Helens, or the teachers at West Point that I had… I look at coaching as teaching."

And to Mike, coaching is something into which you invest you whole heart. Having a wife and family of his own does not limit him when he, rather surprisingly, speaks of his love for his players. Coach K. admits, "the greatest thing you can do for someone is to care for them; and to love them." And this love for his players operates irrespective of their ability or rank on the basketball court. In fact, once you’ve played for Mike’s Blue Devils, you are his kid; granting you telephone privileges with Father/Teacher/Coach Krzyzewski forevermore.

When Charlie Rose mentions that many of Mike’s friends and colleagues have, "never seen [him] happier," you can be certain that his joy is for reasons far more substantive than his 3 NCAA Championships, his consequential election into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame following his 2001 NCAA victory, or the widely held consideration that Coach K. is the finest coach working in any basketball organization—NCAA or NCA. You, too, can be certain that his joy is, in part, derived from his genuine love of "teaching" basketball; and the successive classes of true gentleman he has had the fortune to work with over his collegiate career, including: Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Shane Battier, Elton Brand, Chris Carrawell, Mike Dunleavy, Trajan Langdon, Jason Williams, Danny Ferry, Carlos Boozer, Chris Collins, Johnny Dawkins, Cherokee Parks, J. J. Redick, Bobby Hurley and Corey Maggette.

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