When you win, sometimes it overshadows a poor performance.
— Mike Krzyzewski
Fun is to experience things you would not have been able to experience in any other setting.
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 kids don't want to do something because they're afraid of looking stupid to their peers. There comes a time when they start protecting themselves, instead of extending. I want to make sure that they're always trying to extend themselves.
Everybody wants to take responsibility when you win, but when you fail, all these fingers are pointing.
To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.
I think some parents now look at a youngster failing as the final thing. It's a process, and failure is part of the process. I would like it if the teacher and the parents would connect more. I think that used to be, but we're losing a little bit of that right now.
I think you're not a human being unless you have doubts and fears.
That's what I do now: I lead and I teach. If we win basketball games from doing that, then that's great, but I lead and teach. Those are the two things I concentrate on.
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.
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.
I had a really bad temper, when I was growing up. Sport helped me channel that temper into more positive acts.
I always won in my imagination. I always hit the game-winning shot, or I hit the free throw. Or if I missed, there was a lane violation, and I was given another one.
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.
My ambition in high school was to be a high school coach and teacher, and that's still what I do: teach.
A basketball team is like the five fingers on your hand. If you can get them all together, you have a fist. That's how I want you to play.
It's always an honor to be ranked high, but whatever is said about you, you take it and then take a realistic look at yourself and who you are.
Leadership is an ever-evolving position.
I've tried to handle winning well, so that maybe we'll win again, but I've also tried to handle failure well. If those serve as good examples for teachers and kids, then I hope that would be a contribution I have made to sport. Not just basketball, but to sport.
Parents can really help, but they can also really hinder the development of their youngsters.
I have a rule on my team: when we talk to one another, we look each other right in the eye, because I think it's tough to lie to somebody. You give respect to somebody.
Each group and each youngster is different. As a leader or coach, you get to know what they need.
I'm fortunate now that I coach at Duke University and we've won a lot. I have some kids who haven't failed that much. But when they get to college, they're going to fail some time. That's a thing that I can help them the most with.
Imagination has a great deal to do with winning.
I hated to lose.
Throughout my life, my mom has been the person that I've always looked up to.
In high school, in sport, I had a coach who told me I was much better than I thought I was, and would make me do more in a positive sense. He was the first person who taught me not to be afraid of failure.
Playing sport was somewhat frivolous, but I liked it. I rebelled a little bit, and wouldn't go to music lessons and things like that, but I would go and play ball. My parents learned to love it because they saw how much I got out of it.
First of all, what happens is, when you're good at something, you spend a lot of time with it. People identify you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.
Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school.
I always wanted to teach.
You can see and you can listen, but you have to have moments in which you feel.
It is the ultimate honor for a coach to be his country's coach.
If you win a National Championship, or you win two, people think you have not only seen the Holy Grail, but you've embraced it. Basically, I do what a lot of people do, but I've been able to win.
The life expectancy of a team is about eight months. Then the next year, it's a whole new team.
Even though we want huge individual egos, our collective ego is unbelievable.
Once you win a National Championship, how do you do that again? How do you get the passion to do that again? We won it again right away, the next year. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't give myself an opportunity to enjoy the first one.
I've been so fortunate in my life that my family has never been jealous of my success. They have shown true love and commitment to me by being supportive. They shared in it.
That's another thing, we made up games. We didn't have equipment. When it snowed, we would play slow motion tackle football. We would play hockey, but we wouldn't skate. We just made things up. I loved doing that.
The other thing I knew I had was a high level of competitiveness.
The person who has inspired me my whole life is my Mom, because she taught me commitment. She sacrificed.
When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to become a priest.
My parents didn't really understand too much about sport. At that time, we were in a Polish community in the inner city of Chicago, and I was the youngest of a bunch of cousins. Polish families are real big, with cousins and aunts and uncles.
With me and basketball, it became part of me.
The thing I loved the most - and still love the most about teaching - is that you can connect with an individual or a group, and see that individual or group exceed their limits.
The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions.
