Coach K,Duke, Getting On the Right Bus

We are about to enter March Madness. As a Dukie, this sometimes puts me in an awkward position when Duke is playing NC State, Vicki’s university. The first ACC basketball game I saw was at Reynolds Coliseum on State’s campus. The fans were crazy about their teams. Recently, I discovered the secret to Coach K’s enormous success as a basketball coach at Duke. It starts with his mother.

Coach K grew up in a poor working-class family on Chicago’s North Side. His mother worked as a cleaning lady at the Chicago Athletic Club scrubbing floors.

The night before Mike K. was going to his first day of high school, his mother told Michael that she wanted to make sure that he got on the right bus. He responded that he knew the city well. He was a 14-year-old wise guy. She told him that it wasn’t that bus that she was talking about. “I am talking about the bus you will be driving for the rest of your life.” You should only put good people on that bus and make sure that it’s being driven by a good person because you will never accomplish what you want by doing it alone, but you will do so much more good work by doing it with good people.”

Coach K has lived his life narrative with that story from his mother who scrubbed floors.

He is a legend. What I also learned is the things that he did like visiting the daughter of someone because she had cancer and he wanted to help. He went out of the way to help people without any recognition. There are many stories like that. He followed my belief that the measure of a person is what they do when no one is looking. Mike already had the label of a legend because of the work that he did as a basketball coach that the whole basketball community could see.

So, why did this story come alive for me? A few weeks ago, I was seated at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Wayne for a pre- Lenten pancake breakfast in an all-purpose room. It is a large parish. I didn’t know most of the people who were gathered for this tradition. I had never met the people who sat at our circular table. We went around the table and introduced ourselves. When we finished the introductions, a woman in her early sixties, looked me in the eyes from across the table and said so all could hear, “You know you are a legend!” It was hard for me to find the right words after that. I simply thanked her for her kind words. She was not part of the EA community, and it would have made matters worse to say, “How do you come to know anything about me?” I didn’t know the context and still don’t.

I immediately thought of Coach K’s mother who scrubbed floors and her words to him about getting on the right bus with good people and good bus drivers. That has certainly been true for my life. In high school I surrounded myself with good people for my bus. I got the opportunity to drive it as president of the class and valedictorian of the school. My friends and teachers paid a large part in helping me to achieve that honor. The same was true for my many years of education culminating at Duke and Duke Medical Center. I was taught by good people and led by them as well and surrounded by good people as fellow students, teachers at the university and the medical center.

I began my ministry in the Episcopal Church associated with a parish adjacent to Swarthmore College with leaders at the college and parishioners in the parish who challenged me to be the best that I could be. They were good people. Recently deceased Jay Crawford, a former Head of School, who brought me to EA was the very definition of a legend who showed me what leadership should be about, and I learned much from him. The people at EA were good people who wanted the best education for their children and embraced the values of the school. The students lived those values as well and were ingrained with them for the rest of their lives. Vicki and my family and their spouses really are a light to the world. They are good people.

But there is more and I know that Coach K would agree. I always saw myself as a leader/ coach. Coach K and I didn’t win games or produce chapel services with the elected students in charge of worship. The players or the people who surround us are the winners and that is where the accolades should be placed. There is the adage that “there is nothing that you can’t accomplish if you don’t need to get the credit.”

The irony is that if your goal is to become a legend, you and the people on your bus will never do anything of any note. In fact, the opposite is true. Just look at Trump and the people he has on his bus as we went to war because he had a feeling, and he will end the war when he has a feeling in his bones. Young men and women died, and he dismisses that as “it happens in war.”

I have had too many memorial services since retiring from EA. There are times after the services when my former students come up to me and some say, “When I hear your voice, I feel safe.” That’s really all I need. I will take that any day instead of being called a legend.