Was K ever considered for other COLLEGE jobs?

[hurleyfor3]

We know all the overtures various NBA teams made towards Coach K. And by ther time we won our first national title there was nowhere higher up in the college game to move to. But did any college programs make a run for him in the mid to late 1980s, by which time he made a name for himself but when Duke wasn't yet one of the truly elite progams in the game?

There were several high profile openings during this time, such as

Kansas after Larry Brown left
DePaul after Ray Meyer retired
Ucla after Walt Hazzard left
Marquette a couple times (Majerus left in 1986)
Kentucky after Eddie Sutton left

and probably a few others. I'm not saying he'd ever take the Kentucky job or anything, but DePaul at the time might have been a good fit. I didn't college basketball as much as other sports back then, which is why I'm asking.

[CDu]

We know all the overtures various NBA teams made towards Coach K. And by ther time we won our first national title there was nowhere higher up in the college game to move to. But did any college programs make a run for him in the mid to late 1980s, by which time he made a name for himself but when Duke wasn't yet one of the truly elite progams in the game?

There were several high profile openings during this time, such as

Kansas after Larry Brown left
DePaul after Ray Meyer retired
Ucla after Walt Hazzard left
Marquette a couple times (Majerus left in 1986)
Kentucky after Eddie Sutton left

and probably a few others. I'm not saying he'd ever take the Kentucky job or anything, but DePaul at the time might have been a good fit. I didn't college basketball as much as other sports back then, which is why I'm asking.

Interesting question. I can't imagine that Coach K was a hot commodity yet as of 1984, so the DePaul job probably wasn't available to him. Marquette wasn't an upgrade over Duke, so even if it was offered I can't imagine him being interested. By 1988-1989, Coach K had fully established his program. Kansas and Kentucky are/were elite programs, but both were undergoing NCAA sanctions. Kansas replaced one UNC guy with another one, so I doubt Coach K was offered. So UCLA is the only one on that list that would seem like a potential fit. They hired Jim Harrick from Pepperdine, so it's a good question as to whether UCLA would have contacted higher-profile coaches first.

[OldPhiKap]

Interesting question. I can't imagine that Coach K was a hot commodity yet as of 1984, so the DePaul job probably wasn't available to him. Marquette wasn't an upgrade over Duke, so even if it was offered I can't imagine him being interested. By 1988-1989, Coach K had fully established his program. Kansas and Kentucky are/were elite programs, but both were undergoing NCAA sanctions. Kansas replaced one UNC guy with another one, so I doubt Coach K was offered. So UCLA is the only one on that list that would seem like a potential fit. They hired Jim Harrick from Pepperdine, so it's a good question as to whether UCLA would have contacted higher-profile coaches first.

I don't recall any since my Freshman year (1984). And, as CDu eludes, there were Iron Dukes that wanted to fire K in some of the preceding years.

[jimsumner]

UCLA flirted with K. Don't believe it went very far.

Has Duke not hired him in 1980, K likely would have gone to Iowa State.

[cbfx3]

I seem to remember a little bit of talk about him and Illinois but not sure if it was anything to it

[Olympic Fan]

I seem to remember a little bit of talk about him and Illinois but not sure if it was anything to it

There absolutely was interest from Illinois in the early '90s. I knew their radio guy fairly well and he was smugly confident that as soon as Illinois offered, K would jump at the chance to return home (well closer to home anyway). But it never went anywhere -- K never gave them the time of day.

[obowl1955]

I'm pretty sure he was mentioned and maybe even courted by Notre Dame when Digger was given the boot .

[duke79]

Although this is not exactly on this particular topic, I've often wondered if Coach K, instead of coming to Duke in 1982, had gone to coach at another college - Seton Hall, St. John's, DePaul, Iowa, etc. - would he have had the success that he has had at Duke?? My guess is that part of his success over these past 30 years is due to being the coach at Duke; i.e., competes in arguably the best BB conference in the country, gets substantial TV exposure, beautiful campus, top academics, etc. I think it has to make recruiting (at least for certain recruits) MUCH easier than if he were at another school and recruiting, IMHO, is a very large part of being a successful college basketball coach.

[MulletMan]

Although this is not exactly on this particular topic, I've often wondered if Coach K, instead of coming to Duke in 1982, had gone to coach at another college - Seton Hall, St. John's, DePaul, Iowa, etc. - would he have had the success that he has had at Duke?? My guess is that part of his success over these past 30 years is due to being the coach at Duke; i.e., competes in arguably the best BB conference in the country, gets substantial TV exposure, beautiful campus, top academics, etc. I think it has to make recruiting (at least for certain recruits) MUCH easier than if he were at another school and recruiting, IMHO, is a very large part of being a successful college basketball coach.

Given the timing of your proposal and the fertile recruiting ground that was NYC at the time, I think that he would have owned NYC if he'd coached at St. John's.

[CDu]

Although this is not exactly on this particular topic, I've often wondered if Coach K, instead of coming to Duke in 1982, had gone to coach at another college - Seton Hall, St. John's, DePaul, Iowa, etc. - would he have had the success that he has had at Duke?? My guess is that part of his success over these past 30 years is due to being the coach at Duke; i.e., competes in arguably the best BB conference in the country, gets substantial TV exposure, beautiful campus, top academics, etc. I think it has to make recruiting (at least for certain recruits) MUCH easier than if he were at another school and recruiting, IMHO, is a very large part of being a successful college basketball coach.

He actually came to Duke in 1980. And the St. John's (Carnesecca), Iowa (Lute Olson), and DePaul (Meyer) jobs weren't available at that time.

Aside from that, though, there's the hypothetical chicken-or-egg question. The ACC is "the ACC" in large part due to the success of Duke (in combination with UNC, of course). When Coach K took over the job, the ACC (and college basketball in general) wasn't nearly the TV entity it is today. Duke's success under Coach K helped to build that.

[OldPhiKap]

I think K would have been very good no matter where he went.

Most AD's would not have stuck with him in the early tough years, though.

Tom Butters has a lot to do with all of this.

[Olympic Fan]

Although this is not exactly on this particular topic, I've often wondered if Coach K, instead of coming to Duke in 1982, had gone to coach at another college - Seton Hall, St. John's, DePaul, Iowa, etc. - would he have had the success that he has had at Duke?? My guess is that part of his success over these past 30 years is due to being the coach at Duke; i.e., competes in arguably the best BB conference in the country, gets substantial TV exposure, beautiful campus, top academics, etc. I think it has to make recruiting (at least for certain recruits) MUCH easier than if he were at another school and recruiting, IMHO, is a very large part of being a successful college basketball coach.

Actually, in the spring of 1980, K had another firm coaching offer -- from Iowa State.

And here's the kicker -- he turned the job down BEFORE he got offered the Duke job. Clearly, he gambled on Duke when he was a long-shot candidate.

What would his career have looked like if he had gone to Iowa State? I suspect he would have had a pretty good career if -- and it's a HUGE if -- school officials had given him the same time to get his program going as Tom Butters and Duke did here. He was a midwestern guy ... I don't doubt that he would have recruited the midwest well. He would have been in an elite conference -- and one that wasn't nearly as deep as the ACC he had to battle in the 1980s.

No way to know if he'd have gotten to 903 wins and four national titles at Iowa State, but I suspect he would have been close.

(And I know somebody is going to say it would have been tough at such an out of the way place, but I think that's a warped perspective -- to most of the world. Ames is no more remote than Durham, N.C., and it's a great place to live and to raise a family ... plus you didn't have another superpower eight miles away).

[CDu]

(And I know somebody is going to say it would have been tough at such an out of the way place, but I think that's a warped perspective -- to most of the world. Ames is no more remote than Durham, N.C., and it's a great place to live and to raise a family ... plus you didn't have another superpower eight miles away).

I'd probably disagree with the idea that Ames is considered no more remote than Durham. But that's a semantics argument.

I definitely don't disagree with your assertion that location would prevent recruiting success. For example, location hasn't stopped Kansas from being a perennial powerhouse despite being similarly remote.

[roywhite]

Actually, in the spring of 1980, K had another firm coaching offer -- from Iowa State.

And here's the kicker -- he turned the job down BEFORE he got offered the Duke job. Clearly, he gambled on Duke when he was a long-shot candidate.

With an important role played by Colonel Tom Rogers, according to this Atlantic article (which may have been posted elsewhere on the board...nice piece)

Mike Krzyzewski's Humble Beginnings as Duke's Basketball Coach

There's little doubt that Krzyzewski would have indeed taken the Iowa State job if the Duke offer never came to be, says Jamie Spatola, the youngest of Krzyzewski's three daughters and an author of two books about her dad. Her mother has told her as much. "But I know they wanted the Duke job very badly," she says. So when the time came in 1980 to make the jump from West Point like Knight had done nine years earlier, he turned to Rogers, who would lay things out for Coach K in a pre-Coach K world.

"Sometimes I wonder where I would have been if I hadn't listened to Tom Rogers, my officer rep, when I asked him if he thought I should take the Iowa State job when it was offered in 1980," Krzyzewski wrote in the foreword for John Feinstein's Last Dance: Behind The Scenes At The Final Four. "'I think you need to follow this Duke thing through to the end,' Colonel Rogers said. I guess it's fair to say he gave me good advice."

Thanks, Colonel, and thanks, Coach K.

[OldPhiKap]

He would have been in an elite conference -- and one that wasn't nearly as deep as the ACC he had to battle in the 1980s.

This bears repeating. Consider that in 1984, when K made his first NCAA appearance, he had to faceand recruit against the following:

-- Dean Smith, who owned the conference (just ask K, he complained about the double standard)
-- Lefty D., the architect of UCLA-East
-- Jimmy V, the young star who had already won a NC
-- Terry Holland, a conference fixture who also owned Food Lion (okay, maybe that was someone else but they looked identical)
-- Bobby Cremins, perhaps the best recruiter in the conference

Out of an eight-team conference, that only left him ahead (arguably) of Cliff Ellis at Clemson (who won two COY awards before the decade was out there) and Carl Tacy at Wake (okay, that one is a gimme).

[Olympic Fan]

This bears repeating. Consider that in 1984, when K made his first NCAA appearance, he had to faceand recruit against the following:

-- Dean Smith, who owned the conference (just ask K, he complained about the double standard)
-- Lefty D., the architect of UCLA-East
-- Jimmy V, the young star who had already won a NC
-- Terry Holland, a conference fixture who also owned Food Lion (okay, maybe that was someone else but they looked identical)
-- Bobby Cremins, perhaps the best recruiter in the conference

Out of an eight-team conference, that only left him ahead (arguably) of Cliff Ellis at Clemson (who won two COY awards before the decade was out there) and Carl Tacy at Wake (okay, that one is a gimme).

Are you confusing Carl Tacy with Bob Staak?

Tacy was definitely one of the established ACC coaches in the early 1980s when K arrived -- ahead of Cremins, Valvano (before the miracle run in 1983) and Krzyzewski.

Tacy took over a slumping program from Jack McCloskey after the 1972 season and turned the Deacs into a solid middle-of-the road ACC program for more than a decade. Between 1974 and 1984, Wake finished between 3rd and 6th every year, except 1977 when they finished second, won 22 games and were one of two ACC teams to get NCAA bids and 79 and 79, when they finished sixth. Tacy took Wake to the NCAA three times in K's first four years at Duke. In the one year they missed, Wake reached the NIT finals.

In 1984, the year Duke made it to the NCAA for the first time under K, Wake reached the Elite Eight, losing a close game to Houson. He also reached the Elite Eight in 1977, when they lost a close game to eventual champ Marquette. Overall, Wake finished in the top 20 four times under Tacy.

I'm not saying that Carl Tacy was on a level with Dean Smith or even Lefty, but he was a solid, established coach.

PS An you are definitely wrong about Cliff Ellis at Clemson -- he didn't get there until 1985. Clemson's coach in K's early years was Bill Foster (no, not the guy who coached at Duke; yjosd guy also coachd at Virginia Tech), who had Clemson in the Elite Eight in 1980 -- the year before K came to Duke. The Tigers weren't as consistently good in those years, but he also had three NITs in an era when the NIT was a little more prestigious than it is now (because the NCAA was taking just 32 teams).

I would argue that the ACC pecking order in K's first year was:

1. Dean Smith (by a mile)
2. Lefty Driesell
3. Terry Holland (who was just about to hit the peak of his career with Ralph)
4. Carl Tacy
5. Bill Foster
6-7 Coach K and Jim Valvano (who came in within weeks of each other and both had a lot to prove)
8, Dwane Morrison at Georgia Tech

A year later, Bobby Cremins came in to pick up the pieces at Georgia Tech ... In the early '80s, the story was the young trio trying to match the established guys. Valvano separated himself first with that great '83 run. K and Cremins were on a very similar track -- both terrible in 82 and 83, both much better in '84 (with K having a slight edge), both top teams in 85 (with Cremins having a slight edge -- they went to the Elite Eight that year and were preseason No. 1 in '86). Finally, in 1986 K broke out -- and it was after that year that Lefty's program blew up in the wake of Len Bias' death. Dean was still there, but for the last part of the decade K was the prime challenger to UNC with Cremins and Valvano right there.

While we may dispute the details, I think we agree on the main point, however -- the ACC in the early '80s was about as tough a league to build a program in that they has ever been.

[VaDukie]

My Dad went to Iowa State for undergrad and then Duke for grad school. I'm willing to bet he's among a very small group that hold those two degrees. Oh to ponder how different my childhood wardrobe could have been...

Another question for those with the knowledge - did K get any serious offers before 1980? His best teams at Army were around his 2nd and 3rd years, right?

[OldPhiKap]

Are you confusing Carl Tacy with Bob Staak?

Yes, that's what I get for drive-by posting while on hold.

PS An you are definitely wrong about Cliff Ellis at Clemson -- he didn't get there until 1985.

I think he was hired in April '84 and his first season was '84-'85. So perhaps I'm mostly wrong.

[DU82]

Tacy was definitely one of the established ACC coaches in the early 1980s when K arrived -- ahead of Cremins, Valvano (before the miracle run in 1983) and Krzyzewski.

But major points off for his comb over.

[grossbus]

"6-7 Coach K and Jim Valvano (who came in within weeks of each other and both had a lot to prove)"

Jimmy V. Also interviewed for the Duke job.