Great Podcast!
Originally Posted by
duketaylor
That was a great 32 minute listen!!
DBR mates, I also found this podcast to be highly informative, engaging and encouraging. Charles talked about his admiration for four coaches: John Thompson, John Cheney, Dean Smith and Coach K. He praised all four coaches for their shared primary goal: growing great young men. Charles also warmly thanked Coach for his friendship all through the years. How many such good friends does Coach K have?
K made clear that it wasn't the past year's difficulties, or the current state of the game, that led to his decision. He strongly believes in succession planning and is appreciative of Duke's supporting his plan. He wants to spend more time with his extended family and to move on to other activities. And he didn't want to mislead recruits.
K talked about the NCAA's bureaucratic inwardness, reactivity and ineptitude. Clearly, he has been fed up for decades. Recently, all the top coaches who regularly gather for discussions asked the NCAA for permission to extend the current eight hours per week allotted to basketball [four hours in the weight room, four on the court] to 12 hours. All of the players involved wanted this extra time. They have a lot of time before school starts and they are eager to get to know their teammates. NCAA turned down the request. As K said, this was a slam dunk, and still we couldn't get it passed.
But most of the podcast is positive and enjoyable to listen to. The affectionate, good-natured bantering among Charles, Ernie and K provides a nice interlude, given so much other heavy, not so positive, stuff going on.
“I love it. Coach, when we came here, we had a three-hour meeting about the core values. If you really represent the core values, it means diving on the floor, sacrificing your body for your teammates, no matter how much you’re up by or how much you’re down by, always playing hard.” -- Zion