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Coach K Describes Faith and Family as Foundational for His Leadership

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Watch or listen to a recording of “Faith, Sports, and Leadership” with Mike Krzyzewski:

Speaking to an audience that filled the pews of Duke Chapel, Hall of Fame basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said the foundation for his career as the winningest men’s college basketball coach and a three-time Olympic gold medal winner was a combination of faith and family.

A wide-angle interior shot of a packed chapel shows two men seated in armchairs facing each other across a small table, speaking to a large audience. The men are sitting on a raised platform near the front, with the backs of their heads to the camera. The audience fills the pews stretching down the long central aisle. 
The audience filled the pews of Duke Chapel. 

“When I go and speak to companies all over the country, they ask about keeping balance, and I say there are two F’s,” Krzyzewski said on October 9 in a public conversation with Duke Chapel Dean Luke Powery. “My two Fs were ‘Family’—my wife and three daughters and ten grandchildren, my mom, my dad—we are a close-knit family, and ‘Faith.’”

“Faith has been with me my whole life,” Krzyzewski said at the event titled “Faith, Sports, and Leadership.” “I believe in God. My path in that belief was the Catholic faith. It’s been a strong part of who I am.”

“I was never alone,” said Krzyzewski, the head coach of the Duke men’s basketball from 1980 to 2022, whose teams won five National Championships. “One thing about faith is you are never alone.”

Watch a recording of the event:

Krzyzewski was speaking at the Chapel’s fourth annual William Preston Few Lecture with more than 600 people in attendance and an additional 520 watching live online. The lecture series is named in honor of Duke’s first president.

A close-up shot of two men seated in armchairs on a stage. On the left, Mike Krzyzewski wears a dark suit, pink shirt, and gestures with his hands while speaking. He is seated next to Duke Chapel Dean Luke Powery in a light gray suit and blue shirt. They are separated by a small table draped with a blue banner featuring the Duke University Chapel logo. The background is a wall of intricate, dark wood paneling. The heads of the audience are visible and blurred in the immediate foreground.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski (left) and Dean Luke Powery in conversation.

“President Few articulated a vision of education promoting the courage to seek the truth and the conviction to live it,” Dean Powery said at the start of the discussion. “This evening, we have an opportunity to pursue that vision with a Duke icon and an incredibly accomplished leader, Coach K, who can prompt us to examine what we believe and how we are called to lead.”

In her remarks to open the event, Duke senior Olivia Martin, a member of the Duke women’s basketball team, said her faith has given her a sense of purpose while at Duke.

“It has also led me to pursue my passion for becoming a leader of consequence as an undergraduate scholar with the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, where I have been fortunate to work alongside and learn from some truly inspirational leaders and mentors,” she said. “It is my distinct honor to introduce some of those leaders here tonight.”

A full-body vertical portrait of three people standing side-by-side against a dark wood-paneled wall. On the left is a man in a light gray suit. In the middle is a young woman in a long, strapless, purple dress with a pink floral print and a white shrug. On the right is former basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, smiling and wearing a dark blue suit and a pink shirt.
Senior Olivia Martin, center, introduced the event's speakers.

In his five decades as a coach, Krzyzewski earned an impressive list of honors, including Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year, National Coach of the Year (twelve times), and USA Basketball National Coach of the Year Award (seven times). He has been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball, FIBA, National Collegiate Basketball, and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Halls of Fame. Off the court, he has been active in charitable and educational efforts as a board member of the V Foundation, co-founder of the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, and board chair of the Emily Krzyzewski Center in Durham.

Throughout the eighty-minute discussion at Duke Chapel, Krzyzewski interspersed life lessons with stories from his days as a player and coach.

As a player at the United States Military Academy (West Point), he learned from coach Bob Knight that it’s not enough just to want to win.

“He would say the will to prepare to win is more important than the will to win,” Krzyzewski said. “My entire coaching career, I tried to have both wills—the will to prepare and the will to win. I call it, ‘being worthy of winning.’”

As a coach at Duke, Krzyzewski said his teams would pray the Lord’s Prayer before games, and, separately, he would pray for a deceased loved one or sick family member using the Catholic practice of praying with rosary beads.

“During the game, if I had a moment of weakness,… I would use that person's name as a mantra,” he said. “That would help me.”

A wide shot from the back of the cathedral of a large audience filling the pews for the William Preston Few Lecture. Two men, including Mike Krzyzewski, are seated in armchairs on a stage at the front of the sanctuary, with a blue table between them. The chapel's interior is brightly lit, showcasing the high vaulted ceiling, rows of hanging lamps, and the ornate wooden reredos in the chancel. A large stained-glass window is visible above the reredos.
The lecture was held in the format of a public conversation.

As the head coach of the US National Basketball Team, Krzyzewski had the challenge of melding a group of individually talented NBA stars into a cohesive unit.

“The most important speed that I worked on when I coached … was the speed to trust—how quickly will you trust me?” he said. “You can beat people by trusting one another … but if you don’t have it, then someone with a little bit less talent can beat you because they have it.”

In response to a question from Dean Powery about the similarities between coaches and chaplains, Krzyzewski said both roles involve developing relationships with young people as they go through the highs and lows of becoming adults. He said those mentor relationships are even more important in an age of social media.

“We try to always tell our players, ‘Let's listen to one voice, our voice,’” he said. “If you have to depend on these other voices [on social media], it’s not going to be good. It's going to be a roller coaster…. Our voice is going to stay up here—'We got your back. We love you.’”

Krzyzewski closed with advice he received from his late mother Emily, who received an eighth-grade education and worked as a cleaning lady.

“The night before I went to high school, in the inner city of Chicago,… she said, ‘Michael, Sit down. Tomorrow, make sure you are on the right bus,’” he said about his mother’s metaphor for the company he would keep in life. “Only let good people on your bus. And only get on the bus of good people."

“She was fully committed to me and my brother,” he said about his mother for whom the Emily K Center in Durham is named. “God bless that woman, and God bless all of you.”

A side-angle photo shows a large, diverse crowd of people seated in the pews of Duke Chapel, looking forward and smiling. Many people are clapping. The background features high stone columns and tall, arched windows with vibrant stained glass.
Audience members respond to the discussion.

The audience responded with a standing ovation.

Sophomore Luke Tasker, who is a member of Duke’s ROTC program, was in the audience. “I'm from a really small town with a Catholic faith, so to see somebody speaking out about sports and how he ties it in his life was a really big moment for me,” Tasker said. “Hearing him talk about all the values that we learn in the military was really cool.”

Local resident DeMario Hubbard was wearing a Duke shirt and hat. “Just listening to him talk about ‘The Four A's’ put a whole different perspective on things,” Hubbard said about Krzyzewski’s Four A’s for leadership—agility, adaptability, accountability, and attitude.

Meredith Sims is a student at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and also a Duke Chapel Scholar and athlete on the track team. “His stories of winning gold medals the right way really stuck with me,” Sims said. “He tried to do it with humility and service and leadership and an emphasis on talent with character.”

What stood out to Arri Graham, a Divinity student and Chapel Scholar, was Krzyzewski’s story about a key moment in the 2008 Olympic championship game when he allowed his players to take over the game plan. “I like that he stepped back and allowed them to have that moment because I think that being in a leadership position is knowing when to speak up and when to step back,” she said. “It shows a relationship built on mutuality and reciprocity.”

Divinity student and Chapel Scholar Abigail Gilmer said she was left with questions about Krzyzewski’s emphasis on having a positive attitude. “I wish he would have elaborated more on how positive attitudes lead to treating other people better,” Gilmer said. “I would have liked to hear him also speak about when there's a place for a negative attitude.”

Bradley Bowen is a senior, a Chapel Scholar, and a member of the Duke Chapel Choir. “I really enjoyed the opportunity to see, especially here at Duke, how faith and learning can go together, especially in a high-pressure environment, as Coach K was in, in the national championship games and coaching the U.S. Olympics team,” Bowen said, “and seeing how his faith played a really integral role in his coaching and in his time outside of his professional life.”

Campus co-sponsors of the event were Duke Athletics, the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, Duke Divinity School, Duke Catholic Center, and Fons Vitae.

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