Clarification about Avery?

[Classof06]

I keep hearing about this alleged incident between Coach K and William Avery's mother. Supposedly, after Avery decided to leave following his freshman year, Krzyzewski made a comment to Avery's mother that went something like "your kid is f@*&ing up my team". I rarely believe urban legends such as this, but I've been hearing this for a while and I'm curious to see if anyone has any further insight.

[cf-62]

The story is a complete fabrication from jealous idiots 9 miles to the south (or just north of Washington, DC -- take your pick).

First of all, Will didn't go pro after his Freshman year, it was after his sophomore year.

Second of all, with THAT team, and what was happening, Will Avery going pro wasn't going to f^%$ up anything.

Third, Will Avery is still quite an active member of the program, unlikely in the scenario you describe.

You're still young, so you have yet to spend years (as some of us have) listening to jealous "knowledgeable" fans from Chapel Hill, College Park, Lexington and Tuscon make up stories just so they feel better about themselves compared to our program. I've heard UNC fans who are otherwise quite knowledgeable become complete blathering idiots talking about knowing exactly what happened with this player or that coach, yada yada yada.

The fact that ESPN and CBS give national platforms to local bumpkins from Tuscon and Lexington (i.e. Pat Forde) with their own personal agendas doesn't help calm the out of control jealousy generated from the "integrity teaching" journalism schools.

Whenever I get somebody spouting idiotic crap like that, I just laugh at them and forget about it.

[CDu]

The story is a complete fabrication from jealous idiots 9 miles to the south (or just north of Washington, DC -- take your pick).

First of all, Will didn't go pro after his Freshman year, it was after his sophomore year.

Second of all, with THAT team, and what was happening, Will Avery going pro wasn't going to f^%$ up anything.

Third, Will Avery is still quite an active member of the program, unlikely in the scenario you describe.

You're still young, so you have yet to spend years (as some of us have) listening to jealous "knowledgeable" fans from Chapel Hill, College Park, Lexington and Tuscon make up stories just so they feel better about themselves compared to our program. I've heard UNC fans who are otherwise quite knowledgeable become complete blathering idiots talking about knowing exactly what happened with this player or that coach, yada yada yada.

The fact that ESPN and CBS give national platforms to local bumpkins from Tuscon and Lexington (i.e. Pat Forde) with their own personal agendas doesn't help calm the out of control jealousy generated from the "integrity teaching" journalism schools.

Whenever I get somebody spouting idiotic crap like that, I just laugh at them and forget about it.

I completely agree that this is a fabrication. However, I disagree with the following statement "with THAT team, and what was happening, Will Avery going pro wasn't going to f^%$ up anything."

While losing Brand, Maggette, and Langdon was rough, it was arguable that we were prepared for those losses. We had two solid veteran forwards (Battier and Carrawell) and a talented freshman (Dunleavy) ready to make up for the loss of Maggette. We had Boozer coming in to someone ease the pain of the Brand loss. But without Avery, we lacked an experienced PG, and we had no backup PG at all (I don't count Buckner). Considering how important the PG position is in college basketball, and that Avery would have given us a very strong PG and allowed Williams to ease into the role as both a backup PG and a SG, I'd say that Avery's exit was pretty darn huge.

Imagine this team:

Boozer
Battier
Carrawell
Williams
Avery
James
Dunleavy
Horvath/Christenson/Sanders

That experienced point guard was arguably the missing piece to the puzzle, and might have resulted in another Final Four for us.

[ricks68]

I doubt that Avery would have been academically eligible, anyway. He was lucky to get into Duke in the first place because academics were pretty low on his priority list before coming to Duke. Even though he qualified scholastically, it was public knowledge that he had to gut it out his final year to make it---and it wasn't because of a lack of ability, but a lack of desire.

From reading a lot between the lines of his "acceptable" academic status at Duke, I think that he would have probably needed to bust his butt during the summer to just squeak by for the upcoming semester. Then he would have had to keep it up to remain eligible for the spring. I think that it was a choice between working his butt off academically to be able to play the next year, or take the quick, easy $. Coach K will not discuss any player's personal life that would be detrimental to the player, so that's why there is no public official knowledge of his poor scholastic acumen.

Like many others on the board, I follow the past and present players, as well as potential recruits, daily. His poor academic motivation before coming to Duke was well known. Any comments are appreciated.

Ricks

[cspan37421]

You're still young, so you have yet to spend years (as some of us have) listening to jealous "knowledgeable" fans from Chapel Hill, College Park, Lexington and Tuscon make up stories just so they feel better about themselves compared to our program. I've heard UNC fans who are otherwise quite knowledgeable become complete blathering idiots talking about knowing exactly what happened with this player or that coach, yada yada yada.

The fact that ESPN and CBS give national platforms to local bumpkins from Tuscon and Lexington (i.e. Pat Forde) with their own personal agendas doesn't help calm the out of control jealousy generated from the "integrity teaching" journalism schools.

Whenever I get somebody spouting idiotic crap like that, I just laugh at them and forget about it.

I hadn't heard the story about Coach K and Avery's mother. But for context:

IIRC in the ESPN "exposé" it was Avery himself who said he was in classes that were a complete joke (and yet he still managed to have trouble). I'm not saying that biased media didn't feed the frenzy that suggested the vaunted state of academics for hoops players was smoke & mirrors, but they began with words were right out of Avery's mouth.

and when I was at Duke, Coach K's rep took a bit of tarnish from a Chronicle reporter who snuck in a tape recorder to the locker room, hidden in his backpack. Apparently K let loose a blue streak toward his players eerily reminiscent of the public demeanor of his mentor, then at Indiana.

K was publicly not supportive of Avery's decision to go pro.

That said, cf-62 is right. Don't argue with idiots, true believers, kool-aid drinkers, etc., it is a waste of time.

[dukemomLA]

My understanding is that Will Avery's decision to "go pro" was primarily based on his questionable academic standing. Much could be said for Maggette as well -- although his chances for success in the NBA was more probable. (As has turned out to be the case.) I love them both and appreciate their play at Duke.

[Lord Ash]

I remember reading a quote from Avery's mom that said it was B.S.

[yancem]

My understanding is that Will Avery's decision to "go pro" was primarily based on his questionable academic standing. Much could be said for Maggette as well -- although his chances for success in the NBA was more probable. (As has turned out to be the case.) I love them both and appreciate their play at Duke.

I seem to remember some family medical and financial concerns being part of the decision as well.

[Tom B.]

I keep hearing about this alleged incident between Coach K and William Avery's mother. Supposedly, after Avery decided to leave following his freshman year, Krzyzewski made a comment to Avery's mother that went something like "your kid is f@*&ing up my team". I rarely believe urban legends such as this, but I've been hearing this for a while and I'm curious to see if anyone has any further insight.

I think that rumor originally appeared in an article that Curry Kirkpatrick wrote for ESPN Magazine after Avery, Brand and Maggette decided to leave Duke for the NBA after the 1998-99 season. The article was an unapologetic hatchet job -- among other things, Kirkpatrick insinuated that Coach K was mentally unbalanced because he was on painkillers after his hip replacement operation (hence the alleged outburst at Avery's mom). Pat Forde then wrote a column (I believe for ESPN.com) that contained little new material and basically just repeated most of the same allegations.

Their claim was later repudiated by either Avery's mother or Avery himself. I can't remember which one it was, but I distinctly recall one of them coming out and saying it wasn't true.

[VaDukie]

Tom Chonsky's book on the rivalry (Blue Blood I think?) also confirms that the story was false. Avery's mother said K never used that language.

[DukeDevilDeb]

There is NO QUESTION that academics were the driving force behind Avery's jump to the NBA. He had basically stopped attending classes after Christmas break and would never have been academically eligible for Fall 1999. I agree that Coach K was not supportive of his decision while he certainly was supportive of Brand's.

As to Maggette, the reasons are perhaps less clear. He was not much of a student (effort, rather than intelligence I think, was the problem), but there was all the Piggy stuff coming down the line at that time. It may have been Duke's good fortune to have had Corey leave.

[Olympic Fan]

You are correct that the story for ESPN Magazine was a fabrication by UNC grad Curry Kirkpatrick (who was earlier fired from Sports Illustrated for fabricating expense reports). The story was a complete hatchet job -- any national story about Duke that spells it "D**k" (the * stands for 'o') throughout can hardly be judged a fair and balanced representation.

For the record, the story was denied by both Will Avery himself and by his mother. To this day, Avery remains close to K and the program.

As for his reason for going pro -- Avery said at the time that his family was in desperate financial straits and badly needed the money. His mother was on disability after suffering a back injury.

Academics may have played a part. I was told that Avery was struggling when he made his decision (at which point, he stopped going to class). Again, I don't have access to his records, but my information was that he needed to work hard that spring and summer to be eligible. The problem all along with Avery's academics was his work ethic -- he was a good student until his junior year in high school, when he essentially took the year off. Amazingly, he recorded a very good SAT score on his first try, but his junior grades were almost all Fs. When he decided that summer that he wanted to go to Duke, he sat down with the Duke admissions people and they told him what he needed to do to be accepted, which was basically make all As and Bs in summer school and that fall ... he committed that fall after recording mostly A's at Oak Hill, but he didn't sign until just before the end of spring semester, when Duke got an academic report from the school that he was on course to more A's and B's. At Duke, he basically did as little as possible to get by his first three semesters and knowing his track record, I suspect that if he had decided to come back, he could have gotten himself eligible again.

As for K's lack of support -- what Avery later explained was that K told him that he wasn't ready and needed another year of playing point guard in college to prepare him to be a success in the NBA. That turned out to be exactly true -- Avery was drafted No. 14 by Minnesota, but he sat out the bench throughout his first contract (he averaged 2.4 points), then was released and never played in the league again.

Avery, who had been back for a number of alumini games, admits K was right about the basketball ... but he still insists that he needed the initial contract ($1.9 million over three years) to take care of his family.

PS Corey Maggette was a totally different situation. He was an excellent student (his second college choice was Stanford) from a comfortable middle-class family. He didn't go for the money or the grades, it was purely the lure of the NBA.

[Classof06]

Thanks to everyone for the info. It is much appreciated.