Hard to believe Coach K is seventy-five years of age. The time he has spent at Duke has gone by in a flash. I’m eleven years ‘younger’ than Coach K, so as I witness his last tournament it does bring a sense of sentiment to my heart.
In today’s age of coaching, he probably would not have survived his first three seasons at Duke where, he won a combined 39 games in three years. Yet, Tom Butters, then AD at Duke, stuck with him despite the rough beginning.
Coach K was a disciple of Bobby Knight at Army where he forged his basic tenets of a coaching style which began with defense and ball movement.
When Coach K arrived at Duke, they were the regional triangular stepchild of North Carolina and NC State. This was back when Jimmy V was at NC State and Dean Smith was at Carolina in their respective hay days of coaching.
Slowly, year by year, NC State fell to third place and then in more time Duke surpassed even North Carolina as the premier program in all of college basketball.
Perhaps, not a stretch to say it was Coach K at Duke who assumed the massive void left in the world of college basketball when John Wooden’s run at UCLA came to an end.
I wonder how many current OKC Thunder fans even know Aubrey McClendon was a Duke graduate.
I also wonder how many OU fans realize former Sooner head coach Jeff Capel was at one time supposed to be the heir to the Duke throne when Coach K retired from coaching.
It’s interesting that even in football crazy Oklahoma there are some side stories attached to Coach K and Duke.
Duke became America’s premier ‘it’ destination college wise because of Coach K, Cameron Indoor Arena, and the basketball team.
Duke basketball became America’s version of Camelot much like the Green Bay Packers under Lombardi were in the sixties.
Coach K also became the savior of the U.S. Olympic program where his teams won three gold medals to go along with his five national championships at Duke.
Some might say Coach K took the best of Bobby Knight and learned what parts of Bobby Knight to take with him as a college head basketball coach.
I would probably have to agree with that sentiment. But I also know Bob Knight took the time to send me an autographed copy of the book about him written by Joan Mellon so as I wouldn’t have the wrong impression because of John Feinstein’s NY Times bestseller… Season on the Brink. I still can’t believe he did that. But I think it’s kind of cool he did that. That wouldn’t happen nowadays either.
It will be a massive upset if this Duke team gets out of its regional and advances to the Final Four. In order for this to happen the Blue Devils would have to beat both Texas Tech and Gonzaga in consecutive games with what is a very young team.
But you never know. Maybe there’s one last magical run left for Coach K.
In closing, in my lifetime, below is how I would rank the five greatest men’s college basketball coaches:
1 Coach K, Duke
2 John Wooden, UCLA
3 Bob Knight, Indiana
4 Al McGuire, Marquette
5 Larry Brown, Kansas and UCLA
Coach K, thank you for the thrills. It was a magnificent run. I hope you enjoy your retirement from coaching.