David Teel has a very nice column up on the impact Coach K has had on the Olympic team. He brings a lot to the table: basic coaching acumen, time management skills, leadership and so forth - but what a lot of people don't understand from a distance is that he has remarkable people skills. A Duke psychologist put it best several years ago when he said (roughly anyway) "Duke doesn't need a sports psychologist. They already have the best one."
To us, one of the most brilliant moves this time around was having the players not just meet combat soldiers but that the combat soldiers embraced them and gave them patches.
It's overplayed sometimes, but we all know that NBA players have enormous egos. When you think about what those soldiers have dealt with, though, even the biggest ego has to be somewhat humbled. And in a literal sense, they included the team in something bigger than themselves which, after all, is one of Krzyzewski's biggest and most consistent messages.