Years of memories

By FRANK DASCENZO : The Herald-Sun
fad@herald-sun.com
Sep 30, 2001 : 3:42 pm ET

DURHAM -- There sat somebody few knew much about. He looked serious, looked straight ahead into a crowd of wondering eyes and a few whispers. Just how do you pronounce his name? That was one of the questions. Didn’t his Army team just have a losing season? That was another.

Then Tom Butters, Duke’s athletics director, introduced his choice as the Blue Devils’ new head basketball coach. It was the spring of 1980, and Butters had warned that he would get a big-name coach. He did, too. There are 10 letters in Mike’s last name.

Mike Krzyzewski stood, walked a few steps to a microphone and began telling everybody how impressed he was with the Duke atmosphere, the basketball bastion that it had been and what it might one day become.

Who in the world is this guy and where did he come from? More questions.

As a few minutes lingered on, I recall that my initial question — one that has been followed by hundreds, if not thousands, in the 21 years Krzyzewski has coached Duke — wasn’t exactly like the other ones being asked.

Surprised at the choice of Krzyzewski, I began by saying, "You seem like a real shot in the dark for this job ... and are you surprised you’re standing here?"

I can still see the stare in Krzyzewski’s eyes as he quickly answered by saying: "You make me sound like a character in the Pink Panther."

There were a few laughs and then Krzyzewski elaborated on the opportunity before him.

That night, in that building off University Drive on Duke’s campus, Krzyzewski remained a virtual unknown young lion of a coach who, in years to come, would endure harsh criticism — much of it from Duke’s own fans and from Iron Dukes, especially. But ultimately he would introduce his system for excellence.

It included something now commonly known as motion offense. Along with man-to-man defense, both became better established with back-to-back seasons of 10-17 and 11-17 in 1982 and ’83. Once unleashed, they have yet to really be taken prisoner.

Mike Krzyzewski is, naturally, about success. His Duke teams have won 533 games, lost 164. They’ve won three NCAA titles, could just as easily have won in 1986, ’94 and ’99, and have become not only the model program in college basketball but the perennial big gun in America.

It’s simple to see, and hear, Krzyzewski’s level of popularity at Duke, around the ACC, around the nation, around the world even. But during that 1982 and 1983 stretch — when North Carolina and N.C. State won NCAA titles — Krzyzewski may as well have known he could walk out to the tennis courts and nobody would ask for his autograph.

To induct Krzyzewski into the Basketball Hall of Fame makes all the sense in the world but not so much for his three NCAA titles, the nine Final Fours, the seven championship games his Blue Devils have competed in, but because of his never-ending, never-wavering devotion to teaching and coaching at a level where the game remains the most enjoyable. The most avid Duke fan doesn’t want to imagine what the Blue Devils might be like had Krzyzewski exited, for the NBA or for something else, when he clearly had chances.

Duke basketball would survive, but would it flourish like it consistently has since his 1986 team finished 37-3 only to challenged as the best-ever by the 1992 team that finished 34-2 or the 1999 team which finished 37-2?

So awesome has Duke basketball been under Krzyzewski, that the greatest debate in his era isn’t whether his pressure defense is more valuable than his motion offense but whether the ’86 team would beat the ’99 team or whether either one of them could beat the ’92 team that had Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill as starters. Those three had their jerseys retired by Duke.

Krzyzewski is not a character from the Pink Panther, but a personality whose allowed his old-fashioned beliefs to never escape his methods for success. If you think about it for a minute, his most-recent national champs of 2001, who won their final 10 games, including whipping North Carolina twice and Maryland twice and taking out three Pac-10 teams in the NCAA Tournament, had a trait of being old fashioned.

Whether that was just by nature, stemming from the stable leadership of senior Shane Battier, from the charismatic talents of guard Jason Williams, by instincts of big game production from Mike Dunleavy, or from the injection of the ACC’s best freshman, Chris Duhon into the starting lineup at UNC on March 4, really is a matter for discussion.

The bottom line is Duke’s 2001 champions were old fashioned, unselfish and became the ideal team for the ideal coach.

Duke nearly lost its most famous coach ever three times.

The first was his third season, when his team, with sophomores Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Jay Bilas and David Henderson, were clubbed at home by North Carolina 105-81 in the final regular-season game, then embarrassed by Ralph Sampson-led Virginia 109-66 in the first round of the ACC Tournament in Atlanta.

Critics of Krzyzewski were especially easy to find in Durham. But one thing to remember here was when I returned from covering N.C. State and Jim Valvano in the greatest NCAA Tournament upset ever, Krzyzewski — not the Pink Panther — called and wanted to play tennis.

The second time Duke nearly lost Krzyzewski was in 1990. Duke finished 20-9 and was smashed by UNLV in the NCAA title game 103-73. Dave Gavitt, the former Providence coach and a man Krzyzewski has the utmost professional respect for, had taken over the Boston Celtics.

There was a track meet going on at Wallace Wade Stadium that spring and Mickie Krzyzewski sat in the stands and talked to me about how much her husband liked the Celtics, grew up a Celtics fan — not a Chicago Bulls fan — and that Boston is a great city. For awhile there, I thought Duke might be losing its basketball coach.

The third time was about four years later when Krzyzewski halfheartedly flirted with the idea of coaching the Portland Trail Blazers.

Those Duke fans who crave getting inside Cameron Indoor can understand why Krzyzewski would want to point out Butters at that celebrity charity game in August. Ticket prices have risen since Krzyzewski took the Duke job. But there’s no price on loyalty.

It seems like time has been fast-forwarded so rapidly since Butters introduced his new basketball coach. But one thing hasn’t changed. Mike Krzyzewski still takes the court with his Blue Devils inside Cameron Indoor Stadium and you know what. Duke still plays a motion offense, runs a man-to-man defense and is coached, not by a character from the Pink Panther, but by somebody who’s being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Have a comment or a suggestion for a column? You may contact Frank Dascenzo by phone at 419-6609 or by e-mail at fad@herald-sun.com.