Duke fans talk about Mike Krzyzewski as if he were a god. The church of Cameron Indoor bears his name, as does the hallowed lawn where students camp for weeks to have the chance to worship the program he built.
Listening to Krzyzewski talk with John Feinstein, though, it’s easy to forget the reverie.
Feinstein, who spent hours interviewing Krzyzewski and former players for his new book “Five Banners: Inside the Duke Basketball Dynasty,” traded jokes back and forth with the coach like old friends — which, of course, they are.
“Mike Krzyzewski curses sometimes, usually at me,” Feinstein said.
“Only when you deserve it,” came the retort from Krzyzewski.
The author and lifelong sports journalist met Krzyzewski back when he coached at Army, and the two remained extremely close throughout Krzyzewski’s 42 years with the Blue Devils. Feinstein was there to embrace Krzyzewski when Duke won its first national championship in 1991, and he was there in 1983 at the lowest point in Krzyzewski’s career.
A Duke graduate himself, Feinstein was one of the few media members not initially and perpetually against Krzyzewski. Instead of criticizing Krzyzewski or taking the side of the local favorites North Carolina and N.C. State, Feinstein fostered a relationship with the Duke coach that allowed him to see stories that no one else could. While he usually writes neutrally on the Blue Devils, “Five Banners” allowed Feinstein to fully embrace his roots and tell the story of one of the most impressive sports dynasties of all time.
“I can write something that doesn’t mention Duke at all, and people say, ‘well, it’s just from a Dukie,’” Feinstein told The Chronicle. “[Here] I was allowed to be a Duke graduate. And I enjoyed saying, ‘look, this book’s being published by Duke University Press. I went to Duke. This is about five Duke championships that I covered and it was just fun. It was great fun.’”
The beginning of Krzyzewski’s career with the Blue Devils can at best be described as tumultuous. After getting hired by then-athletic director Tom Butters on the runway at the Raleigh-Durham airport, Krzyzewski’s ascent to greatness was not a smooth takeoff.
A 17-13 debut season in 1980-81 was followed by two consecutive losing records — something that has not since happened at Duke. The night the Blue Devils were bounced from the 1983 ACC tournament, Feinstein was at a Denny’s with Krzyzewski and a few other close friends. In his book, Feinstein describes Krzyzewski’s raw anger in the moment and how the coach never wanted to forget how it felt to lose.
But Butters had faith in Krzyzewski. Even amidst calls to fire the new coach, the athletic director remained steadfast in his support of the young play caller.
“The four most powerful words in the English language are ‘I believe in you,’” Krzyzewski said during an event promoting Feinstein’s book. “And Tom Butters — I get chills thinking about it — because I wouldn’t be here today if Tom Butters didn’t say that to me.”
Just three years later in 1986, Krzyzewski rewarded Butters’ belief in him by reaching his first Final Four. While that team fell to Louisville in the championship game, it set the tone for what was to come for Krzyzewski. Duke reached the Final Four in six of the seven years from 1986 to 1992, with the final two seasons culminating into back-to-back national championships.
As Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils climbed to new heights, Feinstein was there to chronicle their journey. He also had a front-row seat to the media’s reactions to Duke’s successes. While they at first welcomed the emergence of the Blue Devils to the national stage, it did not take long for jealousies to creep in.
“I was at the press conference on Sunday in ‘86, Mike’s first Final Four, and the kids [were] hitting it out of the park up on the podium,” Feinstein said. “That almost started [the hate against Duke], that whole press conference. And then coming back and beating Vegas in ‘91 when they weren’t supposed to, and then repeating the next year thanks to Christian [Laettner’s] shot and Grant [Hill’s] pass.”
The play Feinstein is referring to is the most famous in Duke history. In the 1992 Elite Eight against Kentucky, the Blue Devils trailed by one in overtime. Krzyzewski drew up a play in which Hill would throw a full-court pass to Laettner, and the coach famously asked Laettner in the huddle if he could make the game-winning shot. Laettner didn’t bother answering, and instead gave his response moments later by sending Duke to the Final Four.
“It was funny to hear Christian’s teammates talk about the fact that he was an asshole, and that’s his nickname, but they sure as hell like having him on their team for obvious reasons,” Feinstein said about the interviews he conducted in writing his book. “Christian and Grant [argued] about whose role was more important in the shot. Grant says, ‘If I don’t get the pass there, it doesn’t matter.’ And Christian says, ‘The pass was easy, the shot was the challenge.’”
After Laettner and Hill graduated, the Blue Devils remained near the top of college basketball, but great team after great team came up short. Coupled with a personal illness that kept Krzyzewski out for much of the 1994-95 season, fans were beginning to wonder if Duke would ever reach the mountaintop again.
Then came the 2000-01 team, which had six future NBA players. The Blue Devils opened the season near the top of the AP poll and looked invincible, but adversity hit when star big man Carlos Boozer suffered a broken right foot in a loss to Maryland.
Krzyzewski — who had been working with essentially a six-man rotation — had little time to adapt, as next on the schedule was a matchup with the archrival Tar Heels. Krzyzewski stayed up all night breaking down his options and ended up deciding on a strategy a decade ahead of his time.
In his book, Feinstein describes how Krzyzewski broke down the game plan to his team: shoot threes, and shoot often. The replacements down low for Boozer would not try to recreate his interior presence; instead, their job was to feed the perimeter shooters.
“If you think about it, what Coach K did was apply analytics to the situation when no one — including him — really knew what analytics were,” Shane Battier said in “Five Banners.” “Overnight, literally overnight, he came up with an offense that, statistically speaking, needed to shoot as many threes as possible.”
The strategy paid off, as Duke took down North Carolina 95-81, and Boozer eventually returned to help lead the Blue Devils to their third national title. By this point, Krzyzewski was already in rare air, and the NBA was calling. A few years after his third title, Krzyzewski was offered a job with the Lakers.
He turned it down, prompting a speech from then-university president Richard Brodhead in which he praised Krzyzewski for staying and even compared him to Mother Teresa, Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy. Still, by the time the 2009-10 season rolled around, fans were once again anxious for another banner.
Early on in that season, Krzyzewski was poised to overtake North Carolina’s Hall of Fame coach Dean Smith in career wins. Feinstein decided to spend the entire day with Krzyzewski to write about the moment, including a ride on the team bus — something no one, not even Krzyzewski’s closest advisors, got to do. In a retelling of a conversation with Mike Cragg, a longtime member of Duke’s athletic department, Feinstein explained why he got such intimate access.
Cragg told him, “No, no, you misunderstood something. Nobody except Mickie [Krzyzewski] rides that bus who is not part of the team. I don’t even ride that bus.”
Feinstein described how Cragg shook his head in disbelief. “Why? Why would [Krzyzewski] let you ride on the bus?”
“And I said,” Feinstein recalled, “‘because I was in the Denny’s.’”
Led by Jon Scheyer, those 2009-10 Blue Devils fought their way to a national championship game appearance against Butler. Playing in Indianapolis as heavy favorites against the hometown kids, Feinstein compared the game to the classic basketball movie “Hoosiers” — Butler even had its own Jimmy Chitwood in star forward Gordon Hayward. The game nearly had a Hollywood ending for the Bulldogs, but a half-court heave from Hayward rimmed out and instead it was the Blue Devils celebrating.
After that championship run, Krzyzewski completely changed some of his core philosophies in his final years with the program. First it was recruiting one-and-done players, something Krzyzewski had long admonished because it limited the time he could develop a team. Then, in 2015 — the year of Krzyzewski’s final banner — he changed the very thing that brought him to Durham.
Feinstein noted that when Butters was looking for a coach way back in 1980, it was defense that drew him to Krzyzewski. Steve Vacendak, an associate athletic director at the time, recommended the then-Army coach because he was “hell on wheels on the defensive end.”
Specifically, Krzyzewski coached an aggressive man-to-man system for nearly all of his career. However, with his team struggling midway through the 2015 season, he turned to a zone defense to change the tide. Of course, Krzyzewski’s decision paid off, as the team’s confidence grew to help it eventually cut down the nets after beating Wisconsin.
Feinstein emphasizes repeatedly in his book that what separates Krzyzewski as an all-time great is his ability to adapt to the needs of the moment and create a new way forward.
The stories Feinstein shares in his book do more than retell the history of Duke basketball. Through his unparalleled access to one of the most impressive leaders of all time in Krzyzewski, Feinstein gives a blueprint into what leadership looks like and how greatness is made.
“You don’t put banners up by beating another school, you put banners up by beating everybody,” Krzyzewski said. “When I was a cadet at West Point, the freshmen would salute the upperclassmen. And they would say, ‘beat Navy, sir.’ So I got all my plebes together. I said, ‘Don’t ever say that to me.’ This is when I was a senior in West Point. ‘When you see me, say beat everybody.’”
It’s that mentality which cements the legend of Coach K in Duke history. But for Feinstein, Krzyzewski is still just an old friend.
The writer said to Krzyzewski, “Look, we give each other a hard time a lot. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you giving me all this time.”
Duke’s legendary basketball coach turned to his friend, and said, “No, no, John, I should be thanking you.”
“Why?”
“I’m Catholic,” Krzyzewski said. “When I die, I can tell God I’ve already been through purgatory.’”
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Dom Fenoglio is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.