Postcards
Duke's Coach K on what makes a champion
December 9, 2011: 9:52 AM ET
Great leaders are made, not born.
Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski drilled that point home when he came to New York this week to accept Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year award. Speaking to an audience that included a few other champions--Chris Evert, Wayne Gretzky, Sugar Ray Leonard, and the University of Tennessee's Pat Summitt, who is SI's Sportswoman of the Year--Coach K told a story that explained who gave him what it takes to be great.
In the summer of 1992, when he was still in the glow of Duke winning back-to-back national championships, Krzyzewski was sitting on his porch in North Carolina with his wife, his three daughters and his mom. "Mike, why you?" his mother asked.
"What do you mean, Mom?" he replied.
"Why were you the one to win two national championships?" she said, in a way that only a mother could ask a man who was on his way to becoming the greatest coach in the history of men's college basketball.
"Mom, 'Why me' is you." Coach K explained. "I never thought I could lose because of you."
The best advice he ever got, he told his mother, was something she had said to him before he started high school. "You said to make sure that I only let good people on my bus.
"And if I ever get on someone else's bus, make sure to take it great places."
If you read business books, you may realize that another leadership evangelist named Jim Collins must have caught wind of the wisdom of Celestina Krzyzewski, a Mexican immigrant cleaning lady who bred the world-famous Coach K. To this day, after 40 years of coaching collegiate basketball, son Mike deploys Celestina's advice to breed his own champions. Coach K tells his Duke players: "I want you on my bus."
And as SI writer Alexander Wolff details in this week's cover story, Krzyzewski, who at age 64 has 907 Duke wins on his scoreboard, tells his players: "If you own the program, you know every person on the bus. Who cleans our locker room? Felipe does. Who cleans our practice facility? Stephanie does. Who cleans our offices? Celestina does."
Coach K is a natural storyteller. Celestina...Anyone who really knows the guy knows who he's talkin' about.
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Mark Zuckerberg tees off against Biz Stone....
Bill Gates plays Arnold Schwarzenegger.
These are among the 32 fantasy match-ups in the Fab Foursome Bracket Challenge, a new app that Golf Magazine launched on Facebook today.
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Patricia Sellers - Jun 13, 2011 3:01 PM ET -
Viral vitality: How a sports campaign saves lives
by Patricia Sellers
Elizabeth McKee Gore works at Ted Turner's UN Foundation and oversees Global Partnerships there.
She told me the cool story about creating Nothing But Nets five years ago. The UN Foundation wanted to help cure the world of malaria. Her bosses charged her to develop a strategy to build a public campaign.
She came up with a program called the UN Foundation Campaign to End Malaria. And she commissioned a MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 25, 2011 11:58 AM ETPosted in: Elizabeth Gore, media, philanthropy, Postcards, sports, sports illustrated, Ted Turner, Un Foundation -
Power Point: Go for the "W" over the "$"
"The only thing that means a lot to me is winning."
-- Tiger Woods, after missing just the fourth tournament cut of his career back in October, 2005. All was not lost though. Since fellow golfer Vijay Singh also missed the cut that weekend, Woods stole the PGA Tour money title back from him. The quote reveals the mindset that makes Woods, four years later, the $100 Million Man, landing him MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jul 1, 2009 6:07 PM ETPosted in: best advice, Golf, money list, Postcards, Power Point, sports, sports illustrated, Tiger Woods -
Global mentoring program kicks off in DC
I'm on the run in Washington, following meetings at the White House yesterday and a spectacular "Most Powerful Women Evening With..." dinner that Fortune hosted on Monday night in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the State Department. We had eight U.S. Senators with us--including our speakers, Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas--and scores of women leaders, a touch of royalty (HM Queen Noor, who is MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Apr 29, 2009 3:25 PM ETPosted in: Andrea Jung, Ann Moore, Anne Mulcahy, Avon, Barbara Boxer, Carly Fiorina, CEOs, Dina Powell, eBay, FORTUNE MPWomen, FORTUNE-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Ment, Hewlett-Packard, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, liz smith, Meg Whitman, Mentoring, Most Powerful Women, MPWomen Go Global, philanthropy, politics, Postcards, Queen Noor, sports illustrated, U.S. State Department, Ursula Burns, Washington, Washington D.C., Xerox
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Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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The Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership brings rising-star women from countries around the world to the U.S. for three-week mentorships with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them Ursula Burns of Xerox, Laura Lang of Time Inc., Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, and Tory Burch.
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