Exclusive: Jon Scheyer considered the idea of him replacing Duke’s Coach K far-fetched
Jon Scheyer never turned down another job because he thought he was in line to become Duke’s next head basketball coach.
Even as his reputation as a coach and a recruiter boosted his national profile and led to contact from what he said Friday was a “handful” of other schools over the years about head coaching positions, the Duke associate coach considered the idea of replacing Mike Krzyzewski too far-fetched.
“If anyone has asked me, up until this year, if I thought there was a possibility of it, I dismissed it,” Scheyer told The News & Observer in an exclusive interview Friday. “I said that’s not gonna happen.
“Circumstances change.”
They changed in a hurry for the 33-year-old, who said he only began to think the promotion was possible when he was called to interview for the job last week.
After the 74-year-old Krzyzewski decided to retire following the 2021-22 season, a Duke search committee headed by the school’s men’s basketball administrator, Jon Jackson, surveyed the landscape over the last 10 days.
A favorite parlor game for years has been discussing who would eventually replace Krzyzewski, Duke’s coach since 1980 who has led the Blue Devils to five NCAA championships.
The person who would get the job, under these circumstances, would have to agree to take over as Duke’s coach in April 2022.
That’s a tough ask for guys like Harvard’s Tommy Amaker, Central Florida’s Johnny Dawkins, Pittsburgh’s Jeff Capel or Northwestern’s Chris Collins. All are former Duke players and assistant coaches are currently running their own programs.
Already Duke’s associate head coach, Scheyer made sense as someone who could be a coach-in-waiting for a year, recruiting players for the 2022-23 season while still coaching the current team along with Krzyzewski.
Still, he had to convince the search committee, plus Duke president Vince Price, outgoing athletics director Kevin White and incoming athletics director Nina King he was the man for the impossible job of replacing a Hall of Famer.
Scheyer proved ready.
“Other searches I’ve been a part of, they didn’t work out for one reason or another,” Scheyer said during his exclusive interview with the N&O. “But I felt like that preparation and experience helped with this process. This was a different type of process.”
Scheyer tells his family about the Duke coaching job
White made it clear during a news conference at Cameron Indoor Stadium that Scheyer “won the job” and wasn’t any kind of anointed successor.
Amaker, in a statement Harvard posted on its men’s basketball Twitter feed Wednesday, expressed happiness with the choice.
“I could not be more excited for Jon and for the opportunity that he has in front of him to continue the great tradition of Duke basketball,” Amaker said. “As a former player, I am thrilled that one of us is taking the mantle.”
Scheyer said the best phone call he’s ever received came earlier this week from King, who called to set up one more Zoom call. That’s the one where Scheyer was offered the job as Duke’s next head basketball coach.
The job he once considered out of reach secured, Scheyer scrambled late Tuesday night to set up a video call of his own with his extended family.
“It took a little while to get everyone on the screen,” Scheyer said. “Everyone was wondering why is he video calling us right now?”
With everyone locked in, Scheyer dropped the news, saying “I got it. I got the job.”
And then?
“They burst into tears,” he said. “I think everyone in my family was crying. It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of moment. You can’t make it up. I’ve never seen my dad cry that hard in his life.”
Talking to recruits
Krzyzewski will stay off the recruiting trail this summer while Scheyer, Carrawell and Smith search for the players to make up Duke’s rosters for 2022 and beyond. That was a major impetus for his decision to retire now — they wanted to be honest with the recruits about who would be coaching them.
Scheyer has already talked to some of the players Duke is recruiting to update them on the setup.
“People have questions about how it all came together,” Scheyer said. “I want to earn their trust and their respect. I don’t think just because I’m in this role that respect is given. I want to earn that. I’ve always prided myself on the relationships I’ve been able to develop as an assistant coach and that doesn’t change as a head coach. So I’m anxious to get a chance for recruits and families to get to know who I am as a person but also know who I am as a head coach.”
Duke’s current team — including the incoming freshmen class rated No. 4 nationally by 247sports.com — is gathering on campus this month. Krzyzewski said he’ll stay in Durham working with the new players as much as is allowed under NCAA rules while Scheyer, Smith and Carrawell are recruiting.
Scheyer, though, must be delicate in how he handles this unique situation where he still defers to Krzyzewski this season while he’s already set to take over the program next year.
“I think it boils down to communication with Coach and I,” Scheyer said. “We are going to do something that really hasn’t been done before in sports where someone who has been coaching for 41 years, this has never happened. The recruiting piece and planning for the future, coach has really left that up to us to figure out. Coach is going to be kept in the loop of course. It’s still his program. But it’s something that since we’ve coached together and known each other for so long, it’s going to be very natural I think.”
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 6:04 PM.