9

Prospering from Pressure

The most asked question throughout the entire NCAA Tournament for my basketball players, as well as for me, was, “Can you feel the pressure?” We were the overall No. 1 seed. We were the favorite to win the championship, and with each round, as the other top seeds fell by the wayside, the pressure and expectations only increased. Did we feel the pressure? You better believe it. But we didn’t just feel the pressure—we loved it. As a coach, the pressure on our players was in many ways my best friend in the task of helping to prepare them for those tournament games, each with stakes higher than the one before. Pressure is not stress. Pressure, in fact, is little more than a tool we must use to reach our potential. So many times, getting the most out of our abilities is itself a by-product of the pressure we face to perform. I had no hesitation about putting pressure on our players. In fact, I gave them the stated goal, after we had lost for the fourth time in seven games in the five-overtime heartbreaker at Notre Dame, of going undefeated the rest of the way, all the way to the national championship. Did that put too much pressure on them? Yes, if you believe pressure brings about stress. We do not. We believe pressure is your ally. It forces you to concentrate and execute. It makes you mindful of the kind of effort you must put forth to reach your goals.

It was put so succinctly in an interview renowned journalist Lesley Visser did with Billie Jean King, who won twenty Wimbledon titles. Leslie asked if that pressure had ever gotten to her. King’s answer was awesome: “Pressure is a privilege, and one that should never be taken lightly.”

Pressure, in fact, can reveal greatness in you that you did not know you had. It is an extreme case, but I want to take some time to consider again the story of Kevin Ware. With 6:33 to play in the first half of our Midwest Regional Final against Duke, Ware faced one of the great crises of his life. He came down from a closeout and landed awkwardly on his right leg. I stood in front of him and watched him leave his feet. He came down and I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. It looked like something popped out of his leg. I bent down and extended my hand to help him up. My eyes then became as big as church bells. Kevin noticed what I was looking at and his eyes focused on what we both saw. He bellowed out, “Oh my God.” His bone was sticking about six inches out of his shin. Our players came over and as they saw, started crying and getting sick to their stomachs. Our equipment manager, Vinny Tatum, and trainer Fred Hina got to Kevin and both moved to put a towel over the exposed bone. While a lot of our guys were upset out on the court, Luke Hancock came to Kevin and took his hand and told him he was going to say a prayer for him. Shortly after was when Kevin’s exclamations went from shouts of shock to shouts of strength. He told me, “I’ll be fine, Coach. Just win the game.” Then he started saying it over and over. He was afraid his teammates weren’t hearing him. He asked if I’d get them over there. “I’m fine. Just win the game,” he repeated to them. Again and again he said it, stronger each time.

It was remarkable and became an international story. Of everything that transpired in college basketball last season, Kevin’s injury and response were the biggest story. And I say it that way for a reason. Lots of players sustain injuries, some of them even on television. But Kevin’s response, and the response of our players, showed such character and compassion that they captured the emotion and attention of the nation.

Pressure, in this circumstance, revealed something in all of us, but most of all in Kevin. Here’s a young man who early in the season was suspended. He was sullen, mistrustful of adults. And suddenly he experiences this one event, and the change is breathtaking. I’m not talking about phone calls and notes from celebrities. I’m talking about Kevin’s entire demeanor. He has become a gregarious person. The pressure of that powerful moment made him a man who has outgoing skills, who has a personality to communicate with a lot of people, from being on Letterman and delivering his lines flawlessly to going out and speaking—effectively—to groups of people. We didn’t know that was within him. He didn’t know he had all these talents. They were hidden. And they might not have come out, or would have taken longer to come out, if not for these events, and his courage in dealing with them. In that five-minute period, he witnessed a teammate praying over him, he saw the emotion of his teammates and coaches, and he suddenly felt that incredible love that a family has when someone is suffering, and it changed his whole personality. He went from a player who rarely looked coaches in the eye to one who was writing on Instagram about his love for his coach and his view of him as a father figure.

Kevin is proof to many people that you never know what you have within you until you put it to the test. And sometimes pressure is exactly what is required to put you to the test. I know many people will hear and accept this message, because many already have.

People all over the nation have written to Kevin. Old and young, wealthy and poor. He has received letters from people in prison and from those who have injuries similar to his. What is it that prompted such an outpouring? It wasn’t just the severity of the injury. It was the inspired nature of the response. I often wonder what would’ve happened had Luke Hancock not come alongside Kevin and prayed for him in that moment. Kevin himself gives Luke credit for settling him down, and in that moment, Kevin said, he realized he had a choice to make. He could think of himself and allow himself to be crushed by his misfortune, or he could think of his teammates and all they had worked for, and try to say something that would enable them to press toward their goal. Luke’s prayer didn’t heal Kevin in that moment, but you can’t deny that there was power in it, even if only in the act of a teammate kneeling down beside him to offer support. The calm it instilled in Kevin truly was life changing.

If you ever need proof of pressure revealing character, just look at Kevin Ware and what happened in the aftermath of his injury. Not only was there the Late Show, but he received a phone call from First Lady Michelle Obama. Many professional athletes in all sports reached out to him. He was invited as the guest of CNN to the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., where he got to hear the president deliver his annual roast of the media.

But it isn’t until you see some of the notes sent to him by people that you understand the power of his actions, and I believe, the power of this very subject; that is, the power of pressure or even misfortune to make us more than we were before.

Jonathan Espinoza Valencia, an eighth grader in New Castle, Colorado, wrote to Kevin, “You are like the older brother I never had and all of your teammates are like my brothers.… You are my hero and your injury inspires me just like it inspired your team to win it all.”

Jessica McGivern of West Deptford, New Jersey, wrote to him: “I’m writing to you to show how much of an inspiration you are to me. I recently just recovered from an injury, a ten percent tear to my Achilles’ tendon and a broken growth plate.… I also hurt myself during a playoff game, by an illegal pick. Just like your team, my team won it all, leaving a big smile on my face. I live by your quote, ‘A minor setback to a major comeback.’ It is getting me through all the excruciating hours of rehab.… I just wanted to say you are an inspiration to me.”

Mail bin after mail bin, stories came pouring into the basketball offices of people who saw Kevin’s injury and his response to it and were moved. The next time someone tells me, “Nobody sends cards and letters anymore,” I’ll tell them they need to look at Kevin Ware’s mail. There was a card from a woman in Lexington who had a horse fall on her leg, fracturing it in a dozen places. She sent encouragement with the news that she had recovered. He heard from Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine. And he heard from college athletics teams all over, from the Alaska-Anchorage athletic department to the Maryland lacrosse team.

So many children were moved to write to him. One, from Goshen, Kentucky, couldn’t yet write, so she drew him a picture and wrote her ABCs on a piece of paper. A woman in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was getting ready to watch the Wolverines play Syracuse in the Final Four when CBS ran a feature about Kevin. Her little daughter watching the telecast became interested and started asking questions about it. At around five o’clock, she started writing Kevin a note. The mother wrote one, too, just to let Kevin know how the story had made an impression on her little girl.

Justin Erpenbach of Elk Mound, Wisconsin, wrote to Kevin, “The way you fight every obstacle in your way has inspired me to try in sports 100 percent harder. The way you handled yourself in this incident absolutely amazes me and tells the world how good of a person you are and how good your character is. Also I was amazed at all the media attention you got, and how you handled it so well and were thanking everyone for caring about you.”

Brian Jaquette, a Duke fan with two degrees from the school, wrote, “I don’t think most people would be able to think, much less talk, while they were in as much pain as you must have been. But to tell your team to go out and win and not worry about you is just amazing. Even though you weren’t on the court, I’m sure your words did as much as any player to lead your team to victory. I want you to know that I will be rooting for Louisville at the Final Four and during your recovery.”

A young man named Mitchell Marcus sent Kevin a special message. Mitchell, a special needs student, was a student manager for four years at Coronado High School in El Paso, Texas, and before his last game as a senior, his coach surprised him by telling him to suit up. Late in the game, not only did his team do everything possible to allow him to score a basket, the opposing team finally saw what was happening and backed away to allow the special moment to happen. The video became a YouTube sensation and was seen all over the nation and world as an example of sportsmanship. Mitchell, in turn, wrote to Kevin, and told him he was praying for him.

I recount all of these letters, and all of these people, because I want to emphasize the importance of this lesson. Sometimes we see pressure as a nuisance. For Kevin, though he didn’t know it at the time, it was an opportunity. It was a vehicle for revealing something within him that may not have been revealed in any other way.

Kevin got a handwritten note from Mike Krzyzewski, and a letter from Bill Clinton, who, in handwriting in the lower margin, wrote, “You inspired the country.”

Marquette coach Buzz Williams sent Kevin a small card of the type he gives his own players. On it were the words: “It’s not hard to live through a day if you know how to live through a moment.”

That is true. So many of our players are proof that pressure can produce sterling results. When pressure strikes, don’t miss your moment. Pressure is not your opponent; it is your catalyst and friend.

In this book, I’ve told you about Luke Hancock responding to injury and adversity. But there are others. So many of our players were forged by the pressure of different difficulties or responsibilities in their youth. Peyton Siva’s father was absent for much of his childhood, and his siblings were in trouble. Somehow, Peyton lived in that world but was not of it. He went to Bible studies and dragged his friends along. When his friends were having hard times at home or school, Peyton would take them home with him. The stories of Peyton, at thirteen, driving the family’s car to find his father on the streets of Seattle and rescue him from a wayward life have been told often. For much of his childhood, Peyton felt the pressure of being the one in the family who held it together, and through that became, with Billy Donovan, one of the finest individuals I’ve ever coached.

You can go right down the line with our guys. Gorgui Dieng came to this country from Africa feeling the pressure to succeed for his father, his role model, who means the world to him. Chane Behanan has told the media that he feels like he might be the last hope for his family’s well-being, after growing up in poverty with one brother in jail. After his family’s home burned down, a grandmother decided Chane needed to leave that environment to move to Bowling Green with some family. When he did that, he also changed his commitment from Cincinnati to Louisville. Chane not only credits that with changing his life, but with saving it.

Wayne Blackshear had to battle back from injury. We had to hold him out for about a week of practice during his freshman season because the NCAA was still looking into his grades. When we went to the Final Four in Atlanta, he had the highest cumulative grade point average of any nonfreshman in the field, and won an NCAA award because of it.

During the Big East Tournament, Russ Smith was devastated when his high school coach, Jack Curran, of Archbishop Molloy in New York, passed away suddenly. He sobbed on our team bus, and struggled with the passing of a great man who understood him, saw the potential in him, and always believed in him. Right then, I told Russ he should dedicate the rest of his tournament to his old coach, and that’s what Russ did. He responded by scoring twenty-eight points in twenty-nine minutes that very night to lead us past Villanova in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals.

It was the beginning of our postseason run, a run that would not end until we cut down the nets in Atlanta. But we did not look like a championship team in the first half of our title game against Syracuse in Madison Square Garden. We fell behind by sixteen points, as many as we had trailed by all season, and were down thirteen at the half. I told our guys we were losing focus on our game. I asked, How did we prepare to attack their zone? They gave me the correct response. I came back with the statistic that we were shooting 29 percent and there was no attacking the middle with the pass or dribble penetration after ball movement. It was a road game, as the Garden is Syracuse’s second home court. So it was going to be difficult. I even left the players to themselves briefly, after asking them if this was how they planned to represent us, with the instruction to figure it out before they went back out onto the court. We left the locker room with a strong conviction that we would come back and take that last Big East trophy back to The ’Ville. We attacked the middle with a double high post. It gave us high-percentage shots that led to our full-court press bothering Syracuse into turnovers. After trailing by sixteen in the first half, we won the game by seventeen. We left NYC with a special feeling but no nets were cut down. And we had a special visitor in our locker room for a second straight year. President Bill Clinton thrilled our guys by taking pictures and congratulating them. We were headed full steam toward the NCAA Tournament, with all that pressure following us like a shadow.

In 2012, we traveled to Portland, Oregon, with about a hundred of our fans. This time it would be different. We headed eighty miles east of Louisville, to the home of the Kentucky Wildcats. Most places roll out the red carpet when they host the NCAA Tournament, complete with motorcycle troopers getting you to your destination and preventing any traffic problems. Not Lexington. We joked that our escorts not only would not turn on their police lights but they would slow down. The only time the lights would be on is when they escorted us out of town. That statement couldn’t be closer to the truth. We could sense the disdain for us with every forced hello. But we found it funny and laughed about it for a few days. Our hotel was full of professional people not getting caught up in the rivalry. It was great to see Rupp Arena full of Cardinal fans. I personally never have paid much attention to the rivalry on either side of the ledger. When coaching Kentucky, I just felt Louisville was another big game on our schedule. The same holds true as head coach at Louisville. UK is another tough game. Now, our fans do not subscribe to my beliefs. The rivalry was built with racial overtones. Louisville was the minority university, UK the white-dominated student body. But that was years ago. The rivalry today is not built on race—just pure hatred. That silliness is only for the deep-rooted majority. That small minority that I’m part of believes it is good for the state to have both teams exude excellence.

Our games in Lexington proved to me that our guys were dialed in. We approached North Carolina A&T with great respect and our defensive pressure was outstanding. Russ Smith grabbed an NCAA Tournament–record eight steals. Our second game, Colorado State, worried me to death. They were the best rebounding team in the NCAA Tournament field and had one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios. But our guys were completely attuned to the scouting report. We set a record for one of my teams, topping the seventy-deflection mark, in beating a very good team by twenty-six points. Larry Eustachy, coach of Colorado State, does a fantastic job with that program. He was also a good prognosticator. Tom Jurich, our athletic director at Louisville, was a college roommate and old friend of Eustachy’s. He said Larry came up to him after his press conference, patted him on the back, and said, “Buckle up.”

It was going to be some kind of ride. We left Lexington headed for the Sweet Sixteen with more pressure headed our way. But it was just great to have our ally grow larger. Our next opponent, Oregon, was a No. 12 seed, but I expected that team to test us in every way, from our press to our athleticism and depth. The Ducks would be able to match it all. Their guards were lightning-quick and gave us all we could handle. They were extremely well coached and ready for our defense. Frankly, we probably wouldn’t have won that game if we hadn’t had a player off the bench turn in the best game of his career—Kevin Ware. Kevin had been doing a great job defensively for us, but in this game they had no answer for his penetration to the basket. Kevin slashed for eleven points and they were all huge in a 77–69 win, our first single-digit win in nearly a month. All week, our team had been sick. We hacked and coughed our way through practices and the shootaround, and the game was no different. Nobody was sicker than Russ Smith, but nobody was better. He finished with thirty-one points and we were, for a second straight year, on the doorstep of the Final Four.

The time had come to replace a great memory in Indianapolis. Twenty-one years ago I was part of arguably the greatest NCAA game ever played. My Kentucky team lost to Duke 104–103 in overtime in a regional final, after our best player, Jamal Mashburn, fouled out in regulation. I never talked about that game in negative terms. It was an awesome display of offense by both teams. Duke went on to win a well-deserved national championship and the game itself has become more iconic with every passing year.

Before the game, I did something I do not usually do. I brought up the past. For the first time, I would return to that Duke-UK game in a pregame speech. I told our guys that the stakes were the same as twenty-one years ago, a bid to the Final Four, but that this time the Blue Devils would not be victorious. We had lost to Duke in the Bahamas back in November. We had been without Gorgui Dieng in that five-point loss, and after that game I had told our guys, “We’re going to see them again, and we will have Gorgui, and we will beat them.” I had been right about the first two things. Now we would see if I had been right about the outcome.

So much of what people remember of that game surrounds Kevin Ware’s injury that it might be one of our more overlooked performances of the season. We struggled in the aftermath of Kevin going down. Most of us don’t remember the final minutes of the first half. Our guys were in shock and I didn’t want them sitting around too much at halftime just thinking about it. We had played great basketball. From an assignment standpoint, we were truly on our game. I just told the guys, if we couldn’t get Kevin back home to Atlanta for the Final Four, then the season wouldn’t have been worth playing. There wasn’t much else to say.

The game was a dogfight at the first media timeout of the second half. We were tied at 42, and honestly, the scenario didn’t look good. Peyton Siva, Gorgui Dieng, and Wayne Blackshear all had three fouls. Our bench was shortened with the loss of Ware. Most teams in that situation, in a game of that magnitude, with that much pressure bearing down, would’ve wavered. Ours never did. We scored seven straight points, a Russ Smith drive and foul off a pick-and-roll, a jumper by Peyton, and a put-back by Chane. Coach Krzyzewski called timeout, but after having our balloon deflate, we were beginning to inflate again. After two Duke free throws, Peyton took over. He found Gorgui for a layup, then got a defensive rebound and went coast-to-coast to put us up nine. Duke never got any closer the rest of the game. In all, it was a 20–4 run, in what wound up being a twenty-two-point victory. It was the epitome of a team effort. Coach K was his usual class man in defeat. It’s a shame more coaches who brush by the victorious coach with a dead-fish handshake would not take note of Coach K and learn how to act in victory as well as defeat.

“I thought we had a chance there, and then boom,” Krzyzewski said. “And that’s what they do to teams. They can boom you. They, whatever, my vocabulary isn’t very good, but I hope you understand what I mean. It’s a positive thing for them. Not for us.… They were terrific today. We would have to play great to beat them today, and we were playing pretty well. And then, boom, there’s that. Now I’m going to say that for the rest of my life.” He’s not the only one. We’re going to be saying it around the University of Louisville for a while, too. After the championship, we printed up team posters with the words “Boom Boys” in large letters and Coach K’s quote at the bottom.

After the game on CBS, commentator Seth Davis said this: “So much for there being no dominant team in college basketball. That was a dominant performance.”

We were on our way to Atlanta, Kevin Ware’s hometown. Kevin would be on the trip with us, along with our old travel partner riding in the front seat—pressure.

After watching ten game films on Wichita State, I knew this would be our toughest opponent of the season. The Shockers had a deep and talented team that was holding opponents to 39 percent shooting from the field. I reiterated to our team that this game would not resemble Oregon or Duke. This game would be won by the team that defended its goal with the most intensity. Wichita State did not let you enter the lane without five people in your lap. The only time we would be able to get into the paint would be after quick ball and player movement. It would be tough without a backcourt substitute. We would have to call on our walk-on, Tim Henderson, to give us quality minutes. The last time I had put Tim into a game he ran to the scorer’s table and tripped and fell on his own towel. The game was the struggle we predicted. Points were difficult to come by against Wichita State’s defense. You could sense the nervousness from the large contingent of Louisville fans. Down twelve points with thirteen minutes left in the game, Luke drove and passed to none other than Tim Henderson in the right corner. I yelled to Tim to kill it, and he did. Down nine we got another stop and Russ penetrated and hit Tim Henderson again in the right corner. This time I said nothing. I didn’t want to push my luck. Tim let it go again and made it, and in doing that, changed the entire complexion of the game. In forty-two seconds, he had cut our deficit in half. As we look back, a little used walk-on saved the day and brought us to that one shining moment, the championship game.

Now pressure came to the forefront and loomed larger than ever. With an hour and a half devoted to the media on the Sunday before the game, the question was asked a dozen times: Would the season be a failure if we didn’t win the championship? Now, I’ve given the speech before about standing on the podium with silver medals around our necks after four years of hard work for our seniors. This Olympics comparison worked well for a team that was proud but having to settle for second place as someone else’s national anthem was being played. But the media was right. I’m not sure if we would have viewed the season as a failure if we had lost in the championship game, but the all-out pressure we faced going into it was of that magnitude, and we were ready to face it.

Michigan was another extremely well-coached team, and maybe as good a shooting team as I’ve seen. But I didn’t expect Spike Albrecht, a backcourt substitute averaging 1.7 points per game, to go for seventeen in the first half. I asked Russ Smith, who was telling his teammates before the game he was anxious to guard player of the year Trey Burke, if he minded forgetting about Trey and trying to guard a guy who was averaging less than two points a game. Down twelve once again, it was Luke Hancock time. With four straight threes from Luke, we charged back to take the lead briefly before trailing by only two at halftime. In the locker room, I told them I did not want to see Albrecht score again. We also talked about getting their bigs into difficult situations guarding pick-and-rolls. We would have our power forward, Chane Behanan, roam the baseline looking for rebounds and feeds for dunks.

Chane played his best game of the season. Gorgui played his best game of the season. Luke played his best game of the season. And Peyton played his best game of the season. And we needed every bit of it in a championship game for the ages, an 82–76 win that culminated in a Louisville celebration. Twenty-seven years had passed without Louisville winning a championship, and there were so many heroes in a beautifully played final game by both teams. College basketball needed a great championship game, and got it in a big way. Pressure had carried our team to excellence. And with the ghosts of the Duke game slimed forever, it was time for me to reflect.

Our championship is shared with every Louisville fan, in a city that totally knows how to celebrate. At some point, I was asked about one of my favorite moments. It was an easy answer.

After walking in to check on Kevin Ware at the hospital in Indianapolis, the surgeons met me in the lobby. They told me the surgery went well and he would make a full recovery in time. The next week would be important to make sure there was no infection from the bone having been exposed, but they were confident he was going to be all right. That’s all I needed to hear. As I look back as a teacher of basketball and life lessons to young athletes, the whole moment summed up much of what I strive for. You had genuine emotions on the part of players for each other. You had courage displayed by Kevin in telling his teammates to just win the game, and by the rest of our guys for overcoming their emotions and going out and getting the job done. You would’ve thought, after all those years since the greatest college game ever played, I would cherish a twenty-two-point victory like few others in my career. Instead, I cherish that moment, seeing those young men react to such a difficult situation with courage and character.

If there is pressure in your own life, don’t fight it. Let it be a force that propels you to a greater performance. Just recently I watched Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks in a press conference after a victory. He told the media that he doesn’t want pressure, but rather feels that enjoying the moment will be easier. He doesn’t realize the significance of pressure. He’s a great talent and when he embraces the pressure that comes with his talent he’ll become a better player with a better understanding of why he succeeds. I think about his statement, then about Michael Jordan, who put that pressure upon himself to be the greatest player in every game. That was his driving force. Melo needs to look at pressure as that driving influence.

Pressure should not be your enemy. Learn from it. Prepare, practice, and be ready to perform under the influence of pressure. It’s what drives you toward excellence. With the majority of our team back from a championship season, pressure will be there waiting for us when we return to practice in the fall. And we will be glad to greet it as an old friend.