Best Of Coach K's "Beyond Basketball"

From Beyond Basketball: Coach K's Keywords for Success by Mike Krzyzewski with Jamie K. Spatola

Belief does not occur naturally; you have to work for it, earn it, and continue to deserve it. The basis of belief is in individual relationships. If I lie to you, I create a breach in that relationship, and it becomes more difficult for you to believe what I say.

As powerful as belief can make you and your team, it is also fragile. You have to take care of it.

p. 15

In other words, you can possess countless good qualities as an individual, but if you don't have the courage to proceed, you may never see those qualities come to fruition. It takes courage to put what you believe to be the best of you on the line, to test it, and to see how far it takes you. Courage means daring to do what you imagine.

p. 38

Developing a culture means having a tradition that maintains the standards you want to define your program. A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on "x's and o's" as compared to time spent learning about people. Culture is established by the people who compose your team and is carried on through those people. In other words, culture can only exist through the relationships among the people who make up your group, those in the back offices and on the front lines. A successful development of culture means that you hear different voices echoing the same message throughout the organization—now, through the history of your program, and into its future.

p. 48

To help turn fundamentals into habit requires intensive, intelligent, and repetitive action. If any one of these elements is missing, something will be missing from the foundation of your team. This is why, in every practice, even late in the season, I always have my team continue to work on fundamental drills. It is vital that the athletes actually drill these basics. I constantly remind myself of the most basic formula of teaching: you hear, you forget; you see, you remember; you do, you understand. And when you truly understand, that is when the basics become habitual.

p. 82-83

Integrity means doing what is right whether you are alone or with a group, doing the right thing no matter what the rewards or the consequences may be. It means putting your base of ethics into action.

p. 97

We believe that love and marriage is, above all else, about making each other better.

p. 106

Imagine all we would have missed out on if we had not initially shown respect for one another.

Too often, people will miss out on meaningful relationships with amazing people because they quickly pass judgment based on what that person does for a living, the clothes they wear, what kind of car they drive.

p. 143