Ryan Matthew Kelly was born in Carmel, New York, and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, in a family where athletics and academics were inseparable. His father Chris played basketball at Yale from 1981 to 1985 and then professionally in France for three years. His mother Doreen played volleyball at the University of Pennsylvania and toured South America with Athletes In Action. When both your parents are Ivy League athletes, the expectation isn’t just that you’ll play sports — it’s that you’ll think while you play them.
At Ravenscroft School in Raleigh — the same private school where his mother would eventually serve as Head of School — Kelly was a four-year star. He set school career records in points (2,065), rebounds (950), blocks (379), field goals (864), and free throws (312). As a senior, he averaged 25.2 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks, earning North Carolina Gatorade Player of the Year, McDonald’s All-American honors, and Parade All-America First Team selection. He was ranked as high as #12 nationally by Scout.com and was the #4 power forward in the country.
Kelly chose Duke over North Carolina, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, and Georgetown. The decision, he later said, came down to a gut feeling. “When I went to Duke and played pickup, it was as if I was already on the team,” he recalled. “I was coming for somebody’s minutes.” It helped that during his recruitment, Krzyzewski was coaching the 2008 Olympic team in Beijing — and the idea of hearing from K while he was coaching the best players in the world carried enormous weight for a high schooler from Raleigh.