Mike Krzyzewski reveals whether he misses coaching

Mike Krzyzewski hasn’t been on a college sideline for about a year and a half now. And while there are aspects to coaching that the legendary head coach misses, Krzyzewski shared that he’s not really missing it as a whole.

Joining “The Brotherhood” podcast, an in-house production from Duke athletics, Krzyzewski briefly discussed what he does and doesn’t miss from manning the sidelines. After nearly 50 years, the man known mostly as “Coach K” is at peace with coaching no longer.

“I don’t miss coaching. I coached for 47 years, over 1600 games or more. The thing I miss is the interaction with young. I’ve been — you stay young by interacting with young and energetic and that’s the only thing I miss. And I do a lot of speaking and all that, but it’s not to a group of 18- to 23-year-old guys,” Krzyzewski said.

And while he does miss being around college-aged players and staffers, Krzyzewski also acknowledged it was probably time to move on. And he’s glad to see his replacement, Jon Scheyer, has seemingly recaptured that energy.

And in order to do that for over 40 years, you have to be in their world. Hopefully they got in your world. But that was exciting for me. It’s really one of the main reasons I stayed in college coaching my whole career and didn’t go to the NBA. But watching you guys and how energetic you guys have been and what coach Scheyer has done with his staff and I admire that. I’m happy that that’s happening.

Krzyzewski shared how his schedule has changed since retirement

Even though Krzyzewski is no longer the head coach at Duke, he is still regularly around the program.

“It’s been great,” Mike Krzyzewski said of retirement. “I have a lifetime contract with Duke. Not to coach but to be the ambassador. … I’ve retired from coaching and recruiting. Still have my office, my office staff. And doing a bunch of things to help Duke, obviously, behind the scenes, to support our program. Jon [Scheyer] and I have a very close relationship and talk frequently. That’s good for me and it’s good for him and it’s good for the program.”

Outside of Duke, Krzyzewski works in other capacities, too.

“I do a lot of speaking for the Washington Speakers Bureau all over the country. I’m a professor at Fuqua in lecturing. … I have my own radio show on Sirius XM for the 18^th year. I advise for the NBA, so I’ve been at their GM meetings and been at a bunch of meetings with them. And I spend a lot of time helping to run our nonprofit – The Emily Krzyzewski Center,” Coach K said. “We now service about 2,000 kids in Durham. And my 10 grandchildren all live within 10 minutes of us. So I love it. I’m busy, happy and really proud of what you guys have done in keeping it going. We’re looking forward to an even better year. We have a chance to have an even better year this year.”