Jay Bilas knows he has a great job. ESPN’s lead college basketball analyst says the only part of his job that he considers to be work is the travel.
Even so, Bilas gained a bit of insight from his former college coach, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, a few years ago when Krzyzewski was coaching the USA Basketball men’s team.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski told Team USA to savor the moment.getty images
That summer, Bilas was in Las Vegas where Team USA was training, and Krzyzewski invited him to a team meeting. He sat in the back while Coach K addressed a roomful of the world’s greatest players.
“At the end of the meeting, [Krzyzewski] says, ‘OK, when you guys get back to your rooms, there’s going to be something waiting. It’s gonna be your USA jersey. I want you to do something: I want you to take the jersey and I want you to just lay it on the bed and think about how cool this is.’ And he said something I’ve never forgotten. He said, ‘We get to do some really cool things. And if you’re not careful, you can start to think that this is routine. It’s not routine.’ And he said, ‘Don’t take special for granted.’”
Bilas applies that message to his college basketball assignments.
“I get to go to Cameron [Indoor Stadium at Duke] or Allen Fieldhouse [at Kansas] or the Smith Center and I’m at the Duke-Carolina game. So when I walk into these arenas now, you’re kind of looking around going, ‘This is what I’ve always wanted to do and I get to do it. Don’t take it for granted.’”
