The Legends Club

by John Feinstein

  “I had forgotten what an advantage it is to play first on Saturday,” Krzyzewski said. “It means you get to bed at a normal hour. You play that second game, it is always one or two o’clock in the morning before you get your team back to the hotel and to bed. It means your preparation time isn’t anywhere close to normal.”

  There appeared to be a good deal of karma at work. Duke had already won two national titles in Indianapolis—including its first one in 1991 and its most recent one in 2010. Michigan State was the semifinal opponent, a team Duke had beaten in November. Krzyzewski was close friends with Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and had always seemed to have his number. His record against him was 8–1.

  “If we lose to Tom,” Mickie Krzyzewski said before the game, “I can live with that.”

  As it turned out there was little reason to worry about losing to Tom. Although Michigan State came out of the gate on a three-point shooting spree and quickly led 14–6, Duke erased that margin in almost no time and, even with Winslow in foul trouble, led 36–25 by halftime. When the Blue Devils began the second half on a 6–0 run to up the margin to 42–25, the game was over. The lead never got below 14 in the second half, and Duke cruised home, 81–61.

  Everyone expected the championship matchup to be against undefeated Kentucky. CBS was anticipating perhaps the highest-rated national title game ever. Except someone forgot to tell Wisconsin. The Badgers had lost to Kentucky at the buzzer in the Final Four a year earlier and weren’t the least bit intimidated by the specter of the Wildcats. Even after Kentucky had put on one of its patented second-half rallies to turn an eight-point deficit into a four-point lead, Wisconsin didn’t blink.

  On three possessions, the Badgers forced Kentucky into thirty-five-second violations. “I don’t think that’s happened to us three times all season,” a stunned John Calipari said after the game. “That was shocking.”

  So was the outcome. After trailing 60–56, Wisconsin went on an 8–0 run, keyed by a Sam Dekker three-pointer that broke a 60–60 tie, and never looked back, ending the game on a 15–4 run and winning, 71–64. While the jubilant Wisconsin players celebrated, thousands of Kentucky fans filed out of Lucas Oil Stadium in stunned silence. They had come to see a coronation. Instead, they had seen a coup.

  Krzyzewski honestly didn’t care which team Duke faced in the final. He respected what Kentucky had accomplished but didn’t fear the Wildcats—they had been proven vulnerable even before the loss to Wisconsin. He also greatly respected Wisconsin and Coach Bo Ryan and knew they were a tough, experienced team.

  For almost thirty minutes, it looked like it was Ryan’s turn to win a Division I national title (he had won four at the Division III level) and that Wisconsin was the team of destiny. When center Frank Kaminsky made a layup with 13:23 left to give the Badgers a 48–39 lead, Krzyzewski called time-out.

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he would joke later.

  Okafor had four fouls. Winslow had three. Kaminsky, the senior, was schooling Okafor, the freshman. Krzyzewski looked down his bench and saw Grayson Allen.

  Allen had become a solid role player as the season progressed, especially after Sulaimon was kicked off the team. He was the eighth man on an eight-man team, but he almost always gave the team a boost when he got a chance to play. He had played well in the Michigan State game and in the first half of the Wisconsin game. Most of his playing time had come in first halves—Krzyzewski getting him a few minutes to keep the starters fresh.

  Now, in the second half of the national championship game, Allen found himself on the floor and with the ball in his hands. Never afraid to shoot, he launched a three-pointer. Swish. It was 48–42. Then he dove on the floor and made a steal. After Amile Jefferson missed a shot, Allen got the tipped-back rebound, scored, and was fouled. He made the free throw. It was 48–45.

  Suddenly, the Duke bench was alive. Nigel Hayes made a three for Wisconsin, but Allen made two free throws—meaning he had scored eight straight Duke points. The momentum had swung completely.

  “I didn’t even know what to do next,” Krzyzewski said. “Because at that point, I’m not sure I knew what was going on.”

  What was going on was a remarkable 27–8 Duke run, keyed by Allen. It culminated when Tyus Jones, who would be chosen as the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, hit a three with the shot clock running down and 1:24 to go to give Duke a 66–58 lead. Wisconsin gamely cut the margin to 66–63, but Jones made two clinching free throws and the final was 68–63.

  “All the years I’ve coached, I’ve never had a player do something like that for me,” Krzyzewski said months later, shaking his head in disbelief and still becoming emotional when the subject of Allen’s performance came up. “What Grayson did was beyond amazing. We’ve had great players make great plays and huge shots for us in the past, but the way he came into that game and picked us up was…I can’t describe it. We were dead in the water and he saved us.”

  The national championship may have been Krzyzewski’s most satisfying because he had gone back to square one, looked in the mirror, and rebooted himself as a coach after the Mercer loss. Duke had gone from a bad defensive team in January to a superb one in March and April, and all eight scholarship players had made important contributions.

  They had indeed gone to infinity…and beyond.

  —

  Shortly before Krzyzewski and his coaches headed back to the road for summer recruiting, he spent the better part of a day meeting with various media members from around the country. He met first with a large group, then did some TV one-on-ones, and then met with small groups by ones and twos. For four hours he recounted the 2015 season just past and talked about how gratifying it had been for him to see his team evolve into one that had cut down the final net.

  No, he said, he wouldn’t be going to New York later in the week to see Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow, and Tyus Jones all get drafted in the first round.

  “That night is for them,” he said. “They don’t need me there.”

  When the last interview was over, he sat down in his office and took a deep breath. He had been asked several times during the day how much longer he thought he would coach. Some had thought he might bow out after the 2016 Olympics. Now, with recruits practically lining up outside the door once again, he had no serious thoughts about retirement.

  “As long as I’m healthy and enjoying it, I’ll coach,” he said. “Right now, I’m both.”

  He was, however, keenly aware of the passage of time and that he wouldn’t coach forever.

  “When my brother died, I felt very alone,” he said. “I know that sounds impossible because I have such a great family and I’m constantly surrounded by love. But when I thought about the family I had grown up in—my mom, my dad, my brother—they were all gone. Where there had been four, there was one. That hit me hard.

  “I felt like that—in a different way, but still with a lot of emotion—when Dean died. As hard as he and Jim and I competed against one another we were all part of something, part of something special—very special, I think.”

  He paused and his voice became extremely soft.

  “Where once there were three…now there’s one. I know how lucky I am to still be here, but I still think about both of them, and of those days, often. I know that all things end. That’s why I cherish what I’m doing now every single day and why I cherish my memories, different as they are, of the two of them.”

  He smiled. “What we became, as individuals, but maybe even more as a group, is an amazing story.”

  And, although Krzyzewski knows that no one lives forever, he also knows what he and Smith and Valvano became. Their intense battles, their friendships, their victories, and their legacies—as coaches, as rivals, and as men—will undoubtedly live forever.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I first came up with the idea for this book, I knew that two of the three protagonists would not be available to me firsthand, since Jim Valvano had passed a
way in 1993 and Dean Smith was in the late stages of terminal dementia.

  And so, I had to depend on the kindness of others.

  First and foremost, I needed the time and cooperation of Mike Krzyzewski, the one member of the troika who was still available to me. I’ve known Mike for more than thirty-five years, dating to his days coaching at Army, and there are still times when I have to take a step back to understand exactly what he’s become within the pantheon of college basketball.

  If there is one thing that Krzyzewski, Smith, and Valvano had in common it was this: each was a great basketball coach but, in my opinion, as someone who spent a lot of time with all three, a better person than a coach.

  I was reminded of that in my dealings with Krzyzewski throughout this book.

  I know what the demands on his time are like. I know that perhaps the most difficult thing he’s had to do in the last twenty-five years is learn how to say no to people, because if he didn’t, he would never have a chance to sleep. But I counted on a very selfish notion when I first approached him with the idea: he never says no to his friends.

  And, yes, we are friends. Not because he’s the basketball coach at Duke, which happens to be the school I (barely) got a degree from a hundred years ago, but because he’s Mike Krzyzewski. I’ve been friends with plenty of other college basketball coaches, including Gary Williams, who coached for twenty-two years at a school whose fan base honestly believes Krzyzewski is the devil.

  As it turned out, my notion about Mike was true. He went above and beyond what I could reasonably have asked for in terms of time and patience throughout the project. He also kept his sense of humor. After we had spent most of two days together during our first lengthy sessions, I thanked him for never once flinching or looking at his watch as I went over events with him in great detail.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Actually, I should thank you, because, you know, I’m Catholic.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

  “Because now, after these two days, when I die, I can tell God I’ve already served my time in purgatory.”

  And more.

  Even though I could not put Dean or Jim through purgatory, I came into the book confident I could write about them and their relationships with each other and Krzyzewski for two reasons: First, I had spent a great deal of time with both men through the years, especially in the 1980s, when the three-way rivalry was in full bloom. Second, I believed I would get the help I needed from their families and from former players and coaches.

  Fortunately, I was right.

  Both Linnea Smith and Pam Valvano Strasser could not have been more gracious with their time or more giving of their thoughts and emotions in talking about their husbands. I know how painful it was for Pam to relive much of what took place during Jim’s final years at N.C. State and during the last year of his life. She was remarkable.

  So too was Linnea, who was living through the final months of Dean’s life when I spoke to her. At one point, she looked at me and said very quietly, “Every single day is excruciating because he can’t tell me how he feels about what he’s going through.”

  I remember Linnea choking up when she said that, her voice filled with sadness.

  On the morning after Dean died, I heard those words again and, as awful as I felt about Dean’s passing, part of me felt relieved for him and for Linnea and for all of those who loved Dean and had to live through those last couple of years.

  Long ago, when I covered politics, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Maryland was a guy named Bob Pascal. Whenever Pascal talked about his wife, Nancy, he called her “my secret weapon.”

  Mike Krzyzewski has never used that phrase to describe Mickie, but if he did, he wouldn’t be wrong. She has truly been his partner in every possible way since the day they got married in 1969—even if she did get him kicked off the Army team bus during his senior year. Whenever I’ve written about Mike, dating to the first magazine piece I did on him in 1981, Mickie has been my secret weapon. Not only does she know and understand her husband better than anyone, she has never been anything less than 100 percent honest about him and about the people in his life—friend or foe. I’m not sure there’s any way I can ever repay her for all the time and smart, funny stories she has shared with me through the years.

  Jim Valvano’s two brothers, Nick and Bobby, aren’t as funny as Jim—because no one has ever been as funny as Jim. Bob refers to Nick as “the un-funny Valvano brother,” which means he’s only funnier than about 95 percent of the population. With Bob, the number is closer to 99 percent.

  Both could not have been more helpful—and they were also pretty damn funny. I think they probably both came to dread hearing from me: “Have you got a few more minutes?…I have just a couple more questions.” They never said no.

  Those who had worked with Jim or played for him were the same way: Tom Abatemarco, Dereck Whittenburg, Sidney Lowe, Terry Gannon, and John Saunders among them. The same was true for those who had been close to Dean: Roy Williams, Eddie Fogler, Billy Cunningham, Buzz Peterson, Bill Raftery, John Thompson, Larry Brown, and Bill Guthridge heading the list. I was lucky that I had spent time with Bill before he became ill, when his mind was still sharp as a tack. I would be remiss in not also thanking Linda Woods, Dean’s longtime right-hand woman, who helped me track down many of the Carolina people with whom I needed to talk.

  The unsung hero of the Duke basketball program is Gerry Brown, who has been to Mike Krzyzewski what Linda Woods was to Dean Smith for more than thirty years now. Like Linda, Gerry helped me track down a number of key people. Among those who spent time with me talking about all three coaches were Lou Goetz and Bob Wenzel (teammates of Valvano, Duke assistants under Bill Foster), Bobby Dwyer, Chuck Swenson, Pete Gaudet, Bob Bender (who first met Krzyzewski as a high school senior when Mike recruited him to play at Indiana), Mike Gminski, Tommy Amaker, Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Jay Bilas, David Henderson, Billy King, Danny Ferry, Grant Hill, and Bobby Hurley.

  Tom Butters and Steve Vacendak were generous with both their time and their memories—both still excellent, I was happy to find—especially in remembering the early dark days of Krzyzewski’s time at Duke.

  Among those not directly connected to the three coaches who gave me considerable help were Gary Williams; Terry and Ann Holland; the great Lefty Driesell (who should be in the Hall of Fame); Ken Denlinger (to whom this book is dedicated); and my pal Keith Drum, who probably understood the three of them better than anyone who covered them on a regular basis back in the 1980s. Thanks also to Morgan Wootten, who, like the three legends, is a Hall of Fame coach, but a better man. And thanks to his son Joe for one of the funnier quotes in the book. Others who were more than helpful included Mike Brey, Jim Boeheim, Fran Dunphy, Jay Wright, Bobby Cremins, Bob Costas, and my friend and colleague Liz Clarke—who was a huge help putting the entire Valvano/N.C. State mess into perspective for me.

  The sports information staffs at all three schools all pitched in with whatever I needed: Steve Kirschner at North Carolina, Matt Plizga at Duke, and Annabelle Myers at N.C. State. Special thanks to N.C. State historian Tim Peeler, for digging into his files for old clips I couldn’t possibly have found without him.

  A word here about Rick Brewer: he has been a friend and a colleague since I was in college. A lot of the reason that Dean Smith came to trust me—in spite of where I went to college—was because Rick told him to trust me, especially early on. As with so many other projects I have worked on, Rick was invaluable on this one. I am forever grateful for his friendship.

  This list could have been longer. I’ve looked back at my early “talk to” list for this book, and it is considerably longer than the above list. There’s a reason for that: I realized early on that I had already done a lot of the reporting for the project just by being there throughout the 1980s. I’ve told many people that I wasn’t born to write this book, but I did live it. Plus, the people I spoke to were so generous and so det
ailed in their memories, I realized I had to stop reporting at some point and start writing. I’m sure Jason Kaufman, my editor, was grateful for that, because if I hadn’t, he would be working his way through manuscript page 1,000 about now.

  Jason was a big believer in this idea from the beginning. Being honest, my agent, Esther Newberg, was not: she’s one of those people who can’t stand the mention of Krzyzewski’s name (she’s a UConn fanatic and has apparently forgotten her team beating Duke in two Final Fours) and believes the only basketball programs worthy of her attention are the UConn men and women and the Knicks—when they’re good.

  But to her credit, she understood that this book was “right in your wheelhouse,” and admitted when she started reading it that “there is a lot in here I didn’t know.”

  I sincerely hope she’s not the only one who feels that way.

  Jason’s colleague, Rob Bloom, a talented editor in his own right, is among the most patient people on earth—believe it or not, I can be a little bit tough to deal with, if only because my knowledge of technology pretty much ends in about 1990—and the same is true of Esther’s assistant Zoe Sandler—who has the patience of Job for dealing with Esther and me. Thanks also to Bill Thomas at Doubleday and to Kari Stuart, John Delaney, and Liz Farrell at ICM.

  And then there are my friends and family, who enable me through each and every one of my books: I usually start with Keith and Barbie Drum, but since Keith was part of this book, I’ll just start with Barbie. Thanks also to Jackson Diehl and Jean Halperin, David and Linda Maraniss, Bob Woodward, Matt Vita, Matt Rennie, and Matt Bonesteel—all Washington Post editors, believe it or not. More Post folks: Sally Jenkins, Marty Weil, Lexie Verdon and Steve Barr (still Posties in my heart), David Larimer, Mark Maske, and Kathy Orton.

  Longtime friends: Terry and Patti Hanson, Doug and Beth Doughty, Dob and Anne DeStefano, the wondrous Bud Collins, Wes Seeley, Andy Dolich, Pete Alfano, David Teel, Gary Cohen, Beth Shumway-Brown, Beth Sherry-Downes, Pete Van Poppel, Frank DaVinney, Omar Nelson, Mike Werteen, Phil Hoffmann, Joe Speed, Andrew Thompson, Jack Hecker, Gordon Austin, Eddie Tapscott, Steve (Moose) Stirling, Tim Kelly, Dick Hall, Anthony and Kristen Noto, Derek Klein, Jim (king of the world) Cantelupe, Bob Zurfluh, Vivian Thompson, Mike and David Sanders, Tony and Karril Kornheiser, Mike Wilbon, Nancy Denlinger, Governor Harry Hughes, General Steve Sachs, Tim Maloney, Chris Ryan, Harry Kantarian, Jim Rome, Mike Purkey, Bob Edwards, Tom and Jane Goldman, Mike Gastineau, Dick and Joanie (Hoops) Weiss, Jim O’Connell, Holland and Jill Mickle, Jerry Tarde, Mike O’Malley, Larry Dorman, Marsha Edwards, Jay Edwards, Chris Edwards and John Cutcher, Len and Gwyn Edwards-Dieterle, and, of course, Aunt Joan, Bill Leahey, Andy North, Paul Goydos, Steve Flesch, Bill Andrade, Gary “Grits” Crandall, Drew Miceli, Brian Henninger, and Tom and Hilary Watson.