Paolo Banchero’s Mom Is Awesome
Coach Rhonda isn’t messing around
This is nothing major but it’s pretty funny: it’s a clip from an interview with former Duke star Paolo Banchero and it’s a story about Coach Mike Krzyzewski and his mom.
Apparently, Coach K called Rhonda Banchero to warn her that her son was likely to call the next day, because he was going to “get into his butt.”
Mrs. Banchero said “I promise you he’s not going to call this house because it’s not a soft place to land.”
Then she told Coach K - who must have just loved this - that her son needed to be coached hard and her advice was not just to kick him out of practice but to kick him out of the building entirely. That, she explained, would motivate him as much as anything could.
We think Duke for the most part has always recruited families as much as players because the family made the player who he is, but even with that in mind, Mrs. Banchero is pretty awesome in this story.
It reminds us of the Jeff Capel story from his freshman year: he told his dad he was thinking of transferring and his dad reminded him that he was starting as a freshman for the #1 team in the country and that, basically, he was thinking like an idiot.
Then he left him to pay for lunch.
It’s too bad Coach Capel and Mrs. Banchero never met. They would probably have had some big laughs.