It is natural that, with the dawning of a new year, we look reflectively back on the one that just was. On television they air shows about the greatest movies of 2008, news channels review the major stories of the year, and radios stations feature countdowns of the year’s top songs. We laugh looking back at the good memories, cry for who and what was lost, and optimistically say that 2009 will hold many more laughs and far fewer tears.
For me, reflecting on 2008 is a most enjoyable and satisfying activity. 2008 was the year in which my family had the tremendous opportunity to travel to the other side of the world, to witness an extraordinary Olympics impressively hosted by an up-and-coming world power. My little nieces and nephews got to take child-sized footsteps on the greatest of walls somehow erected over 2000 years ago. My sisters got hugs from Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. My husband, Chris – Duke’s current Director of Basketball Operations and an aspiring coach himself – got to participate on a practice “scout” team that helped prepare the elite basketball players of the NBA for Olympic competition. And 2008 is the year that three daughters along with their proud mom got to see their father’s dream come true.
There are so many stories from our trip to Beijing – some inspirational ones about the way that twelve NBA superstars sacrificed their individual egos in favor of a collective one, some harrowing ones about how a family of twelve, including five children eight-years-old and under, made their way both to and around China. When I think about 2008 all of these stories will come to mind. I will remember the look on my dad’s face as all of his players placed their gold medals around his neck. I will remember riding in a cable car up to the Great Wall with Chris, my sister Lindy, her husband Steve, and their two-year-old son, Quin. I will remember our family feeling adventurous enough to dine at an authentic Chinese restaurant and the way our interpreter helped my rarely-confused father painstakingly navigate the menu. I will remember sitting in the Bird’s Nest stadium and watching the USA men’s and women’s 4×400 relay teams come out victorious, making their victory laps around the stadium with American flags draped across their backs. I will remember the heart-wrenching emotion my sisters and I felt as the gold medal basketball game, and seemingly our father’s career, hung in the balance. I will remember that, when the players stood on the medal stand and the Star-Spangled Banner played, Chris Bosh sang and Dwyane Wade cried. Too many amazing memories, each one too precious to forget.
But there is another memory from 2008 that stands out as equally precious: the trip that I had the chance to take to West Point with my father and husband in September, shortly after returning from Beijing. It had been six years since either Chris or I had made the trip over the mountain and through Stony Lonesome gate onto West Point. The brisk but beautifully sunny weather brought back a flood of memories for both of us. The last time we were there, Chris’s family and I were celebrating his graduation from the Academy. And now, I had the opportunity to return with my two favorite guys, both West Point graduates and former Army Basketball team captains, and see the roots of their personal beginnings as well as so much of our country’s history. Anytime you are there as a non-graduate, you have the tendency to feel small. But, I held my head high walking with my two escorts – proud and confident by association. I got to hear them tell each other stories and compare the West Point of the “old grads” like my dad with the reportedly more lenient West Point of more recent graduates like Chris. Of course, if you hear Chris tell it, the academic rigors nowadays are much more daunting than those of 1960’s West Point. The debate went on and on, much to my delight.
We quickly got settled into our rooms at the historic Thayer Hotel, built in 1926 and named for Sylvanus Thayer, known as “The Father of West Point.” After getting changed for the evening, we headed to a dinner where we were joined by a group of first class (senior year) cadet leaders. They were all eager to show my dad their West Point rings just distributed the previous week during the Academy’s traditional Ring Weekend festivities. Several future graduates of 2009 gathered in a circle around the 1969 grad and the show and tell began. The cadets proudly showed my dad their new rings and my dad told them that, even after 40 years, he still always wears his old one. Many years after graduation and into his career at Duke, my mom had his original stone replaced with a deep, unmistakably Duke-blue one – the same stone that is placed in the class rings of Duke graduates. The symbolism could not be more perfect. Just as the USMA ring supports that Duke-blue stone, West Point has proven to be the foundation for everything that he has done in career, including his nearly thirty years at Duke and, of course, his three years as USA Basketball’s National Coach.
Standing off to the side with Chris, I felt proud that I wear a West Point ring too, a miniature of the one Chris received when he escorted me to his Ring Weekend six years earlier. I quietly marveled at the commitment of the young men and women who, at 18-years-old, made the decision to attend the Academy and committed themselves to at least five years of service in the United States Army. Not only that, these cadets made that commitment knowing full-well that they would likely serve those years during a time of war and that they would certainly be expected to deploy overseas to fight for their country. I hadn’t earned my ring, but I felt so good knowing that both my father and husband had.
After our dinner, we headed to Eisenhower Hall where my dad would deliver a speech to an auditorium full of cadets dressed in their white over gray uniforms. Though the room was crowded, the presentation took on the feel of an intimate team meeting, not altogether different from the team meetings I had the privilege of sitting in on in Beijing. And it was that 2008 Olympic basketball team that served as the subject matter for the presentation. My dad spoke about patriotism and selfless service, acknowledging, of course, that he was preaching to the choir. But I believe that it was interesting and informative for the cadets – whose lives and careers will be built upon a foundation of these two words – to learn that it was this mindset that my dad, Jerry Colangelo, Mike D’Antoni, Nate McMillan, and Jim Boeheim tried to instill in the team of NBA superstars that would represent our country on the basketball court in the 2008 Olympics. The soldiers, he emphasized, are the ultimate examples of patriotism and selfless service. No one can match their commitment. But how neat is it that Kobe, LeBron, and the gang looked to our military as the ultimate example? The soldiers were their teachers.
Each point that my dad made about how the National Basketball Team came together was illustrated by a video shown on the large screen behind him. These were videos made expressly for the Olympic team and were shown to the likes of Jason Kidd and Carmelo Anthony in the privacy of the team’s Beijing Intercontinental Hotel meeting room. It was as if he was inviting the cadets to join him in that room. And it appeared that they gladly accepted the invitation.
The next day was action-packed as well – breakfast with the Army Athletic Department, lunch with students from the Behavioral Sciences and Leadership Department, and a tour of the Academy’s phenomenal new library. Both my father and husband lamented the academic success they might have achieved had they had the privilege of utilizing such a fine library. But I had my doubts; both Dad and Chris were more impressed by the amazing view from the terrace than any of the books.
We also had the chance to visit Arvin Gymnasium where a wall exists honoring the recipients of the Mike Krzyzewski Teaching Character Through Sport Award given annually to a West Point cadet and a member of the faculty/staff who “has demonstrated outstanding work in creating an athletic environment that promotes and models the true spirit of competition through respect, integrity, responsibility, servant leadership, and sportsmanship” and is, “An individual of personal integrity who exemplifies devoted service to the development of ‘leaders of character’ through athletic competition.”
Afterward, as we headed back to the Thayer for a little down time and to get changed for the formal evening ahead, my dad asked the bus driver if we could make one more quick stop. Guiding the driver up a back road to the Cadet Catholic chapel, my dad reflected on June 4, 1969 – a big day in his life. Actually, the big day: his graduation from West Point and his wedding. The three of us stepped in the small but beautiful chapel and I pictured my mom walking down the aisle. When we stepped back outside, we briefly took in another one of West Point’s tremendous Hudson River views. It was a great moment and I asked Chris if he would take a picture of me and my dad right outside the church where my parents were married nearly 40 years ago.
The evening that followed was an opportunity any basketball fan would relish. We had the privilege of seeing my dad’s coach, Bob Knight, given the honor of induction into the Army Sports Hall of Fame along with nine other deserving individuals. At the banquet following the induction, my dad introduced his mentor and friend and Coach Knight spoke on behalf of the 2008 induction class. The speech was, of course, most enjoyable and the event gave all three of us the chance to see the new Hall of Fame facility, one of the many impressive improvements made on post in the six years since our last visit. And I have to mention how neat it was for me personally to see Chris’s name on an Army Basketball timeline positioned just above a large photo of my dad.
Ok, I know, I have – quite literally – been all over the map with this article. And, yes, perhaps I have been more personal and familiar than usual. But I do have a point. And it is this: for the rest of my life, I will always remember 2008. And when I look back on that wonderful year, I will think about our September trip to West Point just as much as our phenomenal August in Beijing. The truth is, in my mind, those two trips are inextricably linked. In Beijing, I saw my dad’s dream come true. But, on the trip to the Academy, I saw how that dream became even a possibility. I could see so clearly the connection between my dad’s Olympic experience and the values and work ethic instilled in him at West Point. I felt thankful that my grandparents had the foresight to aggressively encourage their 18-year-old son to take advantage of the opportunity he had to attend what my dad now calls, “the best school for leadership in the United States.”
It is a great feeling to think about the fact that the two most important men in my life both came from this place and, admittedly, I wondered if, 35 years from now, Chris and I would bring our children there to show them where their father learned to be a leader. It was one of those moments that so obviously linked the past to the present in my mind and made me wonder, with overwhelming gratitude, how I ever got to be so lucky.
