Coach K On Rules

He went into the locker room with his first USA team and said, look guys, you’re not college players so I’m not gonna tell you the rules. Freshmen come into Duke, here’s the rules. But we do need a set of rules, so you guys tell me. So he pulled out a whiteboard and said, “OK, who’s got a rule?” And one of them, Jason Kidd, said, “I think it should be defense first.” And Mike said, “Does everybody agree?” Because he said, “Let’s agree on what the rules are. So, everybody agree? OK, defense first.” And then he asked somebody else.

He’s looking at LeBron, I think it was, and he says, “LeBron, you’re not saying anything. Don’t you have a rule?” And LeBron stood up and he says, “I say, no F-ing excuses!” And he looked at everybody and said, “Everybody agree with that?” Yes. So he (flipped) the whole board over, and then in big writing put NO F-ING EXCUSES. But he just realized that with a group of professional all-stars, they have to be the ones to say, “This is how we’re going to manage ourselves.”