Richard Ford

Richard grew up in Durham, North Carolina and dreamed of playing basketball for Duke. He rarely missed a Duke home game. Richard developed into a regional basketball standout in high school, and was described in the sports media as the “consummate point guard”. Richard was recruited by several D-I schools to play basketball, but Duke was not among them.  Nevertheless, Richard applied to Duke, was accepted, and chose to go there to pursue his hoops dreams on a path less traveled. Fortunately for Richard, Duke had just hired a young basketball coach named Mike Krzyzewski, who had been a walk-on at Army under Coach Bob Knight.

Richard tried out for, and made, the Duke JV team his freshman year. Richard was amazed to see that Coach K, in his first year at Duke, attended Duke’s JV home games as a show of support for the JV kids who played in nearly empty gyms just for the love of the game. Richard became the JV team’s “go to” guy and leading scorer, averaging nearly 20 points a game, but still wondered whether he would ever realize his dream of playing in Cameron Indoor Stadium as a member of the varsity team. That question was answered midway through his freshman year, when Coach K asked Richard to practice with the varsity team to help them prepare for an opposing point guard who played much the way Richard did.

Richard fully embraced that opportunity. He worked his way from a mere day to day varsity practice player to a full member of the varsity team, then to a full scholarship player, and ultimately to a team captain. His senior year, he received the Ted Mann Award as the Duke player contributing most to team morale and also received the Captain’s Award for team leadership. Richard also received recognition in the classroom, being named to the ACC Honor Roll for outstanding academic performance. Richard’s senior year, Duke began its impressive run of NCAA tourney appearances. Coach K has credited Richard with being a foundation of Duke’s early success. All of this from of a 5’9”, 150 lb. walk-on point guard.

Richard has spent much of his life teaching young players intelligent basketball strategies. He has run and worked basketball camps for 15 years, and has taught male and female players from second graders to D-I college athletes in a variety of contexts. For six years, Richard co-directed a national point guard camp, teaching high school and college point guards the finer aspects of point guard play in venues from coast to coast.

Richard also has impressive experience outside of basketball. He attended law school at the University of Georgia, and practiced law with prestigious firms in Atlanta and Athens. He also taught law classes at the UGA and Duke law schools, and coached championship oral advocacy teams at both schools. He even won a case in the U.S. Supreme Court! These experiences have served Richard well as a basketball instructor. Richard is an effective communicator and teacher who motivates players to achieve championship performance.

Richard’s teaching approach is concept-based. In addition to intense on-court instruction, Richard also holds entertaining classroom sessions to break down the fine points of the game. Richard reinforces his concept-based instruction with video clips, personal stories, and cooperative learning/teaching approaches.