'Complaining and Growth Cannot Exist at the Same Time'

Kara Lawson was talking to a struggling freshman following a workout last summer when she made an observation.

“I could see she was just trying to get through,” Lawson, the Duke women’s basketball coach, said.

“She felt that at the end of the summer, she would be fine because she would’ve had a couple of months to get her feet wet, and everything would be great.”

Lawson explained to her young player that in the fall, the workouts would ramp up. Then, practice would be tougher. Then, the pressure of games. Then, the intensity of the postseason.

It was a message she felt her entire team needed to hear.

“It will never get easier,” she told her players the next day. “What happens is you handle hard better.”

Within weeks, Lawson was on the TODAY show after video of her passionate address was posted on the team’s social media accounts. Nearly 15 months later, she still gets stopped by strangers thanking her for inspiring them.

The Daily Coach continued its conversation with Lawson about the biggest surprises in taking over a new program, the factors she hopes never waver with her team, and keys to actually “handling hard” with more maturity.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Part 1: 'You Have To Work on the Things You Have Weaknesses In'

Coach, thank you once again for doing this. You take over at Duke with great experience as a player, coach and TV analyst. But was there anything you weren’t fully prepared for?

I think the biggest adjustment was probably the managing of the staff. When you become a head coach, you know you have to manage the team. But the staff at every level is so large now. There’s management involved in that. Even though they don’t play for you, they do work for you. You have to spend time on standards and expectations.

There’s less oversight with a staff member because they’re older and most have done the job before. But you have to have great cohesion with the staff because players sense that right away. It’s kind of like kids and parents. If mom and dad aren’t on the same page, the kid knows and feels that. If they’re not aligned and mom says no, what’s the thing they do next? They go to dad. You might get a different answer. 

I want to make sure there are no different answers outwardly. Obviously, inwardly there are tons of different answers because we debate and argue and go back and forth. That’s how it should be. That’s a healthy staff conversation about strategies and schemes. But when we leave, we all have to be aligned. There can’t be a hint of misalignment because people pick up on that.

Do you have program values or buzzwords you associate with Duke women’s basketball?

This was actually really cool. At (ACC Media Day), I was with two of my players. They got asked that question, and I had no idea what they were going to say because we don’t have them written or plastered on a locker room door, or practice facility, or game facility. I’m not knocking people who do that stuff.

It was cool to listen to what they thought our values were because to be honest with you, they’re not what I say they are. Think about it. The real values are what the players say they are and what they abide by. If I put something on a wall and say, “These are our values” but my players don’t adhere to or subscribe to them… then who cares that I had this picture on the wall?

They talked about standards and expectations, like there’s a standard when you come into practice every day or when you walk in the building. There’s a standard and expectation that you have to come to the building with. If you fall below that, they know I’m going to let them know. Then, it’s my job to get them back to that level. It’s unacceptable to be below that.

It can’t be an impossible bar. So, what are the things that are really important to me that if they’re falling below that I’m going to let them know?

Their effort, certainly. The effort has to be at the highest level possible for each individual player. Their focus has to be at the highest level. Their discipline has to be at the highest level. If they’re falling below any of those things, that’s a problem. The goal is to every day be able to come in and be at the highest levels of those things.

I just don’t believe in an ebb and a flow in those three areas. How are you disciplined if there’s an ebb and a flow in your discipline? How do you work hard if there’s an ebb and a flow in your effort? That doesn’t add up. How are you wanting to be great if there’s an ebb and a flow in your focus? You don’t get an ebb and a flow in that.

That’s what we try to explain to them. Then, we challenge them to reach that. That doesn’t mean all of my players every single day reach that. No, they don’t. That’s the goal, and that’s the expectation, that’s the standard.

You obviously garnered a lot of attention with the “Handle Hard Better” message. When did you realize you really had something with that phrase and what do you make of the impact it’s had on people?

I wasn’t planning to put it online. My creative director came up to me either that day or the next day and said, “That was really good what you said at the end of practice.” I was like, “What did I say?”

I didn’t remember. I mean, you talk to your team every day before practice, during practice, after. I don’t remember what I say half the time, to be honest with you. Obviously having that conversation (with the freshman) a couple of days before, that’s what I felt they needed to hear. We put it out, and everybody grabbed on to it.

Now, wherever I go, people come up to me like, “Thank you, Coach. This really helped me.” They tell me their story about something they were going through, something their families were going through. You cannot believe the stories that I hear, the emails and letters, walking through airports. It’s such genuine interaction. It’s amazing. It’s just coming up and wanting to share how they handled hard better and what happened in their life. Those stories inspire me.

What are some keys to handling hard better in your opinion?

I am so far beneath being perfect at this stuff. I struggle with the same things I talk about, but I think that’s why it’s authentic to people. I’m going through the same things that everyone else is.

I’m getting ready to get on a flight to travel today. I get this notification and I thought it was one telling me my flight was delayed or canceled or something like that. I was like, “Ugh, I’ve got to fly the next three days. I’m not allowed to have a delay today and tomorrow and the next day. That’s not fair. They can only mess me up one of these three times.” We come up with these expectations where it’s not supposed to be hard and everything is supposed to go smoothly all the time. Then, when it doesn’t, it’s hard for us to function and we can’t handle it.

The first thing is submitting to “It’s going to be tough.” Things are not going to go as planned. It’s not going to be smooth. Once you get that concept, now you can just worry about each thing you have to attack. If my flight is delayed, it’s just, “Get through tonight. Then, tomorrow figure out what’s going to happen and do it.”

It’s human nature to lament your lot in life, where you are right now and complain about this, complain about that. But complaining and growth cannot exist at the same time. It’s impossible. If you’re in the headspace of complaining about something, it’s impossible for you to grow at the same time. You can’t. You have to actually stop doing one thing for the other to occur.

To answer your question, what I try to do is to stop the complaining and worry about the growth… Every time I get in that space where I’m not handling hard better, I say, “O.K., you can do this and you can keep going down this road, but you will not be growing during the entire time you’re in this space. If you’re O.K. with that, you can keep going and do that.”

That’s how I look at it. I just focus on the growth, and amazing things happen when you focus on that. You end up having more success — and you end up having things go your way.

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