Mike Krzyzewski Interview (page: 6 / 6) Collegiate Basketball Champion	Print Interview

I want to ask you about the hyper-popularity of sport, and the fact that so many kids from the inner city and elsewhere, dream of being a Michael Jordan, or Grant Hill. I think a recent survey showed that an unbelievably high percentage of kids growing up in the inner city say they want to be professional basketball players. They'll never make it, statistically. Is there a problem with the way that we glorify sports today, and pay our players? Is that related?

Mike Krzyzewski: The professional game has become so much entertainment. Some of the entertainment things even seep into Pee Wee League. The popularity of sport is going crazy. We're on TV all the time, and being interviewed and whatever. I hope that there will be a little bit of a turn in the questions that are asked of us. Instead of us just talking about how we won a game, or specials on how a team got stronger, there wouldd be questions like: What else do you do?

For the kids who go in the draft early, how many of them come back and actually go to school? There aren't features on them. People who are in these positions, even though some of them don't want to be called role models, they have a responsibility to say how hard it was to get to where they are. And have they missed out on anything? Maybe they wanted an education, are they pursuing it now? Instead of just looking at it one way, to explain it a little bit more.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. The other thing I think is that, in glamorizing sport, we glamorize the quick play, the dunk, the behind-the-back play, or whatever. We don't give enough for what teamwork does. So our view of the sport has become very superficial. Very superficial. A lot of the kids who are learning to play the game now, they're depth of knowledge of the game is -- if you liken it to a body of water -- it's like a pond, whereas before it used to be a lake, an ocean. Somehow, we have to add depth to this new culture we're in, because it's creating some bad habits. It's creating a situation where a kid puts all of his eggs in one basket, and he's just not going to be successful, he's not good enough.

Even though he might be the best in his neighborhood, and people around him who have self-serving interests are trying to get him to do it, there are other neighborhoods. There are thousands of neighborhoods. Someone needs to put in their heads: "Yeah, you can go after this, but you can still go after something else." That's why Grant Hill is such a good example, or Michael Jordan, who left early but went back and got his education. People don't talk about those things as much as they need to talk about them.

Before your time, Duke University was known primarily as a great center for academic study, not a place you would imagine a world-class basketball emerging from. How has the academic environment enriched the basketball program, or vice versa?

Mike Krzyzewski: I feel very fortunate to coach at Duke, because the ideals that I have for a student athlete are what happens at Duke. It's not like I have to impose that in their daily lives. They have to live that at Duke. Duke limits some of my recruiting, because not every youngster can get into Duke. But on the other hand, it broadens my recruiting, in that I can recruit kids from everywhere if they're the type of kid who can make it at Duke. That doesn't mean that kids who don't make it at Duke are worse or better, it's just that different schools are for different kids.

What I'm able to do is bring in kids who want to do something besides play basketball. To me, that adds depth to them. They passionately want to be good basketball players, and play on a championship level team, but they also have another passion, whether it be business, law, medicine or engineering. I like that.

The kids we recruit have a lot of talents. I don't want to pigeon-hole them in one area. In fact, I tell them they shouldn't come to Duke unless they want to do well academically, do well basketball-wise, and do well socially. I truly believe that, with the diversity we have in our student body, they learn more from the social contact they have with other successful, ambitious students, than they will from teachers or from me.

Just living in a success-oriented environment, they're able to have a better perspective on things. Their self-worth doesn't hinge on whether we scored more points than another team. I think thatt's healthy.

It sounds like they'll be better prepared for the inevitable future, when their playing days are over. Even if they're at the highest level, it doesn't last long.

Mike Krzyzewski: I think they'll be better off, whether they're pros or not. They're able to handle the professional life better. They haven't stopped being a human being, like, "I'm going to be a professional basketball player for these ten years." No. "I'm going to be a guy who likes a lot of things, and who really wants to win at professional basketball." When that's over, they still have an identity.

You want an identity for your whole life. If you choose something that's going to give you an identity only for so long, and then it's over, boy, you've given up everything. You don't want that to happen to a kid. You don't want that to happen to a person. You want them to be well-rounded.

What does the American Dream mean to you?

Mike Krzyzewski: To me, the American Dream is the ability to pursue what you want to pursue. To be confident enough that whatever you want to be, if you have the talent, the desire, and the support throughout, you can attain it. I am very much the result of an American Dream. In fact, I didn't dream as highly as I've actually attained. My dream was to be a high school teacher and coach. That's what I wanted to do, and I was on a track to do that. But then I went to West Point, and all of a sudden I'm doing a lot more.

I think the ability to have that, and to pursue it, is the biggest freedom that we could have. I hope we perpetuate that type of thought from generation to generation.

Your grandparents were Polish immigrants.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Mike Krzyzewski: Both sets of grandparents were born in Poland. There was no way that they could have foreseen. No way my mother -- when I used to come back to Chicago in recruiting, I'd always stay with my mother. My Dad passed away when I was a senior at West Point. I'd come back, and we'd already been on TV, and she would just be sitting there late at night, and she'd say, "Mike, how is it you?" And she wasn't knocking me, it was just that our group of people weren't supposed to be able to do that. I would always tell her, I said, "Ma, because of you." I said, "You made me good enough, where I can do this. You made enough sacrifices to put me with people who would help train me to do this. It's because of you." And I hope that whatever I do, I can do that for my kids.

[ Key to Success ] The American Dream

Thank you very much, Coach.

Mike Krzyzewski: Okay. I thank you.

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