Meet Coach K: Teacher

Winning seasons, superb graduation rates for his players and a basketball team that is as close as family are all attributes that reflect on the man who is now in his 28th year as the head coach of the Blue Devils, Mike Krzyzewski.

Last season, Duke featured the school’s youngest team in more than 60 years with 10 of the 12 players on the roster either freshmen or sophomores. Despite the youth, the squad recorded a 22-11 record and reached the NCAA Tournament for the 12th straight season. Coach K recorded his 700th career victory at Duke against Georgia Tech, making him the second-fastest coach in NCAA history to record 700 wins at one school.

Some of Coach K’s numerous career highlights include:

Inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001.
Being named the first-ever United States National Head Coach in 2006.
Leading Duke to 10 Final Four appearances.
Being named National Coach of the Year 12 times in eight different seasons.
Being selected as the Coach of the Decade for the 1990s by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
Being honored as "America’s Best Coach" (all sports, all levels) by Time and CNN.
Being a New York Times best-selling author.
Coaching seven National Players of the Year (nine total awards), six National Defensive Players of the Year (nine total awards), and 19 different All-Americans (33 total selections).
Coaching 12 NBA lottery picks (most all-time), 18 first-round selections (most among active coaches) and 36 overall NBA draftees.
Youngest recipient ever of the Distinguished Graduate Award at the United States Military Academy.

In October of 2001, Krzyzewski was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Presented by his college coach Bob Knight, Krzyzewski joined Temple’s John Chaney and former NBA star Moses Malone as 2001 inductees. During his acceptance speach, Krzyzewski was adamant in sharing the honor with those around him.

"I hope that all of those youngsters who have played for me and the people who have worked with me will share in this honor. My mom always told me to associate myself with great people and great institutions. I’ve tried to do that at the United States Military Academy and at Duke University, two of the great institutions in the world. As a result, I’ve been around some amazing people.

"I never thought I’d be worthy enough to be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. It’s not anything you set out trying to achieve. Basically, you go about your business and try to be as good as you can be all the time. Again, I get back to coaching great players and being with great assistants. They bring out the best in you."

Professor K

In a rare move by any university, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business named Krzyzewski as a faculty member as part of The Fuqua/Coach K Center of Leadership and Ethics (COLE). The center develops business school cases and teaching materials on leadership and ethics, creates short non-degree courses for Fuqua Executive Education, serves as a global library for leadership writing and research, gives research grants to faculty at Fuqua and other schools, and sponsors leadership conferences each year with Coach K and Fuqua students. Along with these other projects, COLE will also sponsor a speaker series on leadership and ethics.