SAN ANTONIO -- You crave the recipe of his secret sauce. You believe youve identified some of its special ingredients: draft foreign players, shoot corner 3s, emphasize defense, share the ball, victimize trembling sideline reporters.Youd like to believe youve captured the essence of the bearded coach stomping along the sideline -- a blend of Midas, Yoda and occasionally a teeth-baring pit bull.But, in truth, you havent -- you never could -- because you dont fully realize the simple truths of his journey: how the man who demands respect through discipline and selflessness was once an impatient Air Force cadet who complained vociferously (and repeatedly) to his coach about a larger role. How his bid to represent the United States in the Olympic Games as a player was squashed by petty politics. How his wish to coach the 2008 Dream Team was crushed by miscommunication and subterfuge. How he was passed over -- twice -- for the very Spurs job he now holds. How when he finally got that job, he spent his weekends passing out free wieners in a parking lot hoping to generate basketball interest in a football-crazed state.Talk to players, coaches and executives who have worked with Gregg Popovich, and theyll say these are the events that shaped him. Tremendous obstacles. Cold, hard truths. Popovich may float above the fray now, but he earned that ascent -- one gritty step at a time.Ask Popovich about any of this and hell cut you off. None of it, he insists, resonates as much as you think it does. My disappointments arent anything to do with what you mention, he says. They have to do with times we had opportunities to win a championship, and we didnt.To hear him tell it, he has shed those other disappointments like old snakeskin. But make no mistake: Gregg Popovichs appointment as coach of the USA basketball team for the 2020 Olympics is a significant personal triumph. Popovich will take the reins of the Olympic basketball program in the wake of an uninspiring showing in Rio that, while producing the expected gold medal, raised questions anew about the United States ability to cobble together a collection of superstars on short notice and implement elite results. Popovich, whose teams in San Antonio have come to symbolize cohesion, has been lauded as the natural choice to lead a meld of substantial egos on the path to world success.But if you think this has all been easy for Pop, says former Spurs assistant (and current New Orleans head coach) Alvin Gentry, then you dont know his story.HIS NICKNAME WAS Popo. He was an aggressive, long-legged upstart guard from Merrillville, Indiana, with short, slick brown hair and boyish ears. And he was in a hurry to be good.That didnt jibe with the Air Force Academys structure, which was designed to make you wait your turn. Former teammate Dave Kapaska likened the Academy to a leadership lab.In the first year you have to learn how to be a follower, Kapaska says. After that, you learn how to be a good leader. Leadership came easily to Gregg Popovich. He was blessed with one of those personalities. But following others? That was a challenge. Why should he fall in line behind those he was certain werent nearly as good as him?Former Air Force assistant coach Hank Egan says thats the quandary Popo couldnt reconcile. He was like most teenagers, says Egan, who coached Popovich as a freshman and sophomore at the Academy. He was a brat when things didnt go his way.Popovich pestered Egan repeatedly with reasons why he should be playing on the varsity for the legendary coach Bob Spear, instead of on junior varsity. He let me know every day we were making a big mistake, Egan says.And so he set out to prove it. Popo had been a post player in high school, but when he played for the Academy he had to learn to face the basket and handle the ball.Cadets have precious little spare time, especially as freshmen, but, Egan says, Popovich migrated to the gym nearly every night, conducting drills with a rubber band around his legs to improve his balance. Hed turn out the lights and practice dribbling in the dark. He prided himself on defense and his toughness, says Bert Spear, the varsity coachs son who was a teammate in Popovichs class.Popo chastised his teammates if their attention wavered. He wasnt afraid to take on bigger, stronger opponents. He was the kind of guy that, if they looked at him wrong, hed tell them, Im gonna kick your ass, Spear says.By the time Joe Kreimborg arrived at the Academy, Popo was already an upperclassman. Some of his peers delighted in berating the freshmen, their menacing insults delivered an inch from the cadets quivering faces, but, Kreimborg recalls, Popo was far more interested in making the new kids laugh.He loved sparring with the team trainer Jim Conboy, a beloved curmudgeon whose gruff demeanor belied the kindness with which he treated his athletes. Conboy was notoriously conservative and Popo delighted in ribbing him by plopping himself on the training table and declaring, Wouldnt it be great if they allowed gays in the military? In later years, when Popovich became an assistant coach at Air Force, he roomed with Conboy on the road, an interesting development since, by then, Popo was dating Conboys daughter Erin, who later became his wife.Over time, Popovich became a favorite of coach Spear, who named him captain in his final season, where he shared top scoring honors with 14.3 points a game. Spear chummed around with Dean Smith and every summer would pile his wife and four sons into his Country Squire and drive down to Smiths basketball camp. One summer the Spears family was introduced to one of Smiths new players, Larry Brown, the coolest guy on campus who wore loafers without any socks.GREGG POPOVICH GRADUATED with a degree in Soviet Studies in 1970 and joined the U.S. Armed Forces basketball team, touring Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, using his fluent Russian to brief his coach on helpful buzzwords.His team won the AAU championship in 1972, and when he returned to the U.S., he learned the Olympic basketball trials would be held at the Academy. Jack Herron Jr., who was named to the 1972 U.S. Olympic selection committee, made it his charge to make certain Popovich received an invitation.Herron, whose father Jack Sr. played for Olympic coach Hank Iba at Oklahoma A&M (later Oklahoma State), had just spent a year as an Air Force basketball assistant and recruiting coordinator. Popovich had earned rave reviews for his overseas performances, but they were neither televised nor publicized.It was a fight just to get him there, says Herron. Back then the Olympic team was selected from a pool of players representing AAU, the NAIA, junior colleges, the Armed Forces, and both the university and college divisions of the NCAA. Players were split into groups of 10 to 12 and assigned a coach. Popovich played for Indiana coach Bobby Knight; one of his teammates was forward Bobby Jones.Jones remembers that Popovich was in his group but could not recall particulars of his game, even though Popovich led all players with a .577 shooting percentage. What Jones recalls with clarity, though, was how, before the last scrimmage of the trials, Knight informed the group that only two of them had a shot at making the final Olympic squad and the rest should pass them the ball to enhance their chances.The two guys were Kevin Joyce and me, says Jones. I had never heard a coach be so honest. I dont know how Gregg and the other players felt about it.Herron suspects the subtleties of Popovichs game were lost among the other candidates who were jacking up shots and looking to put points on the board. Gregg could have been more showy, Herron says, but he played the way Mr. Iba told him to play. It probably hurt him in the end.Herron says he attended every single Olympic selection committee meeting and that Popovich was among the top 14-16 players in each of those discussions. But as the committee began to vote on the final roster, members who hadnt showed up at any of the previous meetings suddenly surfaced. When Herron asked why they were there, he says they told him, Were here to get our guys on the team.The process, Herron says, quickly dissolved into factions fighting for representation instead of choosing the top performers. When the final roster was announced, Popovich was left off.Ive been aggravated about this for almost 50 years, Herron says. Gregg belonged on that team.Larry Brown was invited by Iba to attend the tryouts and was suitably impressed by Popovichs moxie, so much so that he invited him to try out for his ABA team in Denver later that fall (Popovich was among the final cuts).Pop was real tough and tenacious, like [Cavs guard Matthew] Dellavedova, although a little more athletic, Brown says. But there were so many talented players there.Doug Collins, one of four future NBA coaches who tried out for the team -- Popovich, Mike DAntoni and George Karl were the others -- concurs that the selection process was political. Collins says he felt he was one of the best guards in camp, but when he bumped into coach Tommy Heinsohn, who was scouting the trials for the Celtics, Heinsohn told him, They may not pick you. There is politics involved. You better get someone to fight for you. Collins called Will Robinson, his coach at Illinois State, who immediately hopped a plane to Colorado an