Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s reason for committing to another Olympics cycle with Team USA is pretty simple: he still sees himself coaching Duke basketball in three years, and he likes doing both. Hard to argue with.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski still finds fun in coaching Duke, Team USA
Coach K explained why he’ll continue to coach Duke and Team USA until he’s nearly a septuagenarian -- simply put, he still likes doing it.
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Krzyzewski had initially thought the 2012 Olympics would be his last. But then, his most recent Blue Devils team, which finished second in the ACC and went to the Elite Eight, happened, and as Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today wrote, he got the spirit for another go-around.
“I had a really great year with my Duke team. I loved my Duke team this past year,” he said. “Most of the time, I love my Duke team. But I got a little bit refreshed.“On the other hand, he found coaching Team USA somewhat stressful, especially dealing with players who had just finished playing in the NBA Finals and were being asked to quickly regroup mentally and physically. But his wife told him not to make the decision to retire when he was tired, and after reflecting, he opted to stay on.
Coach K says he’ll coach through at least 2015-16 with Duke, when he’ll be 69 years old, and he’ll also go for another Olympics. He reportedly never gave thought to continuing to coach the American team every summer while taking the rest of the year off, comparing it to going into battle without being “combat-ready.”
Krzyzewski has won 65 of 66 games since taking over as Team USA’s coach, the lone outlier a semifinal game in the 2006 World Championships against Greece. He said he found leaving the program “cold turkey” to be difficult, and eventually made the commitment for four more years on the sidelines. With an NCAA-record 957 wins and three more seasons at the helm, Krzyzewski will all but certainly become the first coach ever to win 1,000 college basketball games.
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