Tragic Bond with Former Star at Heart of Quinn Cook's Growth into Duke's Leader

Former Duke standout guard Nolan Smith says Quinn Cook has been building up to this basketball moment since he was seven or eight years old.

So Smith insists there is no doubt Cook is more than ready to lead Duke in its Sweet 16 NCAA tournament encounter with Utah on Friday night in Houston.

“I feel like he definitely deserves to achieve something great with this team he’s been leading," Smith said. 

Not only that, but Cook has made certain he won’t have to lead the Blue Devils alone.

There are leaders in sports. And then there are leaders who are so good that over sometimes amazingly short periods of time, they teach others around them to lead as well.

That’s the way it has been this year for Cook, a senior guard seemingly surrounded at all times by freshmen, on and off the court. And these are no wide-eyed freshmen. They’ve become leaders too.

“On our team,” said Cook, “we don’t do things by class. We don’t say, ‘I’m a senior; you’re a freshman.’ We just don’t do that. We’re all brothers together out there.”

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Smith long ago taught Cook, 22, the importance of a brotherly bond, first simply because they were kindred spirits who shared similar talents and a love for basketball. Their mothers are best friends and Smith is Cook's god-brother. They come from the same area, played for the same AAU club, attended the same high school.

And, of course, they both went to Duke to play basketball.

"He's been a great mentor to me," Cook said.

But later they bonded over something neither wanted: the loss of their fathers.

Smith had lost his father, Derek, when he was just eight years old. Derek Smith was an assistant coach with the Washington Bullets at the time and died of an apparent massive heart attack on the last day of a cruise with his family, other members of the Bullets’ organization and season-ticket holders. Derek Smith was 34 years old and only two years removed from his own NBA playing career.

So when Cook’s father, Ted, died at age 48 after his heart gave out while he was on an operating table, Smith stepped into the suddenly large void left behind in Quinn’s life. Cook was only 15 years old at the time.

“Basketball was at the center of our relationship from the get-go,” Smith said. “But then when his dad passed away, automatically we had even more of a connection and I became more of a hands-on big-brother type for him, throughout high school and on up to this point in time now.”

There is no question the dual tragedies brought the two young men closer.

“Absolutely,” said Smith, now 26. “That connection, not many kids have something like that. I dealt with my dad passing at an early age, and there were a lot of people that I talked to who mentored me and helped me get through it. I tried to help Quinn like some others helped me.

“We were already close. That just brought us closer.”

Cook said he can talk to Smith about anything and usually does. They speak daily by text or cellphone on those rare occasions these days when they don’t see each other.

Cook is well-aware that Smith accomplished many things in his Duke career that thus far have escaped his grasp.

Banners are hung in Cameron Indoor Stadium when a team wins either an ACC regular-season or tournament championship or when a team reaches the Final Four. Smith, the ACC Player of the Year as a senior in 2010-11, was a member of the 2010 national championship team. He also played on the teams that won ACC tournament titles three consecutive years and was 2010 regular-season co-champion along with Maryland.

Cook has none of that on his resume. As good as Duke has been during his career, he hasn’t played on one team that proved good enough in the long run to have a banner hoisted in its honor.

So he continues to listen to Smith. He listens to every word.

“He’s been a first-team All-American, ACC Player of the Year and a national champion,” Cook said. “So he knows what it takes to be successful here at Duke, and he’s always giving me advice and helping me out. He’s my biggest fan.”

Smith wants Cook to have a banner for this team seemingly just as badly as Cook does.

So he keeps talking to him about how to get it done.

“The good thing about Quinn is that I think he’s had a chance to watch me, and also talk with me,” Smith said. “He saw my growth and my development. He saw that I had to go through some ups and downs to become the player I wanted to be as a senior. … He knew he had to grow as a player and a person.”

Cook realized that after Duke lost to Mercer last year in the first round of the NCAA tournament. After an outstanding sophomore year in 2012-13, Cook admitted that he had hoped to be named one of the team’s captains the next year. When it didn’t happen, he was so disappointed that he said he withdrew some, became less vocal.

And by extension, less of a leader.

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Smith talked to him about it as soon as last season came to its stunning, disappointing conclusion. So did coach Mike Krzyzewski and the rest of the Duke coaching staff.

“He sat down with the coaches and Coach K told him right after that loss last year, ‘You’re going to have to be our leader next year.’ So heading into his senior year, him and I talked a lot about him being a leader and growing up,” Smith said.

The senior has taken his mentor's words to heart.

Cook rooms with freshman star Jahlil Okafor on the road and went along with growing his hair out when newcomer Justise Winslow, also a freshman, arrived rocking the spiked look. Others have joined in the hair movement, and it’s become a point of solidarity, however silly, within the team.

The senior took another freshman, Tyus Jones, aside during the recruiting process and again after Jones arrived on campus, assuring him again and again that they would be able to co-exist in the backcourt.

And they have.

With Cook deferring to Jones, who is more of a natural point guard, both players have thrived. Cook is averaging a career-high 15.8 points per game, looking for his shot more and worrying about handling the playmaking duties less, although he can spell Jones there too when necessary. Jones leads the team in assists (5.8 per game).

“He’s meant a lot to me,” Jones said. “He’s been a big brother to me since the first day I stepped on campus. He welcomed me with open arms.

“It says a lot about him for him to do what he’s done this year, especially for me. For him to have been the point guard for this team for the past three years and help me out the way he’s helped me out and be the teammate he’s been, it says a lot about who he is not only on the court, but off the court.”

Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

And when Duke lost to Notre Dame in the ACC tournament semifinals, it was Cook who almost immediately called a players-only meeting afterward in the Greensboro hotel room he shared with Okafor.

Asked what he said to his teammates then, Cook recalled: “It’s a new season. Just understand that. We can’t quit because of one loss, and that’s it. You go into the (NCAA) tournament at 0-0. …  I think it kept everybody’s spirits up and kept everybody remembering our goal. It was a good meeting.”

Krzyzewski said he marvels at the leader Cook has become but is not surprised by it. He brought up an interview a reporter had done recently with former Duke player Austin Rivers to illustrate the point.

“[Rivers] said as a freshman, you show up here and you don’t know about how much you should talk about different things, and you have to have upperclassmen say, ‘That’s what you should do,' " Krzyzewski said.

“It means a lot, especially when it’s an upperclassman who has a big-time role on the team like Quinn does. We as coaches say these things, but when Quinn says them in his own language and his own way, they resonate even better. He’s led us to a fabulous season and hopefully he’ll lead further into this tournament.”

By all accounts, it seems Smith’s pupil now has become the professor on a team that has its sights set on the Final Four—and maybe more. But first, there is this Sweet 16 matchup with Utah.

“I text him every morning to make sure he’s ready to lead and ready to play,” said Smith, who didn’t make the trip to Houston but said he will be in Indianapolis if the Blue Devils make it that far. “Quinn’s one of those guys, being a four-year guy who has put in all the hard work and developed into a leader, who you root for. Not only for me as a big brother, but as a former player and an alumni, you wish the best for him.

“It’s a talented team. He’s obviously played on some talented teams before, but he has yet to be able to put up a banner in Cameron. This is a team that has the talent to get to the Final Four, and they’ve really come together under his leadership. So I definitely hope he gets it done.”

Unless otherwise noted, all reporting was done firsthand.

Joe Menzer has written six books, including one about college basketball entitled Four Corners. He now writes about college basketball and other sports for Bleacher Report and works as a writer and editor for FoxSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.