“There's no clock in baseball. In basketball, you're always aware of the clock. You need to forget the clock.”
In today’s world, one of the hardest things to do is take a step back and let yourself rest. For much of the past decade, that has often felt impossible. Millennials especially know this pain, given that we entered adulthood into a recession and have constantly known stress and struggle from having to spend our 30s in the chaos that is Donald Trump’s era.
And for a lot of us, we’ve never learned to take time to rest and recover because we’ve kept pushing ourselves to the max.
I know that’s been the case for me, far too many times. I’ve pushed myself to the point of exhaustion because I’ve constantly believed in my ability to soldier through and get the job done no matter the cost.
And for the longest time, that was something I was able to do. It was also something I had to do, because journalists don’t make a lot of money and the hours are terrible. But eventually, not taking care of yourself is going to lead to problems.
And that leads me to Tom Butters and Mike Krzyzewski at Duke.
Tom Butters was the athletic director who hired Mike Krzyzewski in 1980 in Durham. These days, Krzyzewski might not have survived if he’d had the start he did. His first three Duke teams were mediocre to terrible, with his third team crashing to an 11-17 mark and a 43-point loss to Virginia in the ACC tournament.
And yet, Butters stood by Krzyzewski, and his patience paid off. His next eleven teams made the NCAA tournament, and from 1986 to 1992, he made the Final Four six times with two championships. Then in 1995, things fell apart.
Initially, Duke appeared fine. The Blue Devils weren’t loaded by any means, but they owned solid wins over Illinois and Michigan, who would make the NCAA tournament. The problem was that this Duke squad was a mentally fragile team that needed Krzyzewski’s best coaching job to succeed.
Instead, it got a ghost in clothes because Krzyzewski hadn’t taken enough time to rest his back after disc surgery. He had tried to push himself back to the court by telling himself that he wasn’t tired, and he was paying the price. The Blue Devils lost their ACC opener to Clemson, and that proved to be the last game that Krzyzewski would coach that season. Without its leader, Duke quickly dropped from a national power to 0-9 in the ACC.
That left Krzyzewski feeling like his team’s failure was entirely on him. Butters, however, wasn’t going to stand around and let Krzyzewski absorb all of the blame. Instead, he realized that his coach needed a mindset change.
This is where we need to dive into Butters’ past. Prior to starting his career at Duke, Butters had spent three years in the major leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a relief pitcher. Of course, baseball and basketball operate completely differently, and Butters felt that explaining that to Krzyzewski would help his coach stop trying to rush back to the job.
When Krzyzewski offered to resign, Butters told him that he needed to stop trying to save the current season and start focusing on getting himself better. At that point, Butters explained the differences in their approach. Specifically, he noted that he had never had to worry about a clock in his sport, whereas Krzyzewski always had.
From that night on, Krzyzewski stopped trying to get back and started trying to get better, and his health began to improve. The Blue Devils did not. Duke finished the year 13-18 and last place in the ACC. But two years later, the Blue Devils were back among the top teams in the ACC, and four years after that, Krzyzewski brought Duke its third national title.
If Butters doesn’t tell Krzyzewski to actually listen to his body and take the time off that he needs, that doesn’t happen. Krzyzewski is probably the best men’s college basketball coach of all time, but he wasn’t immune to the toll that stress and life can take on the human body. And as we get older, we have to understand that we aren’t either.
Taking Time to Rest
The biggest lesson from the game here is knowing when your body is telling you to slow down and let it recover. I’ve been guilty of ignoring its needs several times this year as I’ve navigated the stress of the year and a constantly changing work landscape.
Fortunately, I haven’t found myself quite as bad as Krzyzewski was. But I’ve still struggled to take any time for myself or listen to my body. And when it’s happened, I’ve found myself either mentally paralyzed or physically ill.
It’s no secret that things are tough for writers right now. With the current administration actively trying to break the economy, it’s tough for everyone.
And part of the problem is exactly that: if we keep pushing to the max, we’re going to burn ourselves out. Some might argue that is exactly what this administration wants. When you are burned out, even easy tasks can feel impossible. Your brain and your body are screaming at you to rest, but your mindset tells you that you can’t. But eventually, you’re going to have to because you’ll make yourself sick if you don’t.
When things get hard, try to take a minute to listen to your body and do what it’s telling you. When it comes to your physical and mental health, you need to forget about the clock.
Sometimes it’s hard to give ourselves permission to take a break, to rest, and to recharge! But without those things, burnout is just around the next corner! Nice post!! 😁