GoDuke Weekly l www.GoDuke.com/gdw Evolution of a Championship Coach By Al Featherston


Mike Krzyzewski would usually rather look forward than think about the past. But the Duke coach couldn’t resist a moment


of reflection Wednesday night after beating UNC Greensboro to become the second winningest coach in college basketball history. “The crowd amazed me,” he said of the 22,178


fans who packed the Greensboro Coliseum for the historic moment. “When I walked out and saw a full house and so many Duke fans ... I took a moment to reflect back to when I got to North Carolina. I didn’t see that many Duke shirts then.” Mike Krzyzewski was introduced to the Duke -


and the ACC - community at a press conference on March 18, 1980. I was among the three dozen reporters who


gathered in the first-floor meeting room of the old Duke News Bureau Building (still standing at the corner of University Road and Chapel Drive) to see Blue Devil athletic director Tom Butters present the mystery man he had selected to replace Bill Fos- ter.


There was considerable skepticism in the audi-


ence when Butters introduced his unknown choice as “the best young coach in America.” Most of us couldn’t even pronounce his name - indeed, the television reporters that evening called him Mike “KUR-shevski”, despite his own efforts to set us all on the right path. “It’s sha-CHEFF-skee,” the new coach ex-


plained. “That’s K-r-z-y-z-e-w-s-k-i. And if you think that’s bad, you should have heard it before I changed it. For those of you who can’t pronounce it, you can just call me Coach K.’ “ Wednesday night at the Greensboro Coliseum,


“Coach K” became the winningest coach in ACC basketball history, passing North Carolina legend Dean Smith on the all-time victory list with a 108-62 win over UNC Greensboro. “I don’t want to make it sound less than it is,”


Krzyzewski told reporters after the milestone victory. “To do something like this, you have to be healthy, have really good players and a strong commitment from your school. I’ve had all that. This is not so much an achievement as a result of that. “Championships ... those are achievements.” Krzyzewski has won his share of champion-


ships during his 30 seasons at Duke: four national championships, an Olympic Championship, a World Championship and 12 ACC championships. He’s won 11 NCAA regional championships and more NCAA Tournament games than any coach in history. On top of that now he has 807 wins at Duke and 881


wins overall ... 881 and counting. Bobby Knight’s Di- vision I NCAA record of 902 is within reach - possibly before this season is over or early next year at the latest.


Today, anybody and everybody who cares


about basketball knows how to pronounce his name.


It’s hard to remember now what a shock But-


ters’ selection of Krzyzewski was in 1980. The Duke program, which slumped in the mid-


1970s, had regained a measure of respect under Bill Foster, a high-strung dynamo who built a Final Four team in 1978 and nearly repeated that accomplish- ment in 1980. But Foster had built a great team - not a great


program. With the graduation of All-American center Mike Gminski and veteran point guard Bob Bend- er, Duke’s long-term prospects were not very good. Foster, like so many other coaches on Tobacco Road in that era despaired of competing with Dean Smith’s juggernaut at UNC. He accepted a lucrative offer to coach at former ACC member South Caro- lina.


It was no coincidence that N.C. State’s Norm


Sloan, who had also challenged Smith with some success (a national title in 1974) also gave up the fight that spring, resigning to return to Florida in the SEC.


That left Butters and his rival Willis Casey fish- ing in the same coaching pool at the same time. The


Wolfpack was quickly linked to Morgan Wootten, the legendary coach at DeMatha High School. Early re- ports suggested that Butters would pursue former Vic Bubas assistant Chuck Daly, who was at that time an assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers. Butters had other ideas. His first pitch was not


to the little known (at the time) Daly, but to the man he perceived as the best college basketball coach in the country. He called Indiana’s Bob Knight and offered him


the job. Knight declined, but suggested a couple of his


protégés - SMU’s Dave Bliss and Mississippi’s Bob Weltlich - as possibilities. Butters discussed his options with Steve Va-


cendak, the former Duke guard who was about to become an associate athletic director at his alma mater. It was Vacendak who first brought up the Army coach with the unpronounceable name. Since the Army coach was also a Knight protégé, Butters called the Indiana coach again and asked him what he thought about Mike Krzyzewski. “Knight’s comment was, ‘If you like me as a


basketball coach, here’s a man who has all my good qualities and none of my bad ones,’” Butters said. After hearing that endorsement, Duke’s athletic


director met secretly with the young Army coach and talked to him about the job. In the end, Butters sent him home, concerned about his youth - Krzyzewski had just turned 33 years old - and his 9-17 record in his most recent season at Army. “But I couldn’t get him out of my mind,” Butters


said. Krzyzewski had played four years for Knight at


Army, where he excelled as a defender and ballhan- dler. One of his best games was when the Cadets knocked off South Carolina in the NIT and Krzyze-


wski outplayed Gamecock guard Bobby Cremins. After five years of military service, Captain


Krzyzewski resigned his commission and joined Knight’s staff at Indiana, where he served one year as a graduate assistant coach. He returned to West Point as head coach in 1975, leading the U.S. Mili- tary Academy to back-to-back records of 20-8 in 1977 and 19-9 in 1978. But his program slumped to 14-11 in 1979 and to 9-17 in 1980. Is it any wonder that Butters was reluctant to gamble on the 33-year-old unknown? Click here to read the full article on GoDuke.com


GoDuke Weekly The official online magazine of Duke Athletics


Managing Editors Contributors


Jon Jackson Matt Plizga


Michael Tomko


Ben Blevins, Lindy Brown Art Chase, Chris Cook,


Ned McGraw, Kristina Morrison Meredith Rieder, Ashley Wolf


Staff Writers A.J. Carr


Al Featherston Barry Jacobs Jim Sumner


Digital Publishing YUDU


Letters to the editor and general feedback: letters@duaa.duke.edu


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