Coach K: The Legacy He Left Behind
Duke was top in basketball programs under Coach K; where is it headed without him?
For decades Duke basketball was seen as THE game on every team’s schedule. Everyone wanted to play them, everyone wanted to beat them, but nobody could. They were a dominant team for years on end, they never seemed to have a bad year, and they produced hundreds of NBA talents. All of these achievements were thanks to one man, Coach Michael Krzyzewski. Coach Michael Krzyzewski also known as “Coach K” is Duke’s former head coach of basketball for 42 years, during which he led the Blue Devils to five national titles, thirteen final fours, fifteen ACC tournament championships, and thirteen ACC regular season titles. Among men’s college basketball coaches, only UCLA’s John Wooden has won more NCAA championships, with a total of ten. Coach K is widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. Krzyzewski has also coached the United States national team, which he has led to three gold medals at the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics. He was the head coach of the U.S. team that won gold medals at the 2010 and the 2014 FIBA World Cup, and an assistant coach for the “Dream Team” at the 1992 Olympics.
According to wikipedia, Krzyzewski was a point guard at Army from 1966 to 1969 coached by the legendary Bob Knight. From 1975 to 1980, Krzyzewski was the head coach for Army He is a two-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2001 for his individual coaching career and in 2010 as part of the collective induction of the “Dream Team.” He was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 2009 (with the “Dream Team”). After his career at Army, he was discharged in 1974 at the rank of captain. He started his coaching career as an assistant on Bobby Knights staff during their historic 1974-1975 season.
On March 18, 1980, Krzyzewski was named Duke Basketball’s head coach, and after a rocky few seasons with many critics calling for him to be fired, he and the Blue Devils became a fixture on the national basketball scene with 35 NCAA Tournament berths in the past 36 years and 24 consecutive from 1996 to 2019, which is the second-longest current streak of tournament appearances behind Kansas, which has appeared in the tournament in 30 consecutive seasons. He has taken his program to postseason play in the thirty six of his thirty-nine years at Duke and is the most winning active coach in men’s NCAA Tournament play with a 100–30 record for a .769 winning percentage.
According to CoachK.com Along with coaching Duke Basketball Coach K was also appointed coach of the United States national team in 2005. Krzyzewski won three consecutive gold medals in the Olympics. His other international coaching accolades include a silver medal at the 1987 World University Games, a bronze medal at the 1990 FIBA World Championship, a silver medal at the 1990 Goodwill Games, a bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship, and gold medals at the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship, the 2010 FIBA World Championship, and the 2014 FIBA World Cup.
On June 3, 2021, Coach K announced he would be retiring from coaching basketball. Many people could not believe it, Coach K was all that many Duke fans knew. Duke would go on to go 16-4 in league play (1st in ACC) and had a very successful NCAA tournament appearance. The Blue Devils would go on to lose to UNC in his last home game as Duke’s head coach. He changed the whole way he coached and led the Blue Devils to the final four of the NCAA Tournament, falling to UNC again with an 81-77 score. This loss to North Carolina in the Final Four ended Coach K’s career. He needed just two more wins to hoist a sixth national championship trophy. But even though his career ended with a loss to Duke’s archrival, it was still a memorable way to go out.
To put the Coach K era into perspective is a mammoth undertaking. Since 1986, Coach K has guided Duke to over 1,000 wins, 12 Final Fours, 5 national championships, 35 NCAA tournament berths and 15 ACC championships. He has had 67 players selected in the NBA draft, a number that will increase in July. And he has been a part of five Olympic gold medal-winning teams in 1984, 1992, 2008, 2012 and 2016. No coach has been as impactful on the international stage as Coach K. John Wooden won 10 national championships in 12 seasons at UCLA, but Coach K has sustained his program on the top tier of the game for more than 35 years, a run of preeminence in the game that no coach has matched. Nobody has done it that well for that long.
