Coach K's Body Language Lesson

A former Duke basketball player shares a story about how Coach K taught him an important lesson about leadership through body language.

"When I first got here, I thought I was hot stuff. Coach K would be yelling at me, yelling at me, and I didn't know what to do. Later on, I realized that once he stops yelling at you, that's when it's bad because he's given up on you.

Some practices, he just sat there and wouldn't say anything the whole practice. You'd think 'Oh man, he's checked out, he doesn't care right now.' But then 3 weeks later, he would reference something that he was observing that day.

One day, he took me into this secret film room next to the practice gym. I hadn't been playing well, and when I went in there, all these screens had pictures of me - various pictures of me all doing the same pose where I'm just standing there with my hands out, exasperated, mad at the ref or my teammates or the coaches.

He said, 'Look at this son. You're one of the leaders of this team. You look like a beggar. You're standing there with your palms out begging for a call from the referee, begging for the coaches to help you, begging for your teammates to do something. You're a leader - I don't ever want to see you look like a beggar again. Don't do that, this is not the body language of a leader.'

For the rest of the season, if something happened, I had a totally different pose. You'd never catch me doing that pose again."