Junior Andrew Humphries is best known on Duke’s campus for his role in the rabidly popular comedy group, Duke University Improv. From here on out, however, he will be known in Blue Devil lore for the role he played in convincing men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski to stay at Duke.
During Monday’s press conference, at which Krzyzewski officially announced his decision to turn down a head coaching offer from the Los Angeles Lakers and remain in Durham, his wife Mickie interjected to remind her husband of 35 years to publicly thank Humphries for an e-mail he had written over the weekend.
“My whole thing sending it was, you hear about this and you feel really helpless,” Humphries said. “At some point, as a sports fan, you feel like you don’t control anything. I wrote this e-mail and my thinking was here he was getting a thousand e-mails, and I figured my e-mail would be 1,001. I had no anticipation of him actually reading the e-mail.”
At the press conference, Krzyzewski noted that the letter was so full of commitment and respect, it moved him and his wife to tears.
In fact, the Krzyzewskis were so touched, Mickie Krzyzewski sought Humphries’ cell phone number and left him a message Monday afternoon.
“You don’t know me, we’ve never met, but my name is Mickie Krzyzewski, I’m Coach K’s wife,” she said. “I read your e-mail to him, and he read it too, and I wanted to let you know on his behalf that he is still your coach and we are staying here at Duke. There’s going to be a press conference over at Cameron at 5 [p.m.] in the media room, and if you’re available at five, I would love to say something to you. I don’t want you to go out of your way to do that, but I wanted to let you know, and I’d love to say hello to you. Thank you for your e-mail, it meant a lot—and he’s your coach.”
Andrew’s e-mail:
Coach K,
I suppose that you’ve received a flurry of these sorts of e-mails, but I figured there was no reason to keep my hat out of the ring. Duke basketball is the reason I came to this university, plain and simple.
One of my essays was about Bobby Hurley’s assist record and watching Thomas Hill cry his eyes out. Without knowing it, or perhaps fully knowing it, you have been an integral part of the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who you’ve never actually met. We watch you coach, we come to Cameron and hear you speak (though we never bring tape recorders, because we always do as you ask), and most of all, we admire you.
We admire you because you take kids from all over the country and you make them into a family that seems second only to your actual family in your life. We admire you because you taught us that five people together is a fist, while one person is just a finger. We admire you because you are just an old Polish guy in the dark, looking for some heart. And you always find it.
Like most all teenage boys, I used to stand in my driveway for hours and shoot baskets while pretending that I played for you. Most of this time was spent concocting more scenarios in which I could win the national championship for you by making half courters, three pointers, steals followed by layups, or some combination thereof. I counted down to myself in my head, and if I missed the winning shot, the clock had stalled and I got a second chance. Around the tenth grade I discovered that no, I was not going to play for Coach K.
And then I got to Duke. And discovered that, yes, I am going to play for Coach K. I am going to be his sixth man. We hear about it on TV, how the Crazies are like a team member, and we think, sure. We’re a team member as soon as we get a jumper. But then we get to Duke, and we watch players from all over the country stare wide eyed at us as their jumpers start to clang off the back iron. We get to Duke and we hear you speaking, imploring us to be louder, try harder, to give 100%. We get to Duke and we realize you are our coach. Not just the coach of our team, but you are also our coach, because you believe that we give you something no one else can and we know that you give us something that no one ever could.
Please still be my coach. I know that we can find more heart to offer an old Polish guy in the dark next year.
Yours,
Andrew Humphries
Duke 2006
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