Vic Bubas, head coach for Duke men's basketball's first Final Fours, dies at age 91

Before Mike Krzyzewski led Duke to five national championships, Vic Bubas was the first head coach to put the Blue Devils on the map nationally.

Bubas, Duke's coach from 1959-69, has died at age 91, the program confirmed Monday. No details about his death were given.

"Duke basketball lost a true legend earlier today,” Krzyzewski said in a press release. “When I first arrived at Duke, Coach Bubas gave me the best advice. Essentially, he told me to be myself and to focus solely on Duke, while not getting caught up in everything going on around us. We have tried to honor him over the years by playing a level of basketball that lived up to his very high standards, and to those of the program he built here in the 1960s.”

Bubas accepted the Duke job at the young age of 32 after eight years as an assistant under legendary N.C. State head coach Everett Case and proceeded to lead the Blue Devils to their first Final Fours in 1963, 1964 and 1966. He recruited and coached Art Heyman and Jeff Mullens, whose numbers now hang in the rafters at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

After a surprising retirement from coaching when he was just 42 years old, Bubas became an administrator at Duke as vice president for community affairs. In 1976, he left Durham to start a 14-year tenure as commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference until his retirement.

Earlier this year, Neill McGeachy—who coached the Blue Devils during the 1973-74 season—died, and Krzyzewski's predecessor Bill Foster died two years ago. The only living Duke full-time head coach aside from Krzyzewski is Bucky Waters, who held the position from 1969-73.