The Leadership Code by Paul “Whitey” Kapsalis

Author:Paul “Whitey” Kapsalis
Language: deu
Format: epub
Publisher: Meyer & Meyer
Published: 2017-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Another person who clearly understands this leadership stuff is Coach K at Duke. For those unfamiliar with his story, Mike Krzyzewski was born in 1947 in Chicago to a father who was an elevator operator and a mother who worked as a cleaning lady. He shared a two-story home with extended family in a working-class Polish neighborhood on the city’s north side, and he was an outstanding athlete, especially in basketball.

So outstanding that he was offered a scholarship to West Point by a fiery young coach named Bobby Knight. Mike was team captain and later worked as an assistant coach to Coach Knight at Indiana University. In 1975, Coach K started his college head coaching career at his alma mater, West Point, before taking the Duke University job in 1980.

Since then, things have gone pretty well for Duke Basketball and Coach K.

Duke men’s teams have won five national championships. In addition, Coach K has won six gold medals leading the USA Men’s National Team.

Entering the 2016-17 season, he had won 1,043 games and lost 321, including a 970-262 record at Duke.

He has received National Coach of the Year honors 12 times.

Among players who’ve completed four years of eligibility at Duke, 98 percent have graduated.

In addition, he and his family are extremely active in the community, especially in campaigns against drunk driving and drug abuse. Among other efforts, Coach K and his wife, Mickie, have served as co-chairs of a telethon that raises money for Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center.

In his spare time, he’s written several books on the topic of leadership, all of which are illuminating.

For me, one of the most powerful is Leading With the Heart: Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life, published in 2000 by Warner Books. It’s full of thoughtful nuggets such as encouraging other teammates to mentor younger teammates; setting goals that focus more on strengthening the team than on personal achievement; confronting simply means meeting the truth head on; if one of us isn’t doing well, none of us is doing well; the worse the crisis, the more people tend to act as individuals rather than as members of a team; learning your limits then trying to extend them; when you’re a leader, somebody somewhere will be trying to take you down; remembering to enjoy the moment and the achievement; and making time for building, nurturing, and sustaining relationships.

I got a taste of this legend over a fairly intense five days in 2010 when a friend, Bob Woerner, and I volunteered as site coordinators for Indiana Sports Corporation. The non-profit Sports Corp promotes Indianapolis as host of sporting events across a wide spectrum from 18 Olympic team trials and the 1987 Pan American Games to six Big Ten football championships and seven NCAA Men’s Final Fours.

Bob and I were assigned to host Duke’s basketball team at Lucas Oil Stadium. I’ve had the privilege of being a site coordinator to many, many college basketball coaches and their teams as they rolled through Indianapolis for Big Ten Conference tournaments, NCAA Regionals, and all Final Fours.

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