Coach K enters his final season as the sun sets on the king coach era
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Coach K’s Next Job
By next spring, Mike Krzyzewski will make the full transition out of coaching when Jon Scheyer takes over the Duke program. Coach K will have plenty to do at Duke even after his coaching days end. Krzyzewski is under contract to work as an ambassador for the school. How has Coach K reached this point in his career, and what’s next? This is The N&O’s special report.
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When he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001, Mike Krzyzewski spoke about a metaphor that guides his life and his coaching.
“I always talk about being on a train every season,” the Duke coach told the audience, which included basketball greats, his former players and his lifelong friends from his native Chicago. “You are either on the train or you’re not on the train. The train is always moving. You can get on or get off. But when you’re on, you had better be on all the way.”
Now, 20 years later, Coach K’s train is taking its final run. The 74-year-old will retire after his 42nd season at Duke. And as he prepares to leave, elements of the game that fueled his success are leaving, too.
Krzyzewski built a dynasty at Duke by recruiting talented and coachable players. In his Hall of Fame speech, he said, “I had the chance to teach some of the best kids in the country who could also play basketball.” He taught them about the game, but he also steeped them in a culture of teamwork founded on mutual respect and aimed at common achievement. In his speech, Krzyzewski distilled his coaching philosophy into one line: “None of us can do what all of us can do.”
That’s a noble and, for Krzyzewski, winning philosophy. On his way to winning five NCAA Division 1 titles, he has won more men’s college basketball games than any Division 1 coach in history.
But it’s not a philosophy that works at a time when the best players play only one season and then turn pro. Krzyzewski has had more than a dozen one-and-done players, most of them since 2015. It’s hard to do much teaching or culture steeping in that brief period. And now, welcome changes that allow college stars to profit off the commercial use of their name, image and likeness will further separate the individual from the team.
That’s not to say Krzyzewski couldn’t still win with one-and-done phenoms such as Kyrie Irving or Zion Williamson backed by lesser McDonald’s All-Americans. But it would be harder and less satisfying.
Basketball fans should take a long look at Coach K in his final season. They’re unlikely to see this kind of king coach again, one who could build his program over decades into a national brand that drew five-star recruits and generated big returns for him and his school. Krzyzewski has an annual salary of $9.7 million and an estimated net worth of $45 million, according to the Celebrity Net Worth website. The value he brought to Duke in visibility, more student applications and good will is far greater.
Even Will Blythe, a UNC graduate and author of a book on the UNC-Duke rivalry, “To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever,” regrets seeing Krzyzewki take a final bow.
“His leaving feels like the end of history to me,” Blythe said. “His fierce presence over the last 40 or so years has made for the greatest rivalry in college sports.”
Krzyzewski knows how to win. He also knows when to retire. The conditions in which he and his program flourished are giving way to a new environment.
The media and social media have expanded and morphed in a way that makes the spotlight harder to hold. The NCAA is facing legal challenges to a system nominally based on amateurism that exploited college athletes while showering riches on networks, schools and coaches. With the easing of NCAA transfer rules, hundreds of Division 1 basketball players are switching schools.
For several decades, TV tapped into the youth, tradition and loyalties of college basketball to create a gusher of money and exposure, but that well is running dry.
Mike Krzyzewski had a great run during a golden age. He did it with grit, recruiting, teaching, discipline, imagination, inspiration and (as Carolina and N.C. State fans will attest) working the referees. Now the final season calls, the horn sounds once again, and Coach K’s train will roll one last time toward a title and into history.
This story was originally published November 7, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Coach K enters his final season as the sun sets on the king coach era."