YouTube Gold: Tony Bennett’s First Encounter With Mike Krzyzewski

Mike Krzyzewski has been at Duke long enough that people just sort of think of him as Duke Basketball and we forget that other people have very different perspectives.

At one point he ran into Neil Kennett, the guy who coached Wagner when Wagner beat Duke in Cameron. Kennett said “you probably don’t remember me...” but Coach K said he did and that he learned a tremendous amount from that game.

Can you imagine? That team beat Coach K’s Duke team when no one had any idea he would be one of the all-time greats. It surely felt good to beat an ACC team on the road, but to see that coach become an icon? Kennett has a great story to tell.

As it turns out, so does Virginia’s Tony Bennett.

A star player in college, Bennett first met Coach K when he was on the Pan American team with Grant Hill and Christian Laettner. Clearly, he was impressed with Krzyzewski then, particularly with his ability to communicate passion. Pretty great story here (about 8:30 in).