The coaches lay down the ground rules for their players from the start.
No hats on during team meals. No hats on indoors. Cell phones must be turned off in the locker room. Look the coaches in the eyes. Be honest. Stay clean-shaven. When you work out, in the off-season or with some of your teammates, you wear Duke apparel. Always go to class, and don't even think about cheating. For the rookies, leave your cars at home this year.
And most importantly, don't get caught in Chapel Hill.
"It's kind of like what the NBA is trying to do right now with the dress code," freshman Jamal Boykin said. "But we're college students and we're representing not only ourselves but Duke University. So, it's part of the job."
The rules, however, are not posted on the locker room wall or handed out on a piece of paper. They're part of the culture of the team, and the players are reminded time and time again.
Whether in the classroom or in the locker room, Duke's men's basketball players have to abide by the program's rules. Although he doesn't think of himself as much of a "rule guy," head coach Mike Krzyzewski knows that his team understands his expectations. And those who don't get it learn from those who do.
"Upperclassmen take care of that," he said. "Somehow, I never have to make rules about it."
But many of his players know that the rules come from him and the rest of the coaching staff.
"One rule, I guess is that [Krzyzewski] doesn't let freshmen have cars on campus their freshman year," senior J.J. Redick said. "I think that part of that is so that seniors give them rides, and it's an easy way to bond."
Upperclassmen, then, are charged with helping the new players out with rides to class or to eat off campus-all of the little things that build team chemistry-senior Shelden Williams said.
"I'm like Josh's taxi driver," Redick said jokingly of his freshman teammate Josh McRoberts. "It's miserable."
But for some of the freshmen, coming to play for Duke meant changing some things for the sake of the team. Boykin, who said he used to have some facial hair, shaved his chin clean when he came to Duke.
And had Shaun Livingston not opted for the pros two years ago, his famously puffy afro most likely would have been trimmed a significant amount.
"They call it clean-shaven," Boykin said. "Coach Dawkins is the one that really talks about that the most. It's being professional."
As for academics, the players have a team of advisors who keep an eye on them in the classroom and encourage them to be professional student-athletes. The two cardinal rules for the team are not to miss class and not to cheat.
"We have a rule that if a player misses class, you run five at five in the morning," Boykin said. "Five miles at five o'clock in the morning."
The most important rule for Krzyzewski, however, is honesty, Boykin said.
"He kind of repeats it a lot," he said. "It's not something that I've just heard once, and I'm remembering the one time he said it, it's repeated. It's like a tattoo."
So if Krzyzewski asks a player if he has been to Chapel Hill lately, he had better say no and that had better be the truth.
That is, unless he's taking the trip down 15-501 to play, and subsequently beat, the Tar Heels.
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