Coach K's achievement is model of adaptability, flexibility and excellence
Mike Krzyzewski will accumulate 1,000 career victories in a matter of days, perhaps as early as Sunday.
It's an astounding accomplishment — one that comes along with 40 years as a Division I head coach — and it's impressive even to peers that have piled up hundreds and hundreds of wins themselves.
So, what's the secret to longevity in this profession? How can coaches stick around long enough (and win enough) to get to this point? USA TODAY Sports posed these questions to some of the sport's most successful coaches.
"You can be flippant and half in jest, and say, 'Great bosses and great players.' And there are great bosses and very good players," said North Carolina coach Roy Williams, who has 739 career victories. "There is some truth to that, but that belittles the accomplishment to me, and I don't want to do that. What it is, is a tremendous ability to get people to focus on a common goal, and every three, four, five or 10 years, that group of people changes drastically because the culture changes. Your job is to again get 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-year-olds to focus and make sacrifices toward a common goal that is a team-oriented goal.
"When you do it over such a long period of time, you have to change quite a bit. You don't have to change your core beliefs, but you have to change with the times. … To me, longevity means that person, like Mike Krzyzewski for example, has been able to withstand so many changes in his entire world."
Williams described the current culture surrounding the game as one of entitlement and high expectations. He said when he first began coaching, kids were "thrilled to get a scholarship offer; now, kids just treat it as the old Western guys, another notch on their gun." Williams said he's had recruits appear grateful for a scholarship offer, only to turn around the next day and commit somewhere else.
Managing that environment, along with egos of players who all seem to think they're one-and-done, is what's required for coaches to survive and thrive in the game's current climate. To Williams, the key to longevity is adaptability.
Along with that comes flexibility.
"Old guys like us, we never change," said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who's at 962 career wins. "The thing that's never changed is (Krzyzewski) is very flexible."
Boeheim's prime example is an obvious one. A week ago, after two poor defensive outings (and Duke's first two losses of the season), Krzyzewski abandoned his iconic man-to-man defense to play zone. The result? A dominant 63-52 win at Louisville.
"He'll do what is necessary," said Boeheim, who's worked with Krzyzewski a great deal over the years with USA Basketball. "(Zone) hasn't been what is necessary for him, yet this year it's been very helpful for him. I think it shows one of the characteristics he has, that is underrated and people don't talk about. He's very flexible, and he'll listen to other people and other ideas. He's very open to that."
Reading between the lines, what Boeheim is describing is a coach that's constantly trying to improve, a coach that's not content to simply do what he's done in the past.
"Excellence is not by accident; it's by design," said former Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, who retired after accumulating 866 career victories. "That's showing up every day as a coach."
What stood out most to Calhoun was that more than 900 of Krzyzewki's wins came at Duke. Though Krzyzewski began his career at Army — Calhoun began at Northeastern before UConn — the majority of his victories came all at one place.
"(Longevity and being at the same school) go hand-in-hand to some degree," Calhoun said. "What it allows you to do is become so integrated with the culture. The university becomes part of you. When I think of Mike, I think of Duke. I think a lot of people thought of me being here 26 years, me being UConn. They associate the two, and you do, too. It allows you to keep building. I never through I'd leave here, to put it simply. I never thought I would. I think Mike feels the same way.
"No one ever asked, or at least they haven't for many years, how much longer Mike Krzyzewski was going to be at Duke."
Nowadays, there aren't questions about Krzyzewski receiving other coaching offers. It's about an inevitable march toward retirement, which might be after another 100 or 200 wins. No one knows just yet. But one thing is clear: Whatever and however Krzyzewski has done this, it's worked.
"With Mike, he's found a place that's right for him; I found a place that's good for me," Boeheim said. "If you can find that, then you can stay. A lot of coaches have had to make a move or two to get where it's a good place for them. A few of us, the older guys at least, we're more traditional. You kind of settle in and stay. Now, there's either a pull to the NBA or a pull to one more job. It's more difficult to get 'em all in one place. I think that's unusual. It's still, I think, hard to do that year after year, and be consistent year after year. He's been able to do that with very, very few glitches."
Follow Nicole Auerbach on Twitter @NicoleAuerbach.
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