As a part of The Chronicle's coverage of Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski's climb to win No. 1,000, we will bring you content from the early days of Krzyzewski's tenure at Duke. From his hiring in 1980 to win No. 903 to his upcoming 1,000th career win, The Chronicle has been a constant source of coverage for the Duke community. We hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane. Today, we go back to March 18, 1980—the day Coach K was introduced as head coach.
In a surprise announcement last night, Mike Krzyzewski, the head coach of Army during the last five years, was named the new head basketball coach by athletic director Tom Butters.
Krzyzewski (pronounced Kre-shev-ski) replaces Bill Foster, who mentioned Krzyzewski, 33, as a possible successor. Most of the speculation centered on Boston College’s Tom Davis, Mississippi’s Bob Weltich, and Foster’s top assistant at Duke, Bob Wenzel. Yet, Butters said that he visited with Krzyzewski three times over the last 10 days.
“There is no doubt in my mind that Mike is the most brilliant young basketball coach in the country,” Butters said. “ In addition, Butters denied rumors that he had previously offered the job to another coach.
“Mike was my first choice and he received unanimous approval by the athletic council,” he added.
Krzyzewski is credited with transforming a losing basketball program at Army into a high-caliber one. He arrived at West Point in 1975 and took the Cadets, who had been 3-22 in 1974-75 to 11-14, 20-8, and 19-9 marks in his first three seasons there. However, the Cadets fell to 14-11 and 7-19 during the last two seasons.
The new coach is a disciple of Indiana University’s Bobby Knight, widely considered one of the nation’s best basketball minds. A native of Chicago, Krzyzewski played at the U.S. Military Academy under Knight from 1967-69. He served as a graduate assistant for Knight at Indiana in 1974 before moving to West Point. He also coached with Knight this past summer as an assistant on America’s gold medal Pan-American Games team.
“You’re certainly a product of your environment, and Coach Knight is a great teacher,” Krzyzewski said. “But I’m not Bobby Knight. I’m a different person. His principles of basketball are excellent, but it’s a matter of applying yourself to them.”
Speaking about the style of basketball Duke will play next season, Krzyzewski said, “We will run a motion offense and play a man-to-man defense primarily. We will not be a slow-down team.”
Recruiting will be a top priority for Krzyzewski in the coming weeks. “I feel that recruiting will be easier here,” he said in obvious reference to the military service requirement his Army players faced. “It will be a different type of recruiting. We’ll be able to go after the real blue-chip athlete.”
“I’ll be out on the road pretty quickly and we will follow up on the players that Duke has already recruited,” he added.
Krzyzewski saw no reason that Duke cannot continue the winning ways of recent years. “Anytime you lose players the caliber of Mike (Gminski) and Bobby (Bender) to graduation, it can’t help,” he said. “But I sure as hell hope that Duke can contend next year, and be a tournament team every year. That’s got to be the goal of any program.”
The new coach met with most of the players before the press conference at 8 p.m. “I feel really good after talking to them,” he said. “They seem to have a good chemistry here.”
The players also had positive feelings for Krzyzewski. Freshman guard Tom Emma said, “I don’t know much about him as a coach, but he seems like a nice guy. It looks really good for next year.”
Bender, who enrolled at Indiana after being recruited by Krzyzewski, was surprised by the announcement. “My first reaction was kind of a shock, but at the same time I am very pleased for Duke,” he said.
“H’e personable, dynamic, and very well-versed at dealing with the public. And his record speaks for itself,” Bender said.
Krzyzewski displayed a characteristic with throughout the press conference. He chided the press for its failure to place him on the list of Foster’s possible successors. “You guys just aren’t working hard enough,” he told the press. He also spoke humorously of the difficult spelling of his Polish surname. “It was a lot worse before I changed it. Most of the players just call me ‘Coach K.’ But before a player graduates, I insist that they know how to pronounce it and spell it,” he added.
Krzyzewski and his wife Mickey have two daughters Debbie and Lindy, ages 9 and 2.
—Bart Pachino
This article originally ran March 19, 1980.
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