Coach K’s career has always been intertwined with family. Soon it’ll be time to let one go.
His former Duke players get handwritten birthday cards every year from him and he sends his daughters flowers each Valentine’s Day.
On Friday, his successor as Duke basketball coach noted Mike Krzyzewski and his wife, Mickie, were celebrating their 52nd wedding anniversary.
Krzyzewski built a championship basketball program at Duke over the last 41 years while his family grew to include three daughters, their husbands and 10 grandchildren. He used the same tenets of trust and love and caring with both groups.
He plans to step away next year following his 42nd season as the Blue Devils coach because, after his 75th birthday next February, the time had come for his blood family to get the bulk of his attention.
One grandson, Michael Savarino, is a walk-on for the Blue Devils, allowing him a foot in both worlds.
Others have different interests, like American Ninja Warrior Junior participant John David Spatola, another Krzyzewski grandson who’ll enter the sixth grade at Durham Academy in the fall.
Sitting front and center at his retirement news conference at Cameron Indoor Stadium Thursday, his clan received an early shout-out in his remarks.
“I will tell you the most important people are right here in front of me,” Krzyzewski said. “My family, my daughters, their husbands and my 10 amazing grandchildren. How lucky are we that we had this for most of the time? Whenever they were born, we have had them right here with us. That has helped us immensely.”
Making time for his grandchildren
Krzyzewski won ACC championships and took the Blue Devils to Final Fours in four different decades, aiming to add a fifth in his final season on Duke’s bench next season. In between his first NCAA championship in 1991 to his fifth in 2015, 24 years passed -- enough time for a child to be born, graduate college and start a family and a career.
For Krzyzewski, family and career became intertwined in Durham and kept him moored to the city and to Duke.
It’s why, in 2004 when the Los Angeles Lakers offered him $40 million to coach in the NBA, Krzyzewski found it impossible to accept. His family was in Durham, all able to attend games or stop by his home.
Now, he plans to be a regular spectator at theirs.
“I want to see Quin’s (Quin Frasher) games,” he said. “I want to see John David win in Ninja. I want to see Rem (Remington Frasher) hit a last-second shot to win. I want to be able to do that and live a little bit through them. That’s how I want to spend the rest of my time, and doing whatever else I have to do.”
Mike and Mickie Krzyzewski discuss retirement
Duke president Vincent Price has Krzyzewski lined up to be a university ambassador in his post-coaching days, allowing Krzyzewski to be “an advisor and counselor to me and to my colleagues across campus and beyond.”
“There will always be a place for Coach K at Duke,” Price said.
Over the years, Krzyzewski said, he and Mickie had regularly discussed what retirement would be like and when the right time would be to make that transition. They always included the rest of the family in the decision-making process as well.
Duke went 13-11 overall and 9-9 in the ACC last season. The Blue Devils’ season ended after two ACC tournament wins when a player tested positive for COVID-19, sending the team into quarantine and isolation.
For the first time since 1995, the Blue Devils weren’t selected for the NCAA tournament.
The hard year of COVID-19
Duke’s strict campus protocols to keep students, staff and the community safe during the pandemic meant no spectators at Cameron Indoor Stadium for games. The famed Cameron Crazies student section was empty, covered with a tarp decorated with pictures of them. There was no pep band cranking out the school’s fight song.
Saying it’s been “the hardest year for a lot of people”, Krzyzewski was careful to not let that experience influence his retirement decision.
“You didn’t want to make a knee-jerk reaction for that and we didn’t,” he said.
Rather, he and Mickie took a couple of trips away where they pondered the future, discussing things for six to eight weeks, he said.
“We came to the agreement that we really wanted to coach this year, but that this would be the last year,” he said. “Then, we met with our daughters.”
Coach K’s farewell tour
With associate head coach Jon Scheyer chosen as Krzyzewski’s replacement beginning in April 2022, Krzyzewski gets one more chance to add to his championship resume.
With a record 1,170 career wins, he has a chance to reach 1,200 if the Blue Devils return to their usual level of success under his tutelage. A sixth NCAA championship remains the ultimate goal.
Along the way, Krzyzewski will visit arenas around the ACC for a final time as head coach. He’ll open his final season against Kentucky on Nov. 9 with one final trip to New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The farewell tour will undoubtedly include his family. Plenty of former Blue Devils players and coaches and school administrators will be on hand for games next season.
So, too, will be those closest to Krzyzewski, those who have been there at every step, mostly good and sometimes bad, during his legendary career.
“The biggest opportunity I have had in my life and the people that believe in me the most are my ladies – my wife and my three daughters have made me so much better,” Krzyzewski said. “They have been there in those dark days and those dark nights. Those celebratory times too. They have always been there for me. Thank you! Thank you!”
This story was originally published June 5, 2021 at 8:00 AM.