Originally Posted by
jimsumner
You've probably not noticed but I've stayed away from this because voting for someone seems too much like voting against someone. Who wants to vote against Tate Armstrong or Chris Carrawell? But that's just me.
But I'm going to break my self-imposed moratorium to say a few words about Mr. Dawkins. His stats sure look impressive on paper. 2556 points. Two-time consenseus first-team All-America. Only Duke player to make All-ACC four seasons. Only Duke player to lead the team in scoring four seasons. 1986 Naismith winner. [ as an aside, both JD and JWill were national players of the year without being ACC players of the year; an interesting accomplishment]
But look at the context. On March 5, 1982 Duke finished its season with an 88-53 loss to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC Tournament. The loss was Duke's 17th, a school record for futility. Mike Krzyzewski inherited three future NBA players from Bill Foster. But Gene Banks and Kenny Dennard were seniors, Vince Taylor was a junior.
Mike Krzyzewski's first two recruiting classes produced exactly one ACC-caliber starter, Dan Meagher, and he was a role player. Krzyzewski was sending Todd Anderson against Ralph Sampson, Doug McNeely against James Worthy, Greg Wendt against Michael Jordan, and it wasn't pretty. The wolves were at the door and not just Valvano's wolves. Coaching is one thing but you don't win in the ACC unless you can bring in talent and there were plenty of critics who maintained that Krzyzewski was in over his head.
Krzyzewski got early committments from the class of '82 from Bill Jackman and Weldon Williams, top-100 talents who never played much at Duke. Jay Bilas was next and Bilas was higher on the charts but still not a prep All-American. Duke needed a statement player. Desperately.
Then only a few days after the loss to Wake, Mike Krzyzewski got the call he had been waiting for. Johnny Dawkins was coming to Durham. Make no mistake, Johnny Dawkins was nobody's sleeper. He was a McDonald's All-American, a Parade All-American. He could have gone anywhere. Digger Phelps wanted him so badly he couldn't stand it. Lefty Driesell, Providence, pretty much the entire Big East. But Dawkins told them no, told Krzyzewski yes, and Duke basketball was on the way back up the charts. Mark Alarie picked Duke a few weeks later, then David Henderson, a few weeks after that, and Tommy Amaker the following season and all cited the presence of Johnny Dawkins as a key factor in their decisions.
It didn't happen overnight and JD would be the first to tell you he didn't do it alone. But to a man, Alarie, Amaker, Ferry, and the rest will tell you they got in line behind Johnny Dawkins and followed his lead. And Dawkins did it without preening, with strutting, but with a grace and composure that was even more chilling to opponents than any amount of taunting. We've won before and we're going to win again. We've been here. Get used to it.
I make no claim that Mike Krzyzewski couldn't have done it without Dawkins. Fortunately, we'll never have to find out. But he sure did it with Johnny Dawkins, a player who combined natural talent, skill, hard work, and class as well as anyone could have. So JD gets my vote.