Coach K isn’t a fan of President Obama’s strategy for fighting against the Islamic State group.
Famous Duke University basketball coach — and West Point class of 1969 graduate — Mike Krzyzewski used basketball analogies to criticize Mr. Obama’s decisions in the Middle East while speaking at an Association of the U.S. Army event last month. The Daily Beast wrote on the previously unreported comments Tuesday.
“I know it’s upsetting to many of you when you hear ‘no boots on the ground.’ It upsets me too, because that’s like saying I’m not going to play two of my best players,” the Duke coach said while accepting the 2014 George Catlett Marshall Award, AUSA’s highest honor, Oct. 15. “Because that’s what you are trained to do. And for decades and decades, the fact that we are a free country and we don’t play home games here is a result of having boots on the ground. That’s the problem.”
Mr. Krzyzewski also said it was a bad move to telegraph to the world that U.S. troops would not return to the Middle East. The coach likened it to saying, “Hey Spain, I’m not going to start LeBron [James] and Kobe [Bryant] tonight,” The Daily Beast reported. “I don’t think you do that. Now how much I play them? Let the guy try to figure out how much I’m going to play them,” the coach added.
During his time as an officer, Coach K served at Fort Carson, Colorado, the Republic of South Korea, and at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School at West Point, New York.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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