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We’ve been incredibly lucky to have Mike Krzyzewski at Duke since 1980. He was a promising young coach when Tom Butters controversially hired him but who could have predicted what he has accomplished? We’re not sure anyone, other than himself, Butters and perhaps Bob Knight, expected this level of accomplishment.
We’ve been lucky, too, that Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News isn’t locked behind a paywall and occasionally writes wonderful long form pieces.
Those two bits of good fortune intersect with this article about Krzyzewski in his (don't say the L word) season as a coach.
There’s some classic Krzyzewski here. Take the line about last season: “As soon as COVID hit, I said there’s no way [I’m leaving]. We have to shepherd – I didn’t know where it would end or whatever – but I said we have to shepherd the program. I didn’t know that shepherding would lead the sheep through the Valley of Death and up the Himalayas. For everybody, it was tough.”
The line about getting his “damn chairs back” from Scheyer is pretty funny too - some good West Point-type needling.
But the coolest thing about this piece is when he talks about his decision to step down and discussing it with his assistants who essentially nominated Jon Scheyer to take over.
How cool is that?
Anyway, it’s a really good piece. We think you’ll enjoy it. Coach K will move to other things after this season but it won’t surprise us if he does some part-time coaching of a grandkid’s team or something.
As for DeCourcy, we hope he keeps at it for a long time. He’s really good.