The Washington Post has a great story about San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich that’s made all the more interesting because it runs Air Force Academy basketball.

Hank Egan coached Popovich at the United States Air Force Academy from 1971 to 1984. Popovich was a walk-on and an aspiring secret agent man who would become a basketball king, one of the winningest coaches in NBA history.

“Back then, Popovich, a striking combination of military man and Vietnam-era free spirit, spoke two Eastern European languages, majored in Soviet studies and drove a yellow Corvette,” Post sports writer Kent Babb reports. “In his mind, he was going to become a real-life James Bond. But when that pursuit lacked the Sean Connery glamour he expected, Popovich returned home to master a complicated and diverse game – and to find his voice in an uncertain world.”

Babb starts his story eight days after the inauguration of Donald Trump, a man Popovich despises, when he called Egan at home in El Paso County. (“There’s a difference between respecting the office and the person who occupies it,” Popovich told reporters about the time of his call to Egan.)

What was Egan up to?

“Nothing? Then Popovich had a deal for him,” Babb writes. “Leave the late January chill of Colorado Springs, hop a plane and spend the week in sunny San Antonio, where Popovich – arguably the NBA’s best coach but definitely its most complex figure – coached the Spurs. Airline tickets, a hotel room and two good seats for Egan and his wife at AT&T Center – ‘Pop,’ as he’s known, would take care of it all.

“Egan agreed, but because this was Popovich he knew the package wouldn’t exactly be free. The 68-year-old Spurs coach isn’t just a five-time NBA champion and the architect of a franchise that is a model of consistency. He is also one of the most cerebral figures in professional sports, and one who has emerged as a forceful and unrelenting critic of President Trump and his administration’s more controversial policies.”

Popovich wanted Egan, also his former NBA assistant, to come and be educated through argument, the article says.

“Egan, a wisecracking centrist from Brooklyn, was a reliable sparring partner,” Babb writes.

Egan knew the drill like a shoot-around before gametime.

“He knew they’d eat some complicated dish Egan would never remember, and after a while the Spurs coach would bring in a few selections from his 3,000-bottle wine collection,” Babb wrote.

“Then at some point, one of them would say something to light the evening’s fuse, and with the pump primed with opinions and plenty of good red, away they’d go.”

The walk-on from East Chicago grew into a team leader under Egan. His senior season, he led the Falcons in scoring and was named captain.

But instead of pursuing a career in the Central Intelligence Agency, he pursued hoop dreams. After active duty in the Air Force, mostly touring with the U.S. Armed Forces basketball team, he coached under Egan at the Air Force Academy from 1973 to 1978.

Meanwhile, Popovich attended the University of Denver and earned his master’s degree in physical education and sports sciences. In 1979, he landed his first college head coaching gig, for Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens in California. He became head coach of the Spurs in 1996.

The rest is NBA history. Popovich these days seems more concerned with the country’s future.