Duke basketball coaches and divers featured in Towerview

Towerview, The Chronicle's monthly magazine, hit newsstands Friday and features two articles focusing on Blue Devil athletics.

"Leading the Dream Team" takes a look at Duke basketball assistant coaches Steve Wojciechowski and Chris Collins, who were assistants on head coach Mike Krzyzewski's staff this summer as he led the USA men's national basketball team to gold at the 2012 Olympic Games in London:

Despite the difference between coaching in college and at the NBA level, the players’ respect for Krzyzewski and the entire coaching staff helped make practice and coaching smooth. Collins noted that the coaches had to be a little bit more flexible in terms of reconciling NBA players’ styles with values.

“It’s one of the reasons why Coach K is so fit for this job,” Collins added. “Coach K is a master at doing that: playing hard, playing together and playing to win. He won’t sacrifice his values but is very much willing to adapt and be flexible—it’s one of the reasons we win.”

From the Board to the Books revisits Duke divers Nick McCrory and Abby Johnston, both of whom won medals at the Olympic games in their respective synchronized diving events. After spending much of last year preparing for the Olympics, the pair is now back at school, returning to the normal student life:

Olympic dreams caused the athletes to put their Duke careers aside, though they trained on campus. Johnston did not take classes at Duke this Spring and took a reduced courseload Fall 2011. McCrory took off all of the 2011-2012 academic year.

But now that the games are over, Johnston and McCrory are focusing on classes. Both Johnston and McCrory are pre-med, majoring in psychology and mathematics, respectively.

“It’s been a bit challenging,” Johnston said of the adjustment back to school life. “I am just happy to be back on campus.”

You can read all of Towerview online or pick up a copy at newsstands now.