June 1, 2023 • 54 mins
The Book of Joe Podcast begins with hosts Tom Verducci and Joe Maddon welcoming Mike Krzyzewski to the show. Coach K talks about retiring from coaching, but not retiring from teaching. Being a leader is a learning process and something Coach K studies on a daily basis. We explore the values that are important to build trust with those around you and how someone's character is just as important as their ability. Coach K explains how egos can be helpful and how he dealt with some of the biggest players in the world. Learn the difference between rules and standards and how Joe handled similar situations in his clubhouse. Plus, what was it that told Coach K that it was time to retire from coaching? Tom asks Coach K his thought on 'glue guys' being important to his teams and success then wraps the episode with 'A Reading from the Book of Joe'. A must-listen episode on being a leader and maintaining success!
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
The Book of Joe Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey there, welcome back.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
To the latest episode of the Book of Joe Podcast
with me, Tom Berducci and of course Joe Madden and Joe.
Super excited about our guest today. He needs no introduction,
but I'll give him one anyway. The most wins in
Division I college basketball, five national titles, a member of
the Naysmith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and you'll love this, Joe.
(00:40):
He's also a member of the National Polish American Sports
Hall of Fame, so that counts for a lot too.
Please welcome coach Kate, Mike Ryzchewski, Coach, how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yeah, it's great being on with you guys, And congratulations
on the book, The Book of Joe that I've started
reading it. Joe actually sent me a copy autograph. Spell
my name right and everything. But it's really good, you know.
I call it it like a common sense book, and
(01:12):
boy do we need a lot of common sense going
around right now.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You know, I'm glad you brought up the book because
obviously our podcast here is based off the book, and
we wanted to produce something that was even more than
just a quote unquote baseball book with life lessons and
especially the kind of intersection of leadership, teamwork and what
makes a team a team. And I can't think of
(01:40):
any better guest coach to have on than you. One
of your quotes that I really I love and when
I first heard it, I don't look at myself as
a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader
who happens to coach basketball. I love that because we
tend to identify people by the jobs that they do
(02:01):
in their titles. But you know better than anyone that
the job of being a coach is really being a
leader and of course a teacher. So I got to
ask you, is that something that you knew early on
that being a coach was more than just the ex'es
and the o's.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah, no, obviously, it's got to be that combination. And
I when I was sixteen, I knew I wanted to
be a teacher. I thought I want to be a
high school teacher, and I wanted to be a coach.
And although I've retired from coaching, I haven't retired from
teaching and learning.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
You know, if.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
You leadership, if you only learn about leadership from the
people in your profession.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
You are really running on a very narrow road.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
You can learn about leadership from everybody and in all
walks of life. And I've learned it from speaking to businesses,
watching football coaches, baseball coaches, you know, actually watching Joe
because he was coaching my Coubbies for a long time,
long time and brought us our first World Series in
a century. And I went to the best leadership school
(03:16):
in the world, the United States Military Academy, and we
learned that leadership is something that you have to study
all the time. All the time. I'm still studying it.
And I actually now a professor at our Fuquis School
of Business in the study of leadership, and I love it.
(03:37):
It's the best profession in the world.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Coach just a dovetail and did that a bit, the
creation of culture at Duke University, And you know, that's
something that as a young manager when I was with
the Devil Rays and then eventually got to the Cubs
and tried to do the same thing with the Angels
and the creation of a culture. And just the question
is was there certain elements that you would try to
intentionally bring to it or was it more an organic
(04:02):
approach or was it a combination both.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think it's a combination of both. And you know,
once I learned how to be a good coach, it
takes a while. I I really was driven by values
common ground. How can you get ownership from everybody where?
(04:25):
I used to tell I told my US teams. I
coached the US team for eleven years. I said, you're
not playing for the United States, we won't win. If
you're playing for the United States, will win if you
are United States basketball? How do you own something? Can
you own it by sharing? Having the same standards, having
(04:48):
standards that the players and the coaches developed, and values.
And we were a value based culture at Duke and
with the US and we celebrated the values of integrity, respect, courage,
selfless service, loyalty, duty, and trust. And we talked about
(05:12):
those things and those were our constants, and our offense
and defense ran better if we always were on the
same page with our values.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
I love that good.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Tommy, he coach k I mean Joe tells a great
story in the book about when he inherited the devil
rays and having to change the culture. And he had
a lot of guys on unofficial scholarships entitlement. The team
had never literally never won before, so they didn't know
how to win. It took a while to change that culture.
(05:46):
And one quote from you I found really interesting. We
all think that the culture you established that Duke and
we all think, well, maybe it just kind of ran
on autopilot after a while. But I love what you
said where you said, don't take your culture for granted.
There needs to be a constant renewal of values that
need to camaraderie. Can you explain that, even after all
(06:07):
those years at Duke that you never could take that
culture for branded.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Well, you know, I was fortunate when it used to
be you had guys for four years. So a lot
of our culture was taught by our juniors and seniors,
and they were our best players. They were better than
the freshmen. Then the one and done started around twenty ten,
(06:31):
and our best players were freshmen and they were going
to go in one year, and we had a turnover.
There was a lot of turnover, and so we taught.
We had to come up with different ways of teaching
our culture. And a big thing that we did was
everyone that surrounded them, the managers, the secretarial staff, the
(06:54):
trainers and whatever I got them. More intimately evolved in
making sure our culture was adhere to and that people
saw it. And I made sure that the new guys
knew everybody's name and said please and thank you.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
And also I didn't make any promise.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I've never made a promise to a player in recruiting
him that he was going to get a certain amount
of playing time. Shots you're going to start, And I said,
I'll promise that I'll never take away the thing that's
made you good right now, I'll just develop it. And
I said, you know what that is, And I said
(07:35):
most of them did not know. I said, you've been hungry. Yeah,
you've had you've been driven to be good. As soon
as I start giving you something for nothing, I take
that away from you. I want to build on that,
and that's how you're going to become the best player
that you can become. And so when I went into
(07:56):
a locker room, I didn't have to figure out who
I promised stuff to. They were all promised the same thing,
and that was common ground. And I've done that even
with the US team, and I think it works. You know, Yeah,
you need to be straightforward with somebody. Two of my
(08:17):
standards were always I'm going to look you in the eye.
I want you to look me in the eye, and
I want to tell you the truth all the time.
And I'll be one of the few people on earth
that'll be in your life that will always tell you
the truth and screw around with a recruit. I say, yeah, man,
you're wearing a nice shirt. Because pants you're wearing. I said,
your shoes suck. But and I said, the thing you
(08:41):
remember now is that your shoes suck, by the way
they know. But there's going to be a time out
where you know you're not playing well. You come to
the bench, I'm gonna say, look, get your head out
of your butt. You're a good player. Get the hell
out there and start being that good player. And I
don't want you to look at me and you know, coach,
you know, and start making excuses. Yeah, we need instant,
(09:04):
instant trust. And I've loved that. I really, I've done
that my whole life. And I try to rec some
Now obvious, on a major weak team, you don't have
control over everybody that comes into your organization. But I
did with my team, and we recruited talent and we
(09:26):
recruited character. We recruited talent with character, not talented characters,
and they were a lot better to we want to help.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
A lot more. It was a lot more fun being
with them.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Because you're just drawing so many parallels. It's it's really
a lot of fun to listen to all this right
down to the truth. My line has always been, if
I tell you the truth, you might not like me
for a week or ten days, but if I lie
to you, you can hate me forever. And you just kind of,
you know, you kind of relate that right there, and
it's great here that validated. The other thing is the
first time eyes. You got to approach everything as though
(10:01):
it's the first time, which is the hunger component of
this whole thing. And but I really love like you.
You have to be us basketball. You just can't play
for it. You're not trying to win for them. And
the ownership component really resonates strongly. I think with the Cubs.
That was one thing I really tried to drive home
was the fact that the ownership part of it. When
(10:21):
when groups are people within groups feels that they have
they have ownership. In this situation, you're definitely going to
get the best version of them, and you're going to
get that level of accountability we were talking about prior
to us recording this whole thing. So it's wonderful to
hear all of this, Coach, because honestly, it's it's a
lot of what I believe in, and you're putting it
(10:42):
in other words, which really resonates with me deeply.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, you know, Joe, we Uh that's why I said
about the book. I haven't read the whole thing, but
to me, a lot of it is common sense. And
you know, what I've learned is right there, there are
different ways of saying this same thing. So if you
just stay in your profession, you end up trying to
(11:08):
say the same the same way. And by getting outside
and actually, you know, you've been on my show uh
before and I've learned from having my show, uh and
uh just listening and different different ways of phrasing phrasing things. Yeah,
(11:31):
and look, if you own it, you're going to fight
for it, you know. Uh. And I want a team
that's going to fight for it. And we got a
better chance of winning if we're fighting together, and uh
we have a common common cause.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Uh. Yeah, Ie.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
One of the cool things we did with the Olympic
team the first time we met. You know, I told them,
you hear that expression, leave your egos at the door.
Somebody said that to the team, and I said, you know, listen,
bring your ego was in.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Man.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
You know we're going to need them to beat the
Gasols and the channel by the way, Kobe, Bryant and
Lebron We're going to bring them in no matter what,
which is good. But let's put them all under one
ego umbrella, you know, the USA, and then we'll be
really damn good. And uh, you know, I don't want
you to hear and see only I want you to feel.
(12:27):
And I swear to God this is exactly what happened.
And it was one of the beautiful moments for me
as a coach. I told them after our meeting, it
was our first meeting. We were practicing in Vegas at
the wind and I said, go look to your rooms
and be sixteen for one minute. I know you guys
(12:47):
are studs and zillionaires and whatever. And what we did
was we had their Olympic uniforms on their beds and
I said, just look on your bed and be sixteen
for a minute.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
That's all I'm asking you to do.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Later that night, I was playing some video poker and
I get a tap on my shoulder and it's Kobe
Bryant and Kobe said, I said, what's up? He said, Coach,
I did what you asked me to do. And uh,
And I said, what happened? He said, I cried? And
I knew then that that was the start of us feeling.
(13:27):
And then we got the military involved a lot. We
brought wounded warriors in and just to teach these guys
what commitment selfless service was all about. And that's going
outside of your you know, your your wane that.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
You normally do. Uh.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
You different ways of motivating. There's motivation and there's inspiration,
and I think you need you need both and uh,
the wounded warriors to the jersey, I don't call them motivation.
I call them inspiration.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And by the way, one other common denominator I've noticed
between the two of you is leadership without having so
many rules. Yeah, and I know, Joe, you were famous
for allowing players to be themselves and not constrain, as
you would say, don't get in the way of greatness.
(14:23):
And for you, Coach k I know you also believe
that if you have too many rules, that gets in
the way of leadership. Once you explain the way you
ran your teams as it regarded rules and rule making.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Well, I went to a school that had a regular
west point, a book of rules. And you know, when
you think of ownership, you never own a rule.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
You obey it or you disobey it.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
But if you can develop standards, standards the way you
do things all the time and you require others to
do it, they they're kind of like rules. When we
had standards meeting with our Duke team or the US team,
I would get them into a meeting room, I'd say
I prep them. I talked to three or four guys
before and asked them if they would contribute. You never
(15:13):
know if they will, but they did. And a simple
world as a kid in our first meeting after I said,
look each other in the eye, tell each other the
truth is can anyone contribute? And it's a moment of
truth because you don't know if any of them are
going to And Jason raised his hand and he said, Coach,
we should never be wait, you know, we should have
(15:35):
respect for one another. And never be wait. And so
I said, what do you guys think? And they said yeah,
And I said, speaking of respect, we've gotten our bucks
beat in four of the five last major competitions with
the International World because we didn't practice well. We didn't
think we needed a practice one standard. We can never
(15:58):
have a bad practice, and it can't be my practice.
It's a singular problem. It's got to be our practice.
And really, for the eleven years I coached, we never
had a guy wait, and we never had a bad practice.
And we had our first team we had fifteen standards,
(16:22):
but I never had a rule. But the standards are
a way of living, you know, if you have to
live only by rules, I don't know if it ever
becomes yours. I'm not saying you should never have them.
I don't like them. I'd rather go to standard route.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
What I used to do coach, I would have a
lead bulls meeting, something I learned out of a missioner book,
and I would try to get to at eight, maybe nine,
most influential guys on the team. I'd get him in
a room and I would just start throwing thoughts out
to them, just different, how are we going to conduct ourselves, right,
not necessarily rules, I thought, I refer to them as policies,
(17:04):
and so what's important to us go And then around
the room everybody would come up with different thoughts regarding policy,
and we would discuss it, and I said, Okay, by
the end of this discussion, whatever we decide, we're going
to you guys are going to take it out to
the team, to the group as a whole, and I
want you to express to them exactly how we're going
(17:25):
to conduct ourselves during the course of the year, whether
it was in the clubhouse, on a plane, in a hotel,
whatever it might be. Families in the clubhouse, kids in
the on the field for batting practice, et cetera. But
I found again, like you're saying, if you put it
in their court no pun intended, I mean with the
lead bulls, then I want them to carry on. And
(17:48):
I'm going to say out of the way as much
as I possibly can.
Speaker 6 (17:51):
I only interfered.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
What I thought was if it got to the point
where there's just you need a tiebreaker, it's just it's
just not working right, then it would come to me
and I would tell them what I thought. But I'm
really big on it was really big on listening, like
you said earlier, and trying to have them create thought
and then implement because after all, when the clubhouse in
a Major League Baseball situation runs of its own will
(18:14):
or relation, that's the best clubhouse you could possibly have.
But it's constantly being imposed upon by me or coaches
or front office, you're not going to get what you're
looking for.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Well, they own it, that's right, and that's great.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's there, you know, Tom when you're talking about like
uh rurals on the court, like I might draw a play,
you know what we're supposed to do. But I always
told my guys to follow their instincts and I call
it have an agility, uh making reads like if you
(18:49):
see something you're gonna you're going to see some things
that might be better than the play or within the play,
go for it and uh and uh, I love that.
I got the most out of that from from coaching
because uh, it made your players smarter and more. They
(19:11):
owned that also, And obviously they're not going to be
successful all the time. But like I said, that was
a good read, it didn't happen. Keep keep making those reads,
and uh, I think you've win championships, big games by
players are in the moment. Players are playing the moment.
(19:32):
A coach or manager is not playing the moment. They're
reacting to what a moment might be or what a
moment just happened. And so if you have, like I
call it on the court leadership of Lebron James, Gobi Bryant,
Chris Paul, they're going to see some things in the
moment that'll make you look like a hell of a coach.
(19:53):
And if you have to wait for a damn time out, uh,
you know to put in something, you're behind, You're you're
you're behind. It's kind of like, I don't know our sport.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
A lot of.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Coaches stand up during a game, and that's okay, I'm
not critical of that. I never stood up and with
some yelling at an official, but I had my staff
sit with me and they talked to me during the game.
So John Shire, who's our new head coach, might say, Coach,
we should do this right now while the game's going on.
(20:26):
And so when there was a time out, I never
had a staff huddle and then talk to the team.
I was talking to the team to my staff the
entire time, and it's just a different way. I'm not
saying it's the approved solution, but for me, that worked
for me, and I think every leader has to find
out what's going to work for him or her in
(20:47):
their leadership position.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Oh, Coach, I love hearing that because I think you
just describe really the essence of leadership, not being a dictatorship,
but empowering staff and especially the players that you are coaching.
But it's important to remember that even someone as success
as Coach K wasn't successful right out of the gate.
When we get back after this quick break, I want
(21:10):
to ask him about the learning curve.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
When it comes to coaching.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Be right back, Welcome back to the Book of Joe podcasts.
Coach K is our guest, and of course you know
him for all of his national titles more than a
thousand wins on the D one level. But Coach you
(21:36):
said you wanted to be a coach slash teacher from
the time you were sixteen years old, and the first
time you got the chance to be the head guy
was that Army your album Mater nineteen seventy five, seventy six,
you go eleven and fourteen. It's not bad, Well, it's
not what we associate with coach k today, and even
(21:56):
at Duke, it probably took you till your fourth year
to really turn the corner there. I'm interested not so
much in your team growth, but in your own growth.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
What did you learn in.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Those early days of coaching that you wish you had
known going in?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well, I think that there's you know, learning through experience
is the best thing. And I took over to rebuilding
programs at west Point the two years before me, they
were seven and forty four, and over the five years
we had really good success. But I learned how to
(22:36):
do the dirty work. I learned how to I just
learned about not just coaching, but how to build a
program from ground up and through mistakes of successes. And
you know, I had people give me the opportunity to
coach at West Point, but they also believed in me.
(22:58):
Opportunity followed by belief is the best opportunity. At Duke,
my first three years we were I think thirty seven
and forty eight, but that was not during the time
of one and done. Ralph Sampson, Michael Chart and these
guys were there for a long time and I had
to not only learn how to coach at another level,
(23:22):
I had to learn how to recruit at another level.
The guys that were good for army, they weren't going
to be good enough to win in the ACC or
at a national level. And it took me a couple
of years to learn that, and then we developed a
system of recruiting that really was a foundation for me
(23:43):
for my forty years there. But again I had an
ad who believed in me to hire me. There are
a lot of fans who wanted to be fired after
my third year, a lot, and he said, you know,
forget all you people.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
This is my guy.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
And then we turned it around on that fourth year
and we didn't look back.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Let me ask a question there too.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
Coach After all, then, of course here comes all this
success on an annual basis, after a wonderful year, maybe
a national championship, How would you challenge yourself to prepare
for that next season? After kind of like mind bending
success for so many years, how do you what did
you do to motivate yourself?
Speaker 6 (24:27):
What with the thoughts that you would incurred? It?
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Was it reading things, was it talking to people, was
it listening? Was becoming introspective?
Speaker 6 (24:34):
How did you deal with that?
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Off season, getting ready for the next season after a
very successful previous year.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Well, I always looked at why we were successful. So
in the military you have after action reports, you critique
what you've done, and it's not all good. Obviously if
you win big, a lot of it was good. And
then who do we have coming back?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
You know?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And I always say, next play. You know, if I
was a car uh, I would not have a rearview
mayor you know, like I want to just look ahead.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
And for me.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Uh, I'm sure you've experienced this countless times, Joe. I
wanted to be in the moment of my players. Yeah,
as a I was not I was a good player,
but I was in this. I wasn't on a national
championship team and I wasn't uh jj Reddick and Shane
(25:33):
Battier and all these guys.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
I I loved being in the moment of my players.
So I was anxious to go to the next moment.
I'm always been hungry. Uh And I'm an anal preparer
like I. Uh And so I was onto the next
thing right away. And uh uh That's just how I've
(26:00):
been I you know, And I usn't afraid to lose
I just I didn't want to lose and h H
and I wanted to win and winners. Everybody wants to win,
not everybody wants to prepare to win. And a lot
(26:21):
after a lot of success, of a great year, you
can find that the preparation for success again wains and
a lot of people, a lot of teams, and that
that's why the storied careers of individuals Kobe Bryant and
Lebron James and these guys, uh, they resonated because they
(26:44):
were anal prepares. Kobe Bryant was the best prepared guy
I've ever seen. Lebron is just like that. And in
my profession, I wanted to be I call it being
worthy of winning. You know, you don't always win when
you're worthy of winning, but damn it, you're never going
to win unless you're worthy of winning. And the other
(27:06):
guy might be worthy of winning too and beat you,
but at least you gave it your best. And uh, yeah,
I think that's what that was. That was what I
was supposed to do. That was my in the military,
that was my mission, and I tried to do that.
And after forty seven years and I'm seventy five years old,
(27:29):
I got tired. I got tired of the amount of
preparation and recruiting and uh, and it was time to plus,
I'm seventy five, for press sake, it's time to I
woke up one day, I said, hey, uncle, ahead, you're
seventy five. And I walked and I said, no, you're
(27:51):
you're lying to me. And the mirror doesn't lie, you know,
it doesn't lie.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Well, coach Kate listening to you, and I couldn't help
but think of something that the great Vince Scully told me.
It was his last year broadcasting Odd Your Games. He
was still the best in the business after all those years,
and I asked him, how could you possibly be still
this good for this long? And he actually gave me
a quote that he said he borrowed from Laurence Olivier
(28:16):
when he was asked the same thing about acting. And
I've never forgotten it, and I think there's so much
truth to it to those who do it so well
for so long. He said, it takes the humility to
prepare and the confidence to pull it off. And I
love that phrase, the humility to prepare, because to me,
you just resonated that kind of spirit in that no
(28:37):
matter how successful you are, you never take things for granted,
and you understand what you don't know. You never stop learning,
you never stop growing. And it's interesting to hear you
say that I'm interpreting this, So correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You didn't want to just downshift.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
You wanted the same level of preparation, but you got
to a point where it just you knew you couldn't
match that level, and that told you it was time
to go really really interesting, and I think some similarities.
There are people who do things this well at a
high level for this long.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
And Tom, you know, I still want to learn. I'm
very curious, and that's why I speak a lot on
leadership and teamwork. And it's amazing. Over this last year,
I've done so many events. How where where we're at
people with communication, it's lacking, accountability is lacking, relationships are lacking.
(29:40):
And things that we in the sports world understand are
so important. People want to hear about that right now?
How do we do that? How do we do that now?
And there's a void there, there's a void there right
now in our in our country.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Coach may to ask you this, I mean regarding that,
and I agree with you on hundred percent. We've talked
about that before we went on. But why are we
lacking in those areas? Where's the breakdown from twenty thirty
forty years ago? Where's the breakdown in regards to communicating
these ideas? Why are we not accepting these ideas that
we had in the past. Why are like actually some
(30:22):
people repelling them.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
Why? What's your take on that?
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Why do you think we've arrived at this point where
we are lacking in all these wonderful well we perceive
to be great qualities, which they are.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, Well, I think a big thing is how we communicate,
you know, with zoom phones. You know, COVID obviously took
a major had on our society and we haven't recovered
from that. People have gotten into the habit of not
of not communicating or communicating very superficial officially. You know,
(30:58):
I don't know how it worked with you. For me,
I always coach the same age guys eighteen to twenty
two getting older. So the thing that I had to
it's called adaptability. I had to adapt and communication, you know,
maybe two dozen times, like in the last couple of years.
(31:21):
I'm in my seventies, I'm coaching eighteen and nineteen year
old kids. You know, I found their attention span was shorter,
so I had to get things done in a shorter
period of time. Change locations. I need to show the pictures.
I need to have my staff talk more. I needed so,
(31:44):
and then I also needed to dress like I was younger,
not as young as them, where your message was being
being received. And then to go along with that, I
just don't think the accountability factor is alive. And well,
you know my meddal dog is a dean of students
(32:05):
that are one of the top high schools here. She
may have a parent come in and her kid got
a C in of course, and so the teachers in
the meeting, and they blame it on the teacher. And
if I'm the teacher, I'm saying, you know, look, I
didn't take Jimmy's test. Jimmy got to see. I can
(32:26):
help Jimmy get a B or an A if he
takes the responsibility of having to see. And we don't
hold people accountable to do their best. And with accountability
comes responsibility, and you're responsible for what you do, you
(32:49):
are I can help you do it better that you're
responsible for the successes and the failures. And you know,
to change limits requires failure. You know, you don't get
an app for a new town. You got to develop
the new talent, and new talent there's failure in it.
(33:09):
And and until you get success that that type of
type of sick tuitiveness is not I don't think it's
being taught. And then obviously the value system of our
country has gone down with all the yeah in our
political Yeah it's so we've taken ahead. Yeah, we've taken it.
(33:35):
We've taken ahead, and we need to recover from that
because it's not it's not good. It's not it's not good.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Of course not.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
And when you were talking about there, that resonated to
me also is that you remain contemporary in your own way.
You know, whether it was dress, whatever the appearance may
have been. But I've always believed in that too. Jimmy
Reech taught me that. I remember Jimmy.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
Reees, Yeah, yeah, Jimmy.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
Jimmy was the most contemporary ninety year old I've ever
met in my life.
Speaker 6 (34:03):
And you know, the guys.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
He would make the guys laugh every day what they joked,
and Jimmy just got it. He just got it, you know,
whatever the joke was of the day, Jimmy got it.
I always always thought that that's something I needed to
do and I always wanted to do and not I
guess again, it's an organic thing, hopefully and not so
much intentional, but the wanting to remain contemporary and understanding what's.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Going on today.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
But I mean, whether that's you know, the pop stuff,
pop culture, whatever, that's easy to remain contemporary with that,
but it's not easy to remain contemporary with the lack
of values like you're just talking about right now. When
you get a ball club, you know, the first thing
in spring training you want is that's that's you know,
the culture building is establish all this stuff. And I
would just my hope would be that that, you.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
Know, this becomes a popular again.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
And if there is any old why would that even
be considered old school to be accountable?
Speaker 6 (34:57):
I mean that that those are the kind.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
Of things that I think they bother all of us,
and these are the things we got to get a
handle on because it's just going to keep getting worse
unless we do.
Speaker 6 (35:05):
So.
Speaker 5 (35:05):
You yes, remain contemporary as a as a coach, a leader, whatever,
But at the same point, same time, you got to
really require some old standards, some old ViOS like you're
talking about to really make this thing work. Otherwise, I
agree with you, it's going to keep going the wrong direction.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
You know you bring up and something I've admired about you,
humor is huge in teaching culture. Like you, it can't
be heavy all the time. And even though I don't
look like I joke around when I'm on the sidelines,
behind the scenes, I have a great sense of humor.
(35:42):
I cut up with the guys all the time and whatever.
And in watching you, I mean, you guys played one
hundred you play one hundred and eighty games with spring
training and all that. If you don't have a sense
of humor, for crying out loud, it's going to get
old real real quick. And I loved what you did,
especially watched you with the Cubs, and you had a
(36:03):
good sense sense of humor. You know, you didn't take
yourself as serious even though you knew you were serious.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
And and people people you.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Can get message across with jokes or fooling around and
whatever can't just be heavy talks.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
And you've done that.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
I think that's something I've tried to do my entire
especially as I got older as a coach, I did
it even more. And it didn't matter that I didn't
have to be humorous with all the writers, Like if
Tom was interviewing, man, I could be more serious because
I wasn't sure if this writers would catch our jokes.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
Joe, that's right, man, right over their heads, coach, right
over their heads. Yeah, I know sometimes these guys.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Yeah, well they use that. Some of their words have
more syllables than the.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Ones we uh we Well.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I remember Joe gathering his team together in the outfield
before spring training workouts, and I was thinking, Man, I
wonder what strategy they're going over, you know, maybe this
is about fundamentals or relay plays. It turns out he
literally had the joke of the day. That was how
they started their day.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
Oh yeah, I mean I had Tim Buss with the
Angels and with the Cubs. Bussy is the best coach
if you whenever you're going on to next I know
working with the NBA right now a little bit.
Speaker 6 (37:26):
But this guy, he's a glue you need. This is
one of our original premises with.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
This show is glue guys, and you have to have
the glue guys and Louke. Every Glue guy I've ever
met is a pretty funny dude, and everybody gravitates.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Towards them and they listen to him.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
That's right, that's right, you know, that's right.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
I'm sure you've done this. But a lot of times
when I had messages to get across to a player,
I would talk to another player to get that message across,
so peer to peer, you know, Also it helps them
develop a relationship. And doing that me with that guy,
you mean you want me to Yeah, you can explain
(38:08):
this better than me, really, yeah you can.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
And then later.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Asked the kid, how did you feel, some coach, I
felt great about doing that, and I said, we'll follow up,
follow up with it. And then so you're developing individual
relationships with you want to play and the players, players
and players, which then are the foundation for your total
relationship with the team. And now you can't just develop
(38:36):
the three like the tom you mentioned the word earlier dictatorship,
that that's just the one to a bunch relationship, that
that can't happen, that's not that's not going to work.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Well, Joe, glad you mentioned glue guys.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
We're going to take a quick break because I've been
waiting to ask Coach K about identifying blue guys and
some of his favorites will dive into that right now
for this cool.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Okay, Coach K. Glue guys.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
I mean, we talked about some of the changing values
that coaches, not just parents have to deal with. What
I've seen, at least in baseball, is it the culture
is more self centered than it used to be. That
to me, hallmarks of teamwork are diligence, selflessness, and now
we have a culture that sort of rewards individuality, which
is not itself bad, but I think it makes it
(39:39):
more difficult in a team environment. I'm thinking about the
baseball showcase circuit, or instead of playing for a team
and playing winning baseball, you are trying to showcase your
skills individually. So for you, Coach K, when you go out,
you're on the recruiting trail, and obviously it begins with talent.
We all know that, But can you and did you
(40:01):
identify guys who will be those glue guys that can
make a team a team that see beyond themselves.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Yeah, you know, well, we always look for character, even
in like the Latner, the Tatum or whatever, because I
always coached my best players the hardest. I always felt
that a great player wanted to be better, and instead
of using the player, I was going to develop that player.
(40:31):
And sometimes I tell them I'm going to get on
your butt like crazy today and that'll show the other
guys stuff. And and being the best players lonely because
there's a certain amount of jealousy on every in every
unit and h and so you have to get over that.
The blue guys are the guys. They they have personalities
(40:56):
that are a little bit different.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
You know, one of my best blue guys became one
of my best leaders, Steve Wojob. You know, he was
our hardest worker and and he Blue guys feel the
pulse of a team. They batty a on my even
though he is a National Player of the Year. He
(41:20):
was playing with Jason Williams, Carlos Boezer, Mike Donlevy. And
so sometimes a blue guy doesn't mean that they're bad plains.
A blue guy can be You're actually your best player.
It's the guy that has the personality. His personality can
permeate through the entire team that people will listen listen
(41:42):
to him, that he'll say something in a huddle. You know,
sometimes at a time out, I would ask battye a
what do you think? And he'd say something that's better
than me. A cool story. When we won our national
championship in two thousand and one, our first practice, you know,
we stretch to go and usually I would say something
(42:06):
to him, and Beattier got the team together and he
said something, and I said, let's go. I said, I
said to myself, I can't say that better than what
he said. And then after practice, I said, how did
you think of that? He said, what do you mean
what you said? He said, I don't know, Coach, I
just said what I felt. I said, well, keep doing that.
(42:29):
I didn't talk to the team the rest of the year.
Right after he talked to the team every day and then,
but he also talked to the team on the court.
See a blue guy to me, a lot of catchers
are glue guys. They uh and their voice goes out
to everybody, and so if if they can talk and whatever.
(42:51):
And again there we talked earlier about being in the moment.
Those glue guys are like that. John Shire, who's the
new head coach here, he was that type of player
and blue guy for us when we play our last
national championship in twenty fifteen, Quinn Cook was that guy.
(43:14):
He just had the personality to do that, and he,
you know, after a Practicas Jones was a freshman, he
was a senior. You'd see him walking off the court
and Quinn had his arm around him, you know, like
good job and whatever. So but again, a blue guy
doesn't mean it's it's like a role player all the time.
(43:37):
A glue guy can be your best player too.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Joe, I'm sure you loved hearing that about catchers, being
a former catcher yourself, but there is something to that.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
He is dead on.
Speaker 6 (43:46):
Yeah, he was right on the money with that coach.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
Now, I got Joe.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I got Joe Snouk before the podcasted.
Speaker 6 (43:54):
Well done, Well done.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Well coaches timed as we do with all of our guests,
to play a little game here. Oh don't worry, it's
very easy to play.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Well.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
It a reading from the book of Joe. Yeah, we
feel like you could crack open our book and you're
going to find something interesting, whether it's about coaching, life, baseball,
you name it. So we ask our guests to just
pick a number between one and three. Hundred and sixty
eight and we'll dive in and see what the reading
(44:27):
brings us.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
So it's your turn.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Okay, I'll take forty four.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Number forty four. I would not have guessed that. Now,
why is that? You got to tell me? It's is
that a favorite number, a lucky number?
Speaker 3 (44:40):
That was my high school number. I'm going back to
the time I was. I knew I was going to
be a player, a coach, and.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Well, this goes back.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
It goes back not quite the high school for Joe,
but his pre managing days when he was on the
road as a scout.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
He wasn't the three time manager of the year. At
one time in his life, he had to pay his dues,
and that's something that's not a wive.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
That's right, earning the right to be there, exactly, absolutely,
no question.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah. So he goes out his first day as a
professional scout and he's on the road with a veteran scout,
you know, Tuch trying to learn his way around, by
the name of Louke Knauer. And they're out in Tucson, Arizona,
at spring training. They're looking at teams and players, but
lou decides to teach Joe the ways of being a scout.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
He's got to bring him to the track at night.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
There are a lot of scouts to do that.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Yeah, here's what Joe says.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
He says, I'm thinking, okay, well maybe I can make
a couple of bucks out of this. I just follow
Lou and I can possibly double the little amount of
money that he's making at the time, he says.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
And what happened, Well, he lost whatever I bet I lost.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
It was maybe twenty five bucks, which might as well
have been ten thousand at that point.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Then Lou looks at.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Me, puffing out the heater, pulling out it deeply, smoke
all around him, and he gives me that smoker squint
and he says, with that Colin Houer giggle, get him
next time, kid, right, cool man? Looking back on it,
being so out of your element and taking a risk,
don't you somehow develop balls being in situations like that,
(46:30):
And obviously, Joe, that's the point of it, just being
uncomfortable and learning from brother discomfort.
Speaker 6 (46:36):
Brother.
Speaker 5 (46:36):
I mean, I left Boulder, Colorado with one hundred bucks
in my pocket going to southern California to become a
major league scout and have to drive over to Arizona.
Speaker 6 (46:45):
With no credit cards whatsoever. And then they're putting me Lou.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
I'm lose my guy, Lou, funny guy without trying to be.
Speaker 6 (46:54):
And then you go to Tucson.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
I know he probably put my room on his car,
but he says, let's go to the truck.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
I can't say no, no, I can't say.
Speaker 6 (47:03):
I can't tell I have no money. So you just go.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
You just go take a chance, you go take a
chance with it. I lost, and I don't even know
what I did after that, But again, you're right, it's
about taking chances.
Speaker 6 (47:13):
It's about taking risks.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
Sometimes you just have to gamble in yourself a little bit,
you know, and not knowing what the outcome is going
to be. Obviously, I'm so happy that I had done that.
I was so pleased that Low was the guy that
took me over there. And as you're talking that whole
thing through, I could just see him in my mind
as I could see Lucity next to me in the
car or at the ballpark. And that's the thing about
(47:35):
our game, and you just kind of alluded to that
the earning of these positions. I feel good about what
I've done, the chances that I've had because man, since
nineteen eighty one, I was doing all kinds of I
did all the you know, I cleaned all the toilets, so,
you know, you do all that stuff, and then eventually
you get opportunities. So those are moments men that really
resonate with me. I love that, and yeah, I do wish.
(47:59):
I've had a lot of guys that I've played for
me become managers. And the thing I advised all of
them to do is, I said, before you become a
major league manager, go and manage rookie ball and be
an area scout for at least one draft and see
what that all feels like.
Speaker 6 (48:14):
But I could not convince any of them to do that.
You know, feel like coach you talked about it.
Speaker 5 (48:20):
Feel feel is the gift of experience, right, And when
you get to those hot moments and things just don't.
Speaker 6 (48:25):
Make sense and you have to rely on your instincts.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
If you've not honed them, you don't know where to go.
So I'm a big believer in all that stuff. And yeah,
lou who is that the essence of it? And yes
he did take many big drags on heaters.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
You know, you're you had the opportunity to get sage
advice from not another manager or whatever, but people in
your game who looked at the game and understood the
game differently.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
And I don't.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Again, that's what you're saying about going into different area,
having different jobs. That's where I was fortunate to go
through to rebuilding things because you there's no greater teacher
than experience. And if you only get experience in one
from one set of people instead of a whole group
(49:20):
of people, you're not going to be as You're not
going to be as good. And and people, Yeah, people
want instant success right now. That's why there's so much mobility.
People are leaving things early instead of staying and uh
and it's a different time and how do you teach
that now? Yeah, I mean that's one of the one
(49:44):
of the things I try to talk about. You still
got to do that, Yeah, you still have to do it.
I was fortunate to play for Bob Knight, and my
relationship with him help me meet other outstanding coaches. And
I listened and I was around them, and you know,
(50:07):
you do whatever work you need to do just to
be at a table some time to listen and the
mister IBOs, Coach Knowle's and the people that were affecting
Coach Knight's coaching career as a result of being around him.
You got to listen to them and I was very
(50:29):
fortunate to have those opportunities.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Well, Coach just has just been really fascinating, even more
fascinating than I knew it would be. You've touched on
a lot of themes that we touched on in the book,
and you brought us to many other different places. Your
insights are just incredible. Appreciate all of your time before
we let you go. It sounds like you're very busy.
(50:55):
You're still challenging yourself. Give our listeners kind of an
update on on what your life is like these days
and staying busy.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, well, we still live. My wife and I have
a lifetime contract with Duke as ambassadors. So I'm in
my same office, I have my same help. I do
a lot of the stuff that I did when I coach,
except I coach and recruit for our university. So that's great.
I love to My whole family lives here, my three daughters,
(51:26):
our ten grandchildren. When does that happen? They all live
within ten minutes of us, so we're an filmed with that.
I do a lot of speaking all over the country
for the Washington Speakers Thiau. I have a show on
Sirius XAM. We're running a huge nonprofit for seventeen years,
the Emily Shazevsky Center here in Durham. We now service
(51:50):
about two thousand kids. And I'm as happy as can be.
And I don't know about you, jettle Bit. For me,
the greatest thing that's happened for me since retirement was
the discovery of mind space. You know, like when I'm
at one thing, I can just think about that one
(52:10):
thing with coach or whatever. You're always thinking about other things.
And I love that, and I love the fact that
I'm I call myself an independent contractor right now. I'm
just responsible for me and my wife sometimes says you
need to be more responsible, but I try to be
as much as I can. But I'm happy, healthy, and
(52:34):
I've been the luckiest guy in the world.
Speaker 6 (52:36):
Beautiful Coach. Thank you, buddy, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
Thank you all right, it's an honor to be with you.
And best of luck with the with the book. I yeah,
it's common sense. And to have the best writer and
one of the best coaches ever in the game combined.
I don't know who twisted who twisted the other guy's.
Speaker 4 (53:01):
Arm to do this.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
I think I approached Tommy for and then of course
he was on board, and during the pandemic we really
worked a lot on it and eventually came to fruition.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
As you imagined, Coach K.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
It didn't take a lot of arm twisting to have
the opportunity to get inside that mind.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
The most interesting man in baseball.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
A good man, good man.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Love you guys, Thanks coach, Thanks so much, coach be well.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Coached, Thank you all right, take care byebye.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
Well that was a pleasure, And Joe, your pressure's on
now to take us out with something to follow up
on all those pearls of wisdom from Coach K.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
So what do you have today?
Speaker 5 (53:39):
Yeah, I'm going with Coach K. My hunger is My
hunger is not for success. It is for excellence, because
when you attain excellence, success just naturally follows. I mean,
that's pretty much what I got out of this whole
conversation today. He's about doing things in an excellent manner,
consistently and again, never being in a hurry. And I
(54:00):
love the fact that he empowers those around him, he
doesn't try to preach. All that stuff resonated with me.
Speaker 4 (54:06):
Man.
Speaker 5 (54:07):
And again, when you get some when you got a
guy like that talking about things that validate kind of
some of your own personal philosophies, what could be better
than that?
Speaker 6 (54:14):
I really believe after.
Speaker 5 (54:16):
People coaches listen to this particular podcast, you're going to
walk away with the same kind of thoughts.
Speaker 6 (54:21):
Man. Coach K just validated one of my thoughts.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
It has to be absolutely on point, absolutely powerful stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Thanks to Coach K and thanks to you, Joe. See
you next time, all right, buddy, You take care man.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
The Book of Joe podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Book of Joe Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey there, welcome back.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
To the latest episode of the Book of Joe Podcast
with me, Tom Berducci and of course Joe Madden and Joe.
Super excited about our guest today. He needs no introduction,
but I'll give him one anyway. The most wins in
Division I college basketball, five national titles, a member of
the Naysmith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and you'll love this, Joe.
(00:40):
He's also a member of the National Polish American Sports
Hall of Fame, so that counts for a lot too.
Please welcome coach Kate, Mike Ryzchewski, Coach, how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yeah, it's great being on with you guys, And congratulations
on the book, The Book of Joe that I've started
reading it. Joe actually sent me a copy autograph. Spell
my name right and everything. But it's really good, you know.
I call it it like a common sense book, and
(01:12):
boy do we need a lot of common sense going
around right now.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
You know, I'm glad you brought up the book because
obviously our podcast here is based off the book, and
we wanted to produce something that was even more than
just a quote unquote baseball book with life lessons and
especially the kind of intersection of leadership, teamwork and what
makes a team a team. And I can't think of
(01:40):
any better guest coach to have on than you. One
of your quotes that I really I love and when
I first heard it, I don't look at myself as
a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader
who happens to coach basketball. I love that because we
tend to identify people by the jobs that they do
(02:01):
in their titles. But you know better than anyone that
the job of being a coach is really being a
leader and of course a teacher. So I got to
ask you, is that something that you knew early on
that being a coach was more than just the ex'es
and the o's.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah, no, obviously, it's got to be that combination. And
I when I was sixteen, I knew I wanted to
be a teacher. I thought I want to be a
high school teacher, and I wanted to be a coach.
And although I've retired from coaching, I haven't retired from
teaching and learning.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
You know, if.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
You leadership, if you only learn about leadership from the
people in your profession.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
You are really running on a very narrow road.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
You can learn about leadership from everybody and in all
walks of life. And I've learned it from speaking to businesses,
watching football coaches, baseball coaches, you know, actually watching Joe
because he was coaching my Coubbies for a long time,
long time and brought us our first World Series in
a century. And I went to the best leadership school
(03:16):
in the world, the United States Military Academy, and we
learned that leadership is something that you have to study
all the time. All the time. I'm still studying it.
And I actually now a professor at our Fuquis School
of Business in the study of leadership, and I love it.
(03:37):
It's the best profession in the world.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Coach just a dovetail and did that a bit, the
creation of culture at Duke University, And you know, that's
something that as a young manager when I was with
the Devil Rays and then eventually got to the Cubs
and tried to do the same thing with the Angels
and the creation of a culture. And just the question
is was there certain elements that you would try to
intentionally bring to it or was it more an organic
(04:02):
approach or was it a combination both.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I think it's a combination of both. And you know,
once I learned how to be a good coach, it
takes a while. I I really was driven by values
common ground. How can you get ownership from everybody where?
(04:25):
I used to tell I told my US teams. I
coached the US team for eleven years. I said, you're
not playing for the United States, we won't win. If
you're playing for the United States, will win if you
are United States basketball? How do you own something? Can
you own it by sharing? Having the same standards, having
(04:48):
standards that the players and the coaches developed, and values.
And we were a value based culture at Duke and
with the US and we celebrated the values of integrity, respect, courage,
selfless service, loyalty, duty, and trust. And we talked about
(05:12):
those things and those were our constants, and our offense
and defense ran better if we always were on the
same page with our values.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
I love that good.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Tommy, he coach k I mean Joe tells a great
story in the book about when he inherited the devil
rays and having to change the culture. And he had
a lot of guys on unofficial scholarships entitlement. The team
had never literally never won before, so they didn't know
how to win. It took a while to change that culture.
(05:46):
And one quote from you I found really interesting. We
all think that the culture you established that Duke and
we all think, well, maybe it just kind of ran
on autopilot after a while. But I love what you
said where you said, don't take your culture for granted.
There needs to be a constant renewal of values that
need to camaraderie. Can you explain that, even after all
(06:07):
those years at Duke that you never could take that
culture for branded.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Well, you know, I was fortunate when it used to
be you had guys for four years. So a lot
of our culture was taught by our juniors and seniors,
and they were our best players. They were better than
the freshmen. Then the one and done started around twenty ten,
(06:31):
and our best players were freshmen and they were going
to go in one year, and we had a turnover.
There was a lot of turnover, and so we taught.
We had to come up with different ways of teaching
our culture. And a big thing that we did was
everyone that surrounded them, the managers, the secretarial staff, the
(06:54):
trainers and whatever I got them. More intimately evolved in
making sure our culture was adhere to and that people
saw it. And I made sure that the new guys
knew everybody's name and said please and thank you.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
And also I didn't make any promise.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I've never made a promise to a player in recruiting
him that he was going to get a certain amount
of playing time. Shots you're going to start, And I said,
I'll promise that I'll never take away the thing that's
made you good right now, I'll just develop it. And
I said, you know what that is, And I said
(07:35):
most of them did not know. I said, you've been hungry. Yeah,
you've had you've been driven to be good. As soon
as I start giving you something for nothing, I take
that away from you. I want to build on that,
and that's how you're going to become the best player
that you can become. And so when I went into
(07:56):
a locker room, I didn't have to figure out who
I promised stuff to. They were all promised the same thing,
and that was common ground. And I've done that even
with the US team, and I think it works. You know, Yeah,
you need to be straightforward with somebody. Two of my
(08:17):
standards were always I'm going to look you in the eye.
I want you to look me in the eye, and
I want to tell you the truth all the time.
And I'll be one of the few people on earth
that'll be in your life that will always tell you
the truth and screw around with a recruit. I say, yeah, man,
you're wearing a nice shirt. Because pants you're wearing. I said,
your shoes suck. But and I said, the thing you
(08:41):
remember now is that your shoes suck, by the way
they know. But there's going to be a time out
where you know you're not playing well. You come to
the bench, I'm gonna say, look, get your head out
of your butt. You're a good player. Get the hell
out there and start being that good player. And I
don't want you to look at me and you know, coach,
you know, and start making excuses. Yeah, we need instant,
(09:04):
instant trust. And I've loved that. I really, I've done
that my whole life. And I try to rec some
Now obvious, on a major weak team, you don't have
control over everybody that comes into your organization. But I
did with my team, and we recruited talent and we
(09:26):
recruited character. We recruited talent with character, not talented characters,
and they were a lot better to we want to help.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
A lot more. It was a lot more fun being
with them.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Because you're just drawing so many parallels. It's it's really
a lot of fun to listen to all this right
down to the truth. My line has always been, if
I tell you the truth, you might not like me
for a week or ten days, but if I lie
to you, you can hate me forever. And you just kind of,
you know, you kind of relate that right there, and
it's great here that validated. The other thing is the
first time eyes. You got to approach everything as though
(10:01):
it's the first time, which is the hunger component of
this whole thing. And but I really love like you.
You have to be us basketball. You just can't play
for it. You're not trying to win for them. And
the ownership component really resonates strongly. I think with the Cubs.
That was one thing I really tried to drive home
was the fact that the ownership part of it. When
(10:21):
when groups are people within groups feels that they have
they have ownership. In this situation, you're definitely going to
get the best version of them, and you're going to
get that level of accountability we were talking about prior
to us recording this whole thing. So it's wonderful to
hear all of this, Coach, because honestly, it's it's a
lot of what I believe in, and you're putting it
(10:42):
in other words, which really resonates with me deeply.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, you know, Joe, we Uh that's why I said
about the book. I haven't read the whole thing, but
to me, a lot of it is common sense. And
you know, what I've learned is right there, there are
different ways of saying this same thing. So if you
just stay in your profession, you end up trying to
(11:08):
say the same the same way. And by getting outside
and actually, you know, you've been on my show uh
before and I've learned from having my show, uh and
uh just listening and different different ways of phrasing phrasing things. Yeah,
(11:31):
and look, if you own it, you're going to fight
for it, you know. Uh. And I want a team
that's going to fight for it. And we got a
better chance of winning if we're fighting together, and uh
we have a common common cause.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Uh. Yeah, Ie.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
One of the cool things we did with the Olympic
team the first time we met. You know, I told them,
you hear that expression, leave your egos at the door.
Somebody said that to the team, and I said, you know, listen,
bring your ego was in.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Man.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
You know we're going to need them to beat the
Gasols and the channel by the way, Kobe, Bryant and
Lebron We're going to bring them in no matter what,
which is good. But let's put them all under one
ego umbrella, you know, the USA, and then we'll be
really damn good. And uh, you know, I don't want
you to hear and see only I want you to feel.
(12:27):
And I swear to God this is exactly what happened.
And it was one of the beautiful moments for me
as a coach. I told them after our meeting, it
was our first meeting. We were practicing in Vegas at
the wind and I said, go look to your rooms
and be sixteen for one minute. I know you guys
(12:47):
are studs and zillionaires and whatever. And what we did
was we had their Olympic uniforms on their beds and
I said, just look on your bed and be sixteen
for a minute.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
That's all I'm asking you to do.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Later that night, I was playing some video poker and
I get a tap on my shoulder and it's Kobe
Bryant and Kobe said, I said, what's up? He said, Coach,
I did what you asked me to do. And uh,
And I said, what happened? He said, I cried? And
I knew then that that was the start of us feeling.
(13:27):
And then we got the military involved a lot. We
brought wounded warriors in and just to teach these guys
what commitment selfless service was all about. And that's going
outside of your you know, your your wane that.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
You normally do. Uh.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
You different ways of motivating. There's motivation and there's inspiration,
and I think you need you need both and uh,
the wounded warriors to the jersey, I don't call them motivation.
I call them inspiration.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And by the way, one other common denominator I've noticed
between the two of you is leadership without having so
many rules. Yeah, and I know, Joe, you were famous
for allowing players to be themselves and not constrain, as
you would say, don't get in the way of greatness.
(14:23):
And for you, Coach k I know you also believe
that if you have too many rules, that gets in
the way of leadership. Once you explain the way you
ran your teams as it regarded rules and rule making.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Well, I went to a school that had a regular
west point, a book of rules. And you know, when
you think of ownership, you never own a rule.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
You obey it or you disobey it.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
But if you can develop standards, standards the way you
do things all the time and you require others to
do it, they they're kind of like rules. When we
had standards meeting with our Duke team or the US team,
I would get them into a meeting room, I'd say
I prep them. I talked to three or four guys
before and asked them if they would contribute. You never
(15:13):
know if they will, but they did. And a simple
world as a kid in our first meeting after I said,
look each other in the eye, tell each other the
truth is can anyone contribute? And it's a moment of
truth because you don't know if any of them are
going to And Jason raised his hand and he said, Coach,
we should never be wait, you know, we should have
(15:35):
respect for one another. And never be wait. And so
I said, what do you guys think? And they said yeah,
And I said, speaking of respect, we've gotten our bucks
beat in four of the five last major competitions with
the International World because we didn't practice well. We didn't
think we needed a practice one standard. We can never
(15:58):
have a bad practice, and it can't be my practice.
It's a singular problem. It's got to be our practice.
And really, for the eleven years I coached, we never
had a guy wait, and we never had a bad practice.
And we had our first team we had fifteen standards,
(16:22):
but I never had a rule. But the standards are
a way of living, you know, if you have to
live only by rules, I don't know if it ever
becomes yours. I'm not saying you should never have them.
I don't like them. I'd rather go to standard route.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
What I used to do coach, I would have a
lead bulls meeting, something I learned out of a missioner book,
and I would try to get to at eight, maybe nine,
most influential guys on the team. I'd get him in
a room and I would just start throwing thoughts out
to them, just different, how are we going to conduct ourselves, right,
not necessarily rules, I thought, I refer to them as policies,
(17:04):
and so what's important to us go And then around
the room everybody would come up with different thoughts regarding policy,
and we would discuss it, and I said, Okay, by
the end of this discussion, whatever we decide, we're going
to you guys are going to take it out to
the team, to the group as a whole, and I
want you to express to them exactly how we're going
(17:25):
to conduct ourselves during the course of the year, whether
it was in the clubhouse, on a plane, in a hotel,
whatever it might be. Families in the clubhouse, kids in
the on the field for batting practice, et cetera. But
I found again, like you're saying, if you put it
in their court no pun intended, I mean with the
lead bulls, then I want them to carry on. And
(17:48):
I'm going to say out of the way as much
as I possibly can.
Speaker 6 (17:51):
I only interfered.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
What I thought was if it got to the point
where there's just you need a tiebreaker, it's just it's
just not working right, then it would come to me
and I would tell them what I thought. But I'm
really big on it was really big on listening, like
you said earlier, and trying to have them create thought
and then implement because after all, when the clubhouse in
a Major League Baseball situation runs of its own will
(18:14):
or relation, that's the best clubhouse you could possibly have.
But it's constantly being imposed upon by me or coaches
or front office, you're not going to get what you're
looking for.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Well, they own it, that's right, and that's great.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It's there, you know, Tom when you're talking about like
uh rurals on the court, like I might draw a play,
you know what we're supposed to do. But I always
told my guys to follow their instincts and I call
it have an agility, uh making reads like if you
(18:49):
see something you're gonna you're going to see some things
that might be better than the play or within the play,
go for it and uh and uh, I love that.
I got the most out of that from from coaching
because uh, it made your players smarter and more. They
(19:11):
owned that also, And obviously they're not going to be
successful all the time. But like I said, that was
a good read, it didn't happen. Keep keep making those reads,
and uh, I think you've win championships, big games by
players are in the moment. Players are playing the moment.
(19:32):
A coach or manager is not playing the moment. They're
reacting to what a moment might be or what a
moment just happened. And so if you have, like I
call it on the court leadership of Lebron James, Gobi Bryant,
Chris Paul, they're going to see some things in the
moment that'll make you look like a hell of a coach.
(19:53):
And if you have to wait for a damn time out, uh,
you know to put in something, you're behind, You're you're
you're behind. It's kind of like, I don't know our sport.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
A lot of.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Coaches stand up during a game, and that's okay, I'm
not critical of that. I never stood up and with
some yelling at an official, but I had my staff
sit with me and they talked to me during the game.
So John Shire, who's our new head coach, might say, Coach,
we should do this right now while the game's going on.
(20:26):
And so when there was a time out, I never
had a staff huddle and then talk to the team.
I was talking to the team to my staff the
entire time, and it's just a different way. I'm not
saying it's the approved solution, but for me, that worked
for me, and I think every leader has to find
out what's going to work for him or her in
(20:47):
their leadership position.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Oh, Coach, I love hearing that because I think you
just describe really the essence of leadership, not being a dictatorship,
but empowering staff and especially the players that you are coaching.
But it's important to remember that even someone as success
as Coach K wasn't successful right out of the gate.
When we get back after this quick break, I want
(21:10):
to ask him about the learning curve.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
When it comes to coaching.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Be right back, Welcome back to the Book of Joe podcasts.
Coach K is our guest, and of course you know
him for all of his national titles more than a
thousand wins on the D one level. But Coach you
(21:36):
said you wanted to be a coach slash teacher from
the time you were sixteen years old, and the first
time you got the chance to be the head guy
was that Army your album Mater nineteen seventy five, seventy six,
you go eleven and fourteen. It's not bad, Well, it's
not what we associate with coach k today, and even
(21:56):
at Duke, it probably took you till your fourth year
to really turn the corner there. I'm interested not so
much in your team growth, but in your own growth.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
What did you learn in.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Those early days of coaching that you wish you had
known going in?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well, I think that there's you know, learning through experience
is the best thing. And I took over to rebuilding
programs at west Point the two years before me, they
were seven and forty four, and over the five years
we had really good success. But I learned how to
(22:36):
do the dirty work. I learned how to I just
learned about not just coaching, but how to build a
program from ground up and through mistakes of successes. And
you know, I had people give me the opportunity to
coach at West Point, but they also believed in me.
(22:58):
Opportunity followed by belief is the best opportunity. At Duke,
my first three years we were I think thirty seven
and forty eight, but that was not during the time
of one and done. Ralph Sampson, Michael Chart and these
guys were there for a long time and I had
to not only learn how to coach at another level,
(23:22):
I had to learn how to recruit at another level.
The guys that were good for army, they weren't going
to be good enough to win in the ACC or
at a national level. And it took me a couple
of years to learn that, and then we developed a
system of recruiting that really was a foundation for me
(23:43):
for my forty years there. But again I had an
ad who believed in me to hire me. There are
a lot of fans who wanted to be fired after
my third year, a lot, and he said, you know,
forget all you people.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
This is my guy.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
And then we turned it around on that fourth year
and we didn't look back.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Let me ask a question there too.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
Coach After all, then, of course here comes all this
success on an annual basis, after a wonderful year, maybe
a national championship, How would you challenge yourself to prepare
for that next season? After kind of like mind bending
success for so many years, how do you what did
you do to motivate yourself?
Speaker 6 (24:27):
What with the thoughts that you would incurred? It?
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Was it reading things, was it talking to people, was
it listening? Was becoming introspective?
Speaker 6 (24:34):
How did you deal with that?
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Off season, getting ready for the next season after a
very successful previous year.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Well, I always looked at why we were successful. So
in the military you have after action reports, you critique
what you've done, and it's not all good. Obviously if
you win big, a lot of it was good. And
then who do we have coming back?
Speaker 4 (24:58):
You know?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And I always say, next play. You know, if I
was a car uh, I would not have a rearview
mayor you know, like I want to just look ahead.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
And for me.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Uh, I'm sure you've experienced this countless times, Joe. I
wanted to be in the moment of my players. Yeah,
as a I was not I was a good player,
but I was in this. I wasn't on a national
championship team and I wasn't uh jj Reddick and Shane
(25:33):
Battier and all these guys.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
I I loved being in the moment of my players.
So I was anxious to go to the next moment.
I'm always been hungry. Uh And I'm an anal preparer
like I. Uh And so I was onto the next
thing right away. And uh uh That's just how I've
(26:00):
been I you know, And I usn't afraid to lose
I just I didn't want to lose and h H
and I wanted to win and winners. Everybody wants to win,
not everybody wants to prepare to win. And a lot
(26:21):
after a lot of success, of a great year, you
can find that the preparation for success again wains and
a lot of people, a lot of teams, and that
that's why the storied careers of individuals Kobe Bryant and
Lebron James and these guys, uh, they resonated because they
(26:44):
were anal prepares. Kobe Bryant was the best prepared guy
I've ever seen. Lebron is just like that. And in
my profession, I wanted to be I call it being
worthy of winning. You know, you don't always win when
you're worthy of winning, but damn it, you're never going
to win unless you're worthy of winning. And the other
(27:06):
guy might be worthy of winning too and beat you,
but at least you gave it your best. And uh, yeah,
I think that's what that was. That was what I
was supposed to do. That was my in the military,
that was my mission, and I tried to do that.
And after forty seven years and I'm seventy five years old,
(27:29):
I got tired. I got tired of the amount of
preparation and recruiting and uh, and it was time to plus,
I'm seventy five, for press sake, it's time to I
woke up one day, I said, hey, uncle, ahead, you're
seventy five. And I walked and I said, no, you're
(27:51):
you're lying to me. And the mirror doesn't lie, you know,
it doesn't lie.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Well, coach Kate listening to you, and I couldn't help
but think of something that the great Vince Scully told me.
It was his last year broadcasting Odd Your Games. He
was still the best in the business after all those years,
and I asked him, how could you possibly be still
this good for this long? And he actually gave me
a quote that he said he borrowed from Laurence Olivier
(28:16):
when he was asked the same thing about acting. And
I've never forgotten it, and I think there's so much
truth to it to those who do it so well
for so long. He said, it takes the humility to
prepare and the confidence to pull it off. And I
love that phrase, the humility to prepare, because to me,
you just resonated that kind of spirit in that no
(28:37):
matter how successful you are, you never take things for granted,
and you understand what you don't know. You never stop learning,
you never stop growing. And it's interesting to hear you
say that I'm interpreting this, So correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You didn't want to just downshift.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
You wanted the same level of preparation, but you got
to a point where it just you knew you couldn't
match that level, and that told you it was time
to go really really interesting, and I think some similarities.
There are people who do things this well at a
high level for this long.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
And Tom, you know, I still want to learn. I'm
very curious, and that's why I speak a lot on
leadership and teamwork. And it's amazing. Over this last year,
I've done so many events. How where where we're at
people with communication, it's lacking, accountability is lacking, relationships are lacking.
(29:40):
And things that we in the sports world understand are
so important. People want to hear about that right now?
How do we do that? How do we do that now?
And there's a void there, there's a void there right
now in our in our country.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Coach may to ask you this, I mean regarding that,
and I agree with you on hundred percent. We've talked
about that before we went on. But why are we
lacking in those areas? Where's the breakdown from twenty thirty
forty years ago? Where's the breakdown in regards to communicating
these ideas? Why are we not accepting these ideas that
we had in the past. Why are like actually some
(30:22):
people repelling them.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
Why? What's your take on that?
Speaker 5 (30:26):
Why do you think we've arrived at this point where
we are lacking in all these wonderful well we perceive
to be great qualities, which they are.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, Well, I think a big thing is how we communicate,
you know, with zoom phones. You know, COVID obviously took
a major had on our society and we haven't recovered
from that. People have gotten into the habit of not
of not communicating or communicating very superficial officially. You know,
(30:58):
I don't know how it worked with you. For me,
I always coach the same age guys eighteen to twenty
two getting older. So the thing that I had to
it's called adaptability. I had to adapt and communication, you know,
maybe two dozen times, like in the last couple of years.
(31:21):
I'm in my seventies, I'm coaching eighteen and nineteen year
old kids. You know, I found their attention span was shorter,
so I had to get things done in a shorter
period of time. Change locations. I need to show the pictures.
I need to have my staff talk more. I needed so,
(31:44):
and then I also needed to dress like I was younger,
not as young as them, where your message was being
being received. And then to go along with that, I
just don't think the accountability factor is alive. And well,
you know my meddal dog is a dean of students
(32:05):
that are one of the top high schools here. She
may have a parent come in and her kid got
a C in of course, and so the teachers in
the meeting, and they blame it on the teacher. And
if I'm the teacher, I'm saying, you know, look, I
didn't take Jimmy's test. Jimmy got to see. I can
(32:26):
help Jimmy get a B or an A if he
takes the responsibility of having to see. And we don't
hold people accountable to do their best. And with accountability
comes responsibility, and you're responsible for what you do, you
(32:49):
are I can help you do it better that you're
responsible for the successes and the failures. And you know,
to change limits requires failure. You know, you don't get
an app for a new town. You got to develop
the new talent, and new talent there's failure in it.
(33:09):
And and until you get success that that type of
type of sick tuitiveness is not I don't think it's
being taught. And then obviously the value system of our
country has gone down with all the yeah in our
political Yeah it's so we've taken ahead. Yeah, we've taken it.
(33:35):
We've taken ahead, and we need to recover from that
because it's not it's not good. It's not it's not good.
Speaker 6 (33:44):
Of course not.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
And when you were talking about there, that resonated to
me also is that you remain contemporary in your own way.
You know, whether it was dress, whatever the appearance may
have been. But I've always believed in that too. Jimmy
Reech taught me that. I remember Jimmy.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
Reees, Yeah, yeah, Jimmy.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
Jimmy was the most contemporary ninety year old I've ever
met in my life.
Speaker 6 (34:03):
And you know, the guys.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
He would make the guys laugh every day what they joked,
and Jimmy just got it. He just got it, you know,
whatever the joke was of the day, Jimmy got it.
I always always thought that that's something I needed to
do and I always wanted to do and not I
guess again, it's an organic thing, hopefully and not so
much intentional, but the wanting to remain contemporary and understanding what's.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
Going on today.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
But I mean, whether that's you know, the pop stuff,
pop culture, whatever, that's easy to remain contemporary with that,
but it's not easy to remain contemporary with the lack
of values like you're just talking about right now. When
you get a ball club, you know, the first thing
in spring training you want is that's that's you know,
the culture building is establish all this stuff. And I
would just my hope would be that that, you.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
Know, this becomes a popular again.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
And if there is any old why would that even
be considered old school to be accountable?
Speaker 6 (34:57):
I mean that that those are the kind.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
Of things that I think they bother all of us,
and these are the things we got to get a
handle on because it's just going to keep getting worse
unless we do.
Speaker 6 (35:05):
So.
Speaker 5 (35:05):
You yes, remain contemporary as a as a coach, a leader, whatever,
But at the same point, same time, you got to
really require some old standards, some old ViOS like you're
talking about to really make this thing work. Otherwise, I
agree with you, it's going to keep going the wrong direction.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
You know you bring up and something I've admired about you,
humor is huge in teaching culture. Like you, it can't
be heavy all the time. And even though I don't
look like I joke around when I'm on the sidelines,
behind the scenes, I have a great sense of humor.
(35:42):
I cut up with the guys all the time and whatever.
And in watching you, I mean, you guys played one
hundred you play one hundred and eighty games with spring
training and all that. If you don't have a sense
of humor, for crying out loud, it's going to get
old real real quick. And I loved what you did,
especially watched you with the Cubs, and you had a
(36:03):
good sense sense of humor. You know, you didn't take
yourself as serious even though you knew you were serious.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
And and people people you.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Can get message across with jokes or fooling around and
whatever can't just be heavy talks.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
And you've done that.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
I think that's something I've tried to do my entire
especially as I got older as a coach, I did
it even more. And it didn't matter that I didn't
have to be humorous with all the writers, Like if
Tom was interviewing, man, I could be more serious because
I wasn't sure if this writers would catch our jokes.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
Joe, that's right, man, right over their heads, coach, right
over their heads. Yeah, I know sometimes these guys.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Yeah, well they use that. Some of their words have
more syllables than the.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
Ones we uh we Well.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I remember Joe gathering his team together in the outfield
before spring training workouts, and I was thinking, Man, I
wonder what strategy they're going over, you know, maybe this
is about fundamentals or relay plays. It turns out he
literally had the joke of the day. That was how
they started their day.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
Oh yeah, I mean I had Tim Buss with the
Angels and with the Cubs. Bussy is the best coach
if you whenever you're going on to next I know
working with the NBA right now a little bit.
Speaker 6 (37:26):
But this guy, he's a glue you need. This is
one of our original premises with.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
This show is glue guys, and you have to have
the glue guys and Louke. Every Glue guy I've ever
met is a pretty funny dude, and everybody gravitates.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Towards them and they listen to him.
Speaker 6 (37:43):
That's right, that's right, you know, that's right.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
I'm sure you've done this. But a lot of times
when I had messages to get across to a player,
I would talk to another player to get that message across,
so peer to peer, you know, Also it helps them
develop a relationship. And doing that me with that guy,
you mean you want me to Yeah, you can explain
(38:08):
this better than me, really, yeah you can.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
And then later.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Asked the kid, how did you feel, some coach, I
felt great about doing that, and I said, we'll follow up,
follow up with it. And then so you're developing individual
relationships with you want to play and the players, players
and players, which then are the foundation for your total
relationship with the team. And now you can't just develop
(38:36):
the three like the tom you mentioned the word earlier dictatorship,
that that's just the one to a bunch relationship, that
that can't happen, that's not that's not going to work.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Well, Joe, glad you mentioned glue guys.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
We're going to take a quick break because I've been
waiting to ask Coach K about identifying blue guys and
some of his favorites will dive into that right now
for this cool.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Okay, Coach K. Glue guys.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
I mean, we talked about some of the changing values
that coaches, not just parents have to deal with. What
I've seen, at least in baseball, is it the culture
is more self centered than it used to be. That
to me, hallmarks of teamwork are diligence, selflessness, and now
we have a culture that sort of rewards individuality, which
is not itself bad, but I think it makes it
(39:39):
more difficult in a team environment. I'm thinking about the
baseball showcase circuit, or instead of playing for a team
and playing winning baseball, you are trying to showcase your
skills individually. So for you, Coach K, when you go out,
you're on the recruiting trail, and obviously it begins with talent.
We all know that, But can you and did you
(40:01):
identify guys who will be those glue guys that can
make a team a team that see beyond themselves.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Yeah, you know, well, we always look for character, even
in like the Latner, the Tatum or whatever, because I
always coached my best players the hardest. I always felt
that a great player wanted to be better, and instead
of using the player, I was going to develop that player.
(40:31):
And sometimes I tell them I'm going to get on
your butt like crazy today and that'll show the other
guys stuff. And and being the best players lonely because
there's a certain amount of jealousy on every in every
unit and h and so you have to get over that.
The blue guys are the guys. They they have personalities
(40:56):
that are a little bit different.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
You know, one of my best blue guys became one
of my best leaders, Steve Wojob. You know, he was
our hardest worker and and he Blue guys feel the
pulse of a team. They batty a on my even
though he is a National Player of the Year. He
(41:20):
was playing with Jason Williams, Carlos Boezer, Mike Donlevy. And
so sometimes a blue guy doesn't mean that they're bad plains.
A blue guy can be You're actually your best player.
It's the guy that has the personality. His personality can
permeate through the entire team that people will listen listen
(41:42):
to him, that he'll say something in a huddle. You know,
sometimes at a time out, I would ask battye a
what do you think? And he'd say something that's better
than me. A cool story. When we won our national
championship in two thousand and one, our first practice, you know,
we stretch to go and usually I would say something
(42:06):
to him, and Beattier got the team together and he
said something, and I said, let's go. I said, I
said to myself, I can't say that better than what
he said. And then after practice, I said, how did
you think of that? He said, what do you mean
what you said? He said, I don't know, Coach, I
just said what I felt. I said, well, keep doing that.
(42:29):
I didn't talk to the team the rest of the year.
Right after he talked to the team every day and then,
but he also talked to the team on the court.
See a blue guy to me, a lot of catchers
are glue guys. They uh and their voice goes out
to everybody, and so if if they can talk and whatever.
(42:51):
And again there we talked earlier about being in the moment.
Those glue guys are like that. John Shire, who's the
new head coach here, he was that type of player
and blue guy for us when we play our last
national championship in twenty fifteen, Quinn Cook was that guy.
(43:14):
He just had the personality to do that, and he,
you know, after a Practicas Jones was a freshman, he
was a senior. You'd see him walking off the court
and Quinn had his arm around him, you know, like
good job and whatever. So but again, a blue guy
doesn't mean it's it's like a role player all the time.
(43:37):
A glue guy can be your best player too.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Joe, I'm sure you loved hearing that about catchers, being
a former catcher yourself, but there is something to that.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
He is dead on.
Speaker 6 (43:46):
Yeah, he was right on the money with that coach.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
Now, I got Joe.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I got Joe Snouk before the podcasted.
Speaker 6 (43:54):
Well done, Well done.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Well coaches timed as we do with all of our guests,
to play a little game here. Oh don't worry, it's
very easy to play.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Well.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
It a reading from the book of Joe. Yeah, we
feel like you could crack open our book and you're
going to find something interesting, whether it's about coaching, life, baseball,
you name it. So we ask our guests to just
pick a number between one and three. Hundred and sixty
eight and we'll dive in and see what the reading
(44:27):
brings us.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
So it's your turn.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Okay, I'll take forty four.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Number forty four. I would not have guessed that. Now,
why is that? You got to tell me? It's is
that a favorite number, a lucky number?
Speaker 3 (44:40):
That was my high school number. I'm going back to
the time I was. I knew I was going to
be a player, a coach, and.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Well, this goes back.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
It goes back not quite the high school for Joe,
but his pre managing days when he was on the
road as a scout.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
He wasn't the three time manager of the year. At
one time in his life, he had to pay his dues,
and that's something that's not a wive.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
That's right, earning the right to be there, exactly, absolutely,
no question.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah. So he goes out his first day as a
professional scout and he's on the road with a veteran scout,
you know, Tuch trying to learn his way around, by
the name of Louke Knauer. And they're out in Tucson, Arizona,
at spring training. They're looking at teams and players, but
lou decides to teach Joe the ways of being a scout.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
He's got to bring him to the track at night.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
There are a lot of scouts to do that.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Yeah, here's what Joe says.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
He says, I'm thinking, okay, well maybe I can make
a couple of bucks out of this. I just follow
Lou and I can possibly double the little amount of
money that he's making at the time, he says.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
And what happened, Well, he lost whatever I bet I lost.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
It was maybe twenty five bucks, which might as well
have been ten thousand at that point.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Then Lou looks at.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
Me, puffing out the heater, pulling out it deeply, smoke
all around him, and he gives me that smoker squint
and he says, with that Colin Houer giggle, get him
next time, kid, right, cool man? Looking back on it,
being so out of your element and taking a risk,
don't you somehow develop balls being in situations like that,
(46:30):
And obviously, Joe, that's the point of it, just being
uncomfortable and learning from brother discomfort.
Speaker 6 (46:36):
Brother.
Speaker 5 (46:36):
I mean, I left Boulder, Colorado with one hundred bucks
in my pocket going to southern California to become a
major league scout and have to drive over to Arizona.
Speaker 6 (46:45):
With no credit cards whatsoever. And then they're putting me Lou.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
I'm lose my guy, Lou, funny guy without trying to be.
Speaker 6 (46:54):
And then you go to Tucson.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
I know he probably put my room on his car,
but he says, let's go to the truck.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
I can't say no, no, I can't say.
Speaker 6 (47:03):
I can't tell I have no money. So you just go.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
You just go take a chance, you go take a
chance with it. I lost, and I don't even know
what I did after that, But again, you're right, it's
about taking chances.
Speaker 6 (47:13):
It's about taking risks.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
Sometimes you just have to gamble in yourself a little bit,
you know, and not knowing what the outcome is going
to be. Obviously, I'm so happy that I had done that.
I was so pleased that Low was the guy that
took me over there. And as you're talking that whole
thing through, I could just see him in my mind
as I could see Lucity next to me in the
car or at the ballpark. And that's the thing about
(47:35):
our game, and you just kind of alluded to that
the earning of these positions. I feel good about what
I've done, the chances that I've had because man, since
nineteen eighty one, I was doing all kinds of I
did all the you know, I cleaned all the toilets, so,
you know, you do all that stuff, and then eventually
you get opportunities. So those are moments men that really
resonate with me. I love that, and yeah, I do wish.
(47:59):
I've had a lot of guys that I've played for
me become managers. And the thing I advised all of
them to do is, I said, before you become a
major league manager, go and manage rookie ball and be
an area scout for at least one draft and see
what that all feels like.
Speaker 6 (48:14):
But I could not convince any of them to do that.
You know, feel like coach you talked about it.
Speaker 5 (48:20):
Feel feel is the gift of experience, right, And when
you get to those hot moments and things just don't.
Speaker 6 (48:25):
Make sense and you have to rely on your instincts.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
If you've not honed them, you don't know where to go.
So I'm a big believer in all that stuff. And yeah,
lou who is that the essence of it? And yes
he did take many big drags on heaters.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
You know, you're you had the opportunity to get sage
advice from not another manager or whatever, but people in
your game who looked at the game and understood the
game differently.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
And I don't.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Again, that's what you're saying about going into different area,
having different jobs. That's where I was fortunate to go
through to rebuilding things because you there's no greater teacher
than experience. And if you only get experience in one
from one set of people instead of a whole group
(49:20):
of people, you're not going to be as You're not
going to be as good. And and people, Yeah, people
want instant success right now. That's why there's so much mobility.
People are leaving things early instead of staying and uh
and it's a different time and how do you teach
that now? Yeah, I mean that's one of the one
(49:44):
of the things I try to talk about. You still
got to do that, Yeah, you still have to do it.
I was fortunate to play for Bob Knight, and my
relationship with him help me meet other outstanding coaches. And
I listened and I was around them, and you know,
(50:07):
you do whatever work you need to do just to
be at a table some time to listen and the
mister IBOs, Coach Knowle's and the people that were affecting
Coach Knight's coaching career as a result of being around him.
You got to listen to them and I was very
(50:29):
fortunate to have those opportunities.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Well, Coach just has just been really fascinating, even more
fascinating than I knew it would be. You've touched on
a lot of themes that we touched on in the book,
and you brought us to many other different places. Your
insights are just incredible. Appreciate all of your time before
we let you go. It sounds like you're very busy.
(50:55):
You're still challenging yourself. Give our listeners kind of an
update on on what your life is like these days
and staying busy.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, well, we still live. My wife and I have
a lifetime contract with Duke as ambassadors. So I'm in
my same office, I have my same help. I do
a lot of the stuff that I did when I coach,
except I coach and recruit for our university. So that's great.
I love to My whole family lives here, my three daughters,
(51:26):
our ten grandchildren. When does that happen? They all live
within ten minutes of us, so we're an filmed with that.
I do a lot of speaking all over the country
for the Washington Speakers Thiau. I have a show on
Sirius XAM. We're running a huge nonprofit for seventeen years,
the Emily Shazevsky Center here in Durham. We now service
(51:50):
about two thousand kids. And I'm as happy as can be.
And I don't know about you, jettle Bit. For me,
the greatest thing that's happened for me since retirement was
the discovery of mind space. You know, like when I'm
at one thing, I can just think about that one
(52:10):
thing with coach or whatever. You're always thinking about other things.
And I love that, and I love the fact that
I'm I call myself an independent contractor right now. I'm
just responsible for me and my wife sometimes says you
need to be more responsible, but I try to be
as much as I can. But I'm happy, healthy, and
(52:34):
I've been the luckiest guy in the world.
Speaker 6 (52:36):
Beautiful Coach. Thank you, buddy, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
Thank you all right, it's an honor to be with you.
And best of luck with the with the book. I yeah,
it's common sense. And to have the best writer and
one of the best coaches ever in the game combined.
I don't know who twisted who twisted the other guy's.
Speaker 4 (53:01):
Arm to do this.
Speaker 5 (53:02):
I think I approached Tommy for and then of course
he was on board, and during the pandemic we really
worked a lot on it and eventually came to fruition.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
As you imagined, Coach K.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
It didn't take a lot of arm twisting to have
the opportunity to get inside that mind.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
The most interesting man in baseball.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
A good man, good man.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Love you guys, Thanks coach, Thanks so much, coach be well.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Coached, Thank you all right, take care byebye.
Speaker 1 (53:28):
Well that was a pleasure, And Joe, your pressure's on
now to take us out with something to follow up
on all those pearls of wisdom from Coach K.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
So what do you have today?
Speaker 5 (53:39):
Yeah, I'm going with Coach K. My hunger is My
hunger is not for success. It is for excellence, because
when you attain excellence, success just naturally follows. I mean,
that's pretty much what I got out of this whole
conversation today. He's about doing things in an excellent manner,
consistently and again, never being in a hurry. And I
(54:00):
love the fact that he empowers those around him, he
doesn't try to preach. All that stuff resonated with me.
Speaker 4 (54:06):
Man.
Speaker 5 (54:07):
And again, when you get some when you got a
guy like that talking about things that validate kind of
some of your own personal philosophies, what could be better
than that?
Speaker 6 (54:14):
I really believe after.
Speaker 5 (54:16):
People coaches listen to this particular podcast, you're going to
walk away with the same kind of thoughts.
Speaker 6 (54:21):
Man. Coach K just validated one of my thoughts.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
It has to be absolutely on point, absolutely powerful stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Thanks to Coach K and thanks to you, Joe. See
you next time, all right, buddy, You take care man.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
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