Women's basketball head coach Joanne P. McCallie will sign her book Choice Not Chance: Rules for Building a Fierce Competitor from 4-7 p.m. at the Gothic Bookship on Duke's West Campus.
The Chronicle had the chance to sit down with McCallie this morning to speak to her about some of the experiences she details in her first book.
On the motto "Choice not Chance" and its origin dating back to her days as the head coach at Maine:
The whole quote is 'Choice not chance determines destiny, choose to become a champion in life.' I just thought, perfect--that's who I am. That's my mantra.... It was an 'aha' moment. I had it plastered on the wall. When you left my office you had to go down these stairs and there it was.
On her relationship with men's basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who wrote the foreward to the book:
Meeting with him and coming here was a wonderful opportunity, it's been everything I'd thought. He's a very busy man--I don't see him a lot. But I've seen him when I've needed to see him and it's pretty special. He's a legend in all the right senses.
On the emotions of writing her first book:
When you're trying to write, there are times it bleeds out of you. You actually just feel like you're bleeding it. It's always cathartic to write.
On the miscarriage of her first child, which she discusses in the book. She learned about the miscarriage immediately before going to a press conference with her player Cindy Blodgett, who had just been drafted in the WNBA:
It was very healing to write about it. What I couldn't get over was I had scheduled a doctor's appointment on the same day and had such naivety to think with my first pregnancy that it would be fine. I had such naivety to think of course there would never be a problem. I just couldn't believe I was in that circumstance.
Choice Not Chance was published on Feb. 28 this year.
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