He was tired of the hassle. His last team won 15 games. He also told K not to let the UNC rivalry dominate him.
His biggest blunder was that 12-10 loss to the crowd in Raleigh.
Every edition of The Chronicle is available online: https://library.duke.edu/digitalcoll...dukechronicle/
I tried to find coverage of Bubas announcing his retirement but did not have much luck. Some articles in February and March 1969 noting that it was his last year; one said he decided after the Feb 12, 1969 game against WFU (a big Duke win, I think), but no stories I found announcing his retirement or his thinking.
The Chronicle is a great time suck. Stories about Bucky and his 5-year, $16K/per contract to return from WVU. About hot young coach Hubie. About Enos and the baseball team ...
My mom often said he told her he quit because he'd done what he wanted to do as a college basketball coach, and wanted new challenges.
Seems he found some...
-jk
Bubas was great coach who had great career at Duke and IMO knew it was time to move on. Probably had a lot of reasons but realized recruiting was changing and would become more difficult to recruit @ DUKE.
I went to his camp in late 60s and enjoyed it very much. They took camp picture which I need to find because Chuck and Hubie were in it but Bubas was one of the best coaches during the 60s.
I can remember Mullins but not Heyman also Marin and Mike Lewis and one of my all time favorites Bob Verga.
The Sun Belt had pretty steady membership during Bubas's time as commissioner, but a lot of turnover since: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Belt_Conference
Let the record show that Bubas had a winning record against Dean Smith.
I have many fond memories of Duke basketball while I was there (class of '68). One interesting one is the 2 years of games against UCLA, December '65 and December '66. UCLA had won the 1965 championship and came to North Carolina for a two game series, one night in Durham, the next in Charlotte, ranked No. 1. Before Alcindor and Walton, it was all about the UCLA zone press. Duke won convincingly, I think by 18 and 19 points. Unfortunately, there were two similar games the next year in California, with Alcindor, Allen & Shackleford now playing for UCLA, and Duke lost both games by 30 points, basically a 50 point swing in one year. Now coaching is of course important, but Coach Wooden did not get that much smarter, and Bubas that much dumber, in one year. The lesson: you got to have the players!
I was at Duke during the Bubas era (Lewis, Verga, etc.) when they were really good. I never told my parents but the basketball team was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Duke. So I guess I can thank Vic Bubas for my Duke education.