12 years ago, ESPN pulled out the shovels for K's career.

[SupaDave]

Reading this article in hindsight is truly amazing. Came across it while looking for the "JJ watching" quote. This guy was absolutely certain that it was over.

http://www.espn.com/espnmag/story?id=3373328

[budwom]

Reading this article in hindsight is truly amazing. Came across it while looking for the "JJ watching" quote. This guy was absolutely certain that it was over.

http://www.espn.com/espnmag/story?id=3373328

There's the irony: K is still going strong, and no one has any idea who Jon Pessah is or what he's doing..perhaps he took over Larry Bird's old garbage route in French Lick.
Pretty useless article, hardly worth reading.

[gotoguy]

Pessah was an editor at the ESPN magazine and has published several books. He was also nominated for a Pulitzer though I didn't check for which writing received the nomination. Following a brief perusal of his twitter feed/page and online search I found no way to contact him directly via email. I have a feeling he would be unapologetic.

[-jk]

Pessah was an editor at the ESPN magazine and has published several books. He was also nominated for a Pulitzer though I didn't check for which writing received the nomination. Following a brief perusal of his twitter feed/page and online search I found no way to contact him directly via email. I have a feeling he would be unapologetic.

Journalists call 'em as they see 'em. Some see better than others...

-jk

[CDu]

Pessah was an editor at the ESPN magazine and has published several books. He was also nominated for a Pulitzer though I didn't check for which writing received the nomination. Following a brief perusal of his twitter feed/page and online search I found no way to contact him directly via email. I have a feeling he would be unapologetic.

Yeah, to be fair, that was a totally reasonable take at the time. It was a belief held by many on DBR as well, that Coach K was on the decline. And, why wouldn't that be reasonable? He was 61 years old, with multiple hip surgeries and a back surgery in his past. The college game was changing, sort of in ways that were reminiscent of how the game began to pass Knight by at a similar age.

What Coach K has done since is absolutely stunning. He completely reinvented himself and his program. He had pretty much stopped landing the elite talent in the mid/late-2000s, and now he's landing ALL of the elite talent. And while he maybe doesn't have the same fastball for 9 innings that he had in the 1980s and 1990s, he's still got plenty of juice to get things done in big moments.

[uh_no]

Journalists call 'em as they see 'em. Some see better than others...

-jk

some only have one eye....

[budwom]

reasonable minds can differ...I found it ludicrously melodramatic...

[SlapTheFloor]

Didn't ESPN the magazine have a cover with a crumbling bust of Coach K around this time?

[JetpackJesus]

What Coach K has done since is absolutely stunning. He completely reinvented himself and his program. He had pretty much stopped landing the elite talent in the mid/late-2000s, and now he's landing ALL of the elite talent. And while he maybe doesn't have the same fastball for 9 innings that he had in the 1980s and 1990s, he's still got plenty of juice to get things done in big moments.

It's actually interesting to see all the things in this article that changed since 2007:

This fall the battle for athletic department resources is particularly intense, with heightened interest focused on a football program that has become a national joke. (The team's last winning season was in 1994.)

A year earlier, it had been an open secret that Krzyzewski didn't connect with LeBron James or the other younger players who follow James' lead.

That changes the next day after news arrives that Greg Monroe, the nation's No. 1 prep big man and K's top target, has committed to Georgetown after watching Midnight Madness (a practice the Blue Devils avoid).

But it's hard to see how these Blue Devils return to the Finals. And if that's the case, how long will Singler stay once the pros come calling? And if they don't call, how good could he be, anyway?

Unrealized expectations. A divided campus. Empty seats in Cameron.

What if that's now just life at Duke?

What if?
Also, I must digress to say damn straight to the bold:

To this day, Krzyzewski still can't understand why so many on campus spoke against the lacrosse players. "The three boys were the real heroes," he says. "I think those professors should apologize." I'm glad only one of my professors was among the Group of 88, and I didn't particularly care for her before she put her name on that ad. And that's all I have to say about that (okay, not really, but I'm going to stop there).