Give us an update on your job with ESPN. How have you liked it so far and what do you do on a day-to-day basis?
Working for ESPN has been great. I have been all over the map from doing a variety of games from the CAA to Big East games to SEC games. I’ve also been doing a lot of studio work. It reminds me a lot of my freshmen year where you kind of come in wet behind the ears and you don’t really understand what is really going on. I’m 27, back down to my playing weight of about 190, and I still have the option to go overseas and play but there is something about college basketball. It is where my heart really stays. There is something about the passion that comes along with playing at this level. There is a look in the kids’ eyes and you get the chance to see some miraculous moments. I get the chance to see my alma mater, my team that I still love, playing and starting to emerge. I get to see Gerald Henderson finally start to be the guy that I knew he was going to be. You get a chance to watch teams progress and see what they learn and watch how guys embrace the moment. Just being a part of college basketball is where my heart is always going to be. I love every second of it.
Do you think you will ever get into coaching or do you see yourself staying on the TV side?
I like the TV side right now. I’m only 27, but in the future I would definitely be intrigued to coach. I love seeing kids get better. I love working with kids and motivating kids. And I love creating an environment for kids to be a part of that is a family. That is something that Coach did an exquisite job of here. You know, I’ve been out of school since the year 2003 and every time I come back here it feels like home. That is the same reason I bought a home here because this is home for me. No matter where I go I know that I can always come back to Duke University and I will always be cared for and loved and have the same feelings for the people here.
Talk about Coach K – How has your relationship with him changed since you graduated from Duke?
Well, we talk a lot more here and there when we see each other. The one thing that is still the same, and I don’t care what anybody says, Chris Duhon and I are still best friends, Carlos Boozer and I are best friends. But whenever we are around Coach, we were just speaking today in the locker room and my phone ringer was on. And before I stepped into the room I saw Coach and I reached in my pocket frantically to turn my phone off because I’m still afraid to have my phone ring around this guy. You know, certain things like when he’s speaking to me, you just don’t interrupt. You let him speak. I’m always going to be a player of his and there is always going to be that respect. One thing that I love about Coach is that our relationship really hasn’t changed that much since college because I still ask him the same questions. I still ask him questions about my personal life and my career, asking him what I can do better. You know, he told me something when I came here and it was the thing that really made me commit to Duke. He told me, “Jason, I can’t promise you that playing here is going to make you an NBA star. But the thing I can promise you is that by the time you leave here you are going to be a better man and a better individual.” And to this day he still works with me to become a better man and a better individual in everything I do in life. And that’s why he’s not just a coach in basketball, but more importantly he is a coach in life.
How does the intense Coach K that ESPN presents on gameday differ from the Coach K that you know behind the scenes?
Coach is one of the funniest guys I have ever met. His dry humor just continues to surprise me every time I hear him speak or hear him deliver a different speech to the team. I get to see a lot of coaches now working for ESPN when I call a lot of games and sometimes I’ll see one coach motivate a player the same as he would another player. One of the best things about Coach is that he understands what makes each individual player tick. He knew that for me, during my junior year, really getting after me and pushing me and giving me challenges on a daily basis was something that I needed to have in order to make me a better player. He is a very personable guy and obviously majoring in psychology, he understands what makes the mind tick. His ability to transfer that kind of intelligence over to the basketball side of things let’s you understand why he is in the Hall of Fame.
Our guys along with everyone else right now obviously have the ultimate goal of winning the national title. You guys did it in 2001 – What was your secret?
I’ll tell you, our secret that year was Shane Battier. Shane was the glue that kept all of us together. We were very young. We had some guys in some pivotal roles that were very young. I was a sophomore, one of our leading scorers. Mike Dunleavy was a sophomore, one of our leading scorers. Carlos Boozer was one of our only real inside threats as a sophomore. These are guys that are only 19 years old and if we didn’t have Shane, I don’t think we would have been able to get through a lot of bumps in the road. Especially when you talk about us losing to Maryland at home that year and Carlos goes out with a broken third metatarsal. We come back into the locker room and we’re all down. We think that our season is over. And Coach played a great part in that year because he came in after that game and said, “Listen, if you guys believe in me we are going to win a National Championship. Listen, if you guys believe in me we are going to win a National Championship.” I still get goose bumps just talking about it because it was like it happened yesterday. And he leaves the room and we all bring it in and Shane says, “Guys, it’s time to let go. It’s time to let go and believe in Coach.” And Shane was really an extension of Coach on the floor. I mean Chris (Duhon) and I, we were both guards and we were learning on the job. But if it weren’t for Shane Battier doing all of the little things to get us to where we needed to be, we wouldn’t have won a National Championship. Some of the plays he made in that Final Four, blocks, rebounds, and that one block he made on Jason Gardner where he had the ability to block the ball and save it and throw it back to me before he steps out of bounds. It’s those little plays like that that win you National Championships. And to this day I get excited talking about it and every time I see Shane I want to give him a hug.
