903 Brought To You By The Letter K

Mike Krzyzewski embraces his former coach and mentor Bobby Knight shortly after Coach K broke Knight's all-time wins record with 903rd victory last night at Madison Square Garden. (Photo courtesy of New York Daily News)

Certain people just automatically trigger certain images, through no fault of their own. When you see Barack Obama, you automatically envision the White House. When you see Mariano Rivera, the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium comes to mind. When you see Eli Manning, Super Bowl XLII and the pass to David Tyree pops up right away. When you see Mike Krzyzewski, you can now add the title of all-time wins leader to the image of his iconic status at Duke University after the coach surpassed Bob Knight last night in the Blue Devils' 74-69 victory over Michigan State for Krzyzewski's 903rd career win, more than any other Division I men's basketball coach.

Yet for a long time, my first image of Michael William Krzyzewski was far from a positive one.

As a North Carolina fan for practically all of my 25 years, the shallow-minded fan in me never thought enough to associate Krzyzewski with the qualities he has come to be known for. For most of my life, all I thought of Krzyzewski was that he was the architect of the "Evil Empire" that had always managed to give Dean Smith and the Tar Heels fits; and the fact that he had a surname that was, for a long time, the leader in the clubhouse in last names that were a mouthful to say and pronounce. (In my younger days, I had admittedly pronounced it CRUSH-ev-skee instead of SHA-shev-skee) Even in my first two years as a media guy, I still had not come around and admired the man known to legions of fans across the universe simply as "Coach K."

That all changed on February 19th, 2009.

Duke came into Madison Square Garden and defeated St. John's 76-69 in a game that was remembered more for both St. John's hanging in there against a more talented team; and David Berov, who had the call for WSJU that night, frequently confusing Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer. Nonetheless, listening to Krzyzewski during his postgame press conference changed my mind and caused me to do a total 180 while abandoning my fandom. In just fifteen minutes, Krzyzewski had taught me more about the game of basketball simply by speaking about what his team had done in the forty minutes prior; and earned not just my respect, but my appreciation for what he had accomplished in building Duke's program from the ground up. Along with Jim Calhoun and Rick Pitino, Krzyzewski is the only other coach who can make that claim and back it up.

In much the same way that I had anticipated Bobby Knight would eventually pass Dean Smith's wins record, (879 at the time) I expected Krzyzewski to ultimately eclipse Knight at some point. Whereas I applauded Knight for passing Smith, I actually found myself rooting for Krzyzewski in a way. Last night provided a fitting stage for the coach to get No. 903. Madison Square Garden, against an elite opponent in Michigan State, with Knight; who had coached Krzyzewski at Army and basically became a father figure to him, on the call alongside Dan Shulman. The moment the two shared after the game (pictured above) made a truly special night even more so. One of the all-time greats finally now has a record to call his own; and quite frankly, I hope he picks up No. 1,000. Maybe even 1,100 before he rides off into the sunset on a career that includes four national championships, an Olympic gold medal, and too many other honors that I cannot list in their entirety in the interest of space.

In closing, I'd like to paraphrase Vin Scully's classic call of Sandy Koufax's perfect game, if I may, because a coach this good deserves to have his moment etched in the annals of time in much the same dramatic and poignant way:

"And Mike Krzyzewski; whose name will always remind you of winning and all the right qualities a coach should possess, did it with a flourish. He defeated a team that has been to six Final Fours in the last thirteen years. So when he wrote his name in the record books, that 'K' stands out more than the R-Z-Y-Z-E-W-S-K-I."

Congratulations, Coach K. You deserve it.