As the brief snippets from Coach K's videos in The Bear season 2 hint, Sydney learns through his books and lectures that in times of extreme pressure, a team should continue grinding while keeping composure. She also absorbs that true leadership comes from failing and understanding what may or may not work. Out of all the lessons from the book, the one that seemingly holds the most importance in Sydney's arc is Coach K's emphasis on being a good listener and thoughtful communicator. In The Bear season 2's finale, when they finally open their restaurant, Sydney's efforts into honing her leadership skills through Coach K's lessons finally pay off. Ian O'Connor's book covers Coach K basically from birth through his announcement that this is his last season. I've stayed up late, exhausted, and pushed myself to finish it before the game tonight. The book isn't very good and if Duke loses tonight it would have been anticlimactic to keep going yet I probably wouldn't have DNF'd it, still hoping for some fascinating revelation which would never come. Coach K" glosses over the last 15 years or so of Krzyzewski's career at Duke. By that time, Coach K had largely walled himself from access to anyone outside his family and close circle of friends, leaving O'Connor to repeat what is generally available from public reportage. Of greater interest to O'Connor is Coach K's tenure as Olympic basketball coach from 2006 to 2016. While he credits K with masterful handling of NBA superstar personalities, he also gives voice to critics who claim that Krzyzewski used the Olympic position to help recruiting. O'Connor fails to note that there was a significant downturn in Duke recruiting for the first four years of K's Olympic tenure.

Book: Coach K chose Scheyer over Amaker - ESPN Book: Coach K chose Scheyer over Amaker - ESPN

I skipped the Sweet Sixteen -- March 24, for Duke -- and they won but still it was a dumb mistake. Traveling. I thought the book did a good job balancing K's strengths and flaws. It neither felt like a hatchet job nor a PR piece. You get to see how loyal and thoughtful K could be, reaching out to people he barely knows in their time of greatest need. You also got to see how his competitive fire could make him petty and temperamental. The second time I typed it, the time when I mentioned O'Connors inclusion of misspellings of Coach K's name, I spelled it wrong. Flagrant. Meh. I wanted to read this book because of the reported allegations surrounding the conversations Coach K had with Tommy Amaker regarding Jon Scheyer's succeeding Coach K as the head basketball coach at Duke. So, I spent the money, read the book, and regretted it. O’Connor dives deep, digging through extant sources as well as conducting his own interviews with scores upon scores of people with close connections to Coach K. The result is a fascinating portrait of sporting greatness, a long look at a man who ascended to the heights of his profession. A man who, for all his flaws, would prove to be a beloved figure in the history of his sport.

Mike had to explain to Tommy why he couldn't be the guy," one Duke source said, according to the book. "He can be Don Corleone when he needs to be." Eventually, Amaker decided not to take the job. Someone close to him, O'Connor writes, said he was "heartbroken" not to get the job. Scheyer was eventually announced as the successor. Coach K" is a workman-like account of Mike Krzyzewski's career, timed to cash in on his imminent retirement. O'Connor draws heavily from real-time reportage as well as interviews with Coach K's friends, players, assistant coaches, opposing coaches, and unnamed sources, the latter who tend to predominate the end of the book. (Coach K did not participate, though he did not discourage people from talking to O'Connor.) It appears that O'Connor had particularly good access to Krzyzewski's inner circle prior to his Duke days because he provides a fairly vivid and rounded account of Coach K's life up to 1980, the year he took over at Duke.

Coach K – HarperCollins Coach K – HarperCollins

After West Point, he was eventually sent to South Korea as an artillery liaison officer in the Second Infantry Division and commander of the recreational compound. O'Connor's assessment of Coach K's coaching ability is somewhat blinkered. Time and again, he says that Coach K is not considered a strategic genius, the type of person who can draw up a play when the team needs a last second basket. Yet, he provides at least two examples, where Coach K-designed plays provided the winning shot that sent Duke into the Final Four. (As an aside, who are these coaching savants who can come up with last second sure-fire scoring? O'Connor never says.) For me, the stuff on Bobby Knight was the most fascinating. One former Army player of Knight's is quoted as saying Airborne Ranger School doesn't compare to a Bobby Knight preseason practice. The book presents Knight in all his complicated glory: abusive, tyrannical, petty, compassionate, great teacher, integrity. All of these attributes come to play in Krzyzewski's up-and-down relationship with his mentor. Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski is an excellent read for hard-core college hoops fans. Like me. Hero to some and arch-nemesis to others, all can agree that Krzyzewski was great. And according to this book, he has mastered everything he tried. Except swimming. (Read it and see.)The author writes about Krzyzewski’s temper and profanity, and that in defeat he was at times unpleasant to be around. He states that Krzyzewski at times had trouble saying he was sorry. The book, "Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski," chronicles the fabled career of the Duke men's basketball coach, who is retiring after 42 seasons and five NCAA national championships. He announced that this would be his last season on June 2, 2021 -- with Scheyer named his successor the same day. This book read more like a repeat of everything I'd ever read about Duke Basketball, and as it turns out, I had indeed read most everything in this book in previously published material. The author relied heavily on previously published material in writing this book. When he wasn't using rehashed material, the author relied on anonymous sources, innuendo, and passive voice. There were factual errors, too. In writing about the 1996 team, O'Connor wrote, "Duke lost in the first round of the NCAAs for the first time since 1955, and yet this would go down as one of Krzyzewski’s most important teams ever." (The 1984 team says, "Hi, Ian!" On March 18, 1984, Duke lost to Washington by a score of 78 to 80 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at Beasley Arena in Pullman, Washington. Duke finished that season 24–10. I remember these things, and these facts were easily verifiable with a simple Google search.) This is cool: I realized from the tales of Coach K’s West Point squads that I actually saw Coach K’s first Army team play. Army came to Knoxville, Tennessee for the old Volunteer Classic tournament. I remember that tournament well. The good news is that I got to see a legendary coach do his thing long before he became a legend. The bad news is that since this game was played forty-five years ago, I am therefore old.

Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski - Kindle

Both Scheyer and Amaker played for Krzyzewski -- Amaker from 1982 to '87 and Scheyer from 2006 to '2010. Amaker was an assistant coach at Duke for nine seasons, but left for a head-coaching job at Seton Hall in 1997 at age 31. He went on to coach at Michigan and has been the head coach at Harvard since 2007. Scheyer has been an assistant coach at Duke since 2013 and was promoted to associate head coach after the 2018 season. Coach K book Courtesy of Mariner Books I gained a lot of respect for Coach after reading another book and this one based on his relationship Jim Valvano and Dean Smith even though when they coached against each other during their time in the ACC and really was moving reading about how he was with Jimmy V right up to the end of his life. on the record and a few here and there that perhaps weren't, this is for you. For me, reading it often was more like reading an encyclopedia than a biography. It was not worth my time, which is unfortunately very limited right now though that will change soon. I'll definitely seek out the updated chapter on Duke's 2021-22 basketball season once it's published. There is a staggering amount of reportage at work here, so many details from every aspect of the Coach K story. We hear from his old buddies from the neighborhood. We hear from guys he played with at West Point, as well as guys who played for him. We get the lowdown from Blue Devils across generations – players, coaches, administrators, you name it. All of it focused on this singular guy who, through sheer force of will and a masterful grasp of motivation, turned himself into the winningest DI coach to ever sit on the bench.This book by Ian O’Connor (I had previously read his book "The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter"), looks at the life and career of former Duke Men’s basketball coach Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski from his growing up in Chicago through the announcement of his retirement before his 42nd and final season (2021-22). Although Krzyzewski did not agree to be interviewed for the project, he also did not discourage those closest to him from speaking with the author for this well researched book. Overall, I felt that the book was a balanced look at Krzyzewski, who I have always appreciated being successful while running a clean program. The author writes of allegations of Duke getting an unfair advantage in recruiting the best high school players because of Krzyzewski’s coaching of Team USA, for whom he won eighty-eight of eighty-nine games. O'Connor's writing here is often one-note. Mostly what he's done here is collate information. Almost all of it is from other sources, is public knowledge and/or common sense. There's too much about Coach K as a student at West Point playing for Army and too many details about life at West Point (more than at Duke). Do you want to know the math book most students dreaded? In here along with more minutiae. One thing surprised me, because I was a child when Krzyzewski played for West Point: during the Vietnam War some crowds chanted "baby killers!" at the team.