Duke Basketball Head Coach and first-ever United States National Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski cannot be defined solely by those accolades reserved for a highly successful sports coach.  Indeed, Krzyzewski, entering his 29th season at Duke, has led the Blue Devils to numerous winning seasons, coached players who have produced superb graduation rates and crafted a tremendous on-court legacy.  However, the Hall of Famer also sets the bar as a humanitarian of sport, an ambassador of education, a coach, a teacher, a friend, a family man, a leader and a motivator.  While fans worldwide know the three-time national champion as “Coach K,” his three daughters call him their hero, his players regard him as a father figure and his coaching staff and close friends consider him the ideal mentor.  In a single word, Mike Krzyzewski is superlative.  Some of Coach K’s numerous career highlights include:Being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001.

• Being named the first-ever United States National Head Coach in 2005.

• Winning three national championships (1991, 1992, 2001).

• Leading Duke to 10 Final Four appearances.

• Being named National Coach of the Year 12 times in eight different seasons.

• Being selected as the Coach of the Decade for the 1990s by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

• Being honored as “America’s Best Coach” (all sports, all levels) by Time and CNN.

• Being a New York Times best-selling author.

• One of two active coaches with 800 career wins.

• Coaching seven National Players of the Year (nine total awards), six National Defensive Players of the Year (nine total awards), and 19 different All-Americans (33 total selections).

• Coaching 14 NBA lottery picks (most all-time), 20 first-round selections (most among active coaches) and 39 overall NBA draftees.

• Being the youngest recipient ever of the Distinguished Graduate Award at the United States Military Academy.

Born on February 13, 1947, Krzyzewski grew up in Chicago, IL and attended Weber High School.  Following high school, Krzyzewski enrolled at the United States Military Academy, where he became a three-year letterman from 1967 to 1969.  In 1969, as a team captain, a second team All-NIT honoree and a North-South Game participant, Krzyzewski graduated with a B.S. degree from West Point.

After serving five years as an officer in the United States Army from 1969 to 1974, Krzyzewski began his college coaching career as a graduate assistant at Indiana University in 1974-1975.  His first head coaching position was at his alma mater, West Point, beginning in 1975.  In his five years at West Point, Krzyzewski led the Cadets to a 73-59 record and one NIT appearance in 1978.  May 4, 1980 was in retrospect one of the most opportune days in Duke University history as Mike Krzyzewski was introduced as the head coach of the Duke Men’s Basketball Team.  Coach K has since established himself as one of the greatest coaches in all of sport. His Blue Devil career includes:

• NCAA-record 69 NCAA Tournament wins (most all-time)

• 13 different seasons ranked No. 1 (most No. 1 rankings all-time).

• 10 Final Four berths since 1985, including five straight appearances from 1988 to 1992 (No other coach has advanced to more than five Final Fours in the last 20 years).

• An NCAA-record nine 30-win seasons.

• 11 ACC regular-season crowns (nine more than any active coach).

• 10 ACC Tournament titles (eight more than any active coach). 

Additionally, Coach K has coached seven individual National Players of the Year (nine total honors) and six National Defensive Players of the Year (nine total honors).  The NCAA Men’s Basketball Records Book credits Coach K with having coached more individual National Players of the Year and also more National Defensive Players of the Year than any coach in history.  He has also mentored more All-Americans (19 players have earned 33 total selections) than any active coach.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Coach K’s prestigious career is his NCAA Tournament success.  With national championships in 1991, 1992 and 2001, Coach K is one of only four coaches in NCAA history to earn three or more NCAA titles.  In addition to Krzyzewski, only John Wooden (10 titles), Adolph Rupp (four titles), and Bob Knight (three titles) have accomplished that feat.  With back-to-back national championships in 1991 and 1992, Coach K became the first coach since Wooden to earn consecutive NCAA crowns.  Krzyzewski is the winningest coach in NCAA Tournament history with a stunning 68-19 record and a 78.2 winning percentage.  In fact, only four schools have more all-time NCAA Tournament wins than Coach K, and the head coach of the Blue Devils has 26 more wins and five more Final Four appearances in the tournament than any active coach since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.Coach K owns a 753-250 career record, including a 680-191 mark at Duke.  

On November 17, 2000, Krzyzewski earned his 500th win at Duke with a 98-85 triumph over Villanova.  He reached this milestone in just 660 contests, the fifth-fewest games in NCAA history by any coach to earn 500 wins at one institution.  That night, the fabled floor of Cameron Indoor Stadium was dedicated as Coach K Court.  On December 12, 2004, Coach K became one of just 19 coaches in Division I history to reach 700 wins, and he concluded his 31st year of coaching with more wins than any coach has ever had over his first 31 years.

Such accomplishments have not gone unnoticed.  In 1991, while on his way to guiding the Blue Devils to a 32-7 record and a national title, he was named the Kodak/National Association of Basketball Coaches National Coach of the Year.  In all, Coach K has been named the National Coach of the Year 12 times in eight different seasons, by major organizations including Basketball Times, UPI and Chevrolet (1986), Naismith (1989), the National Association of Basketball Coaches (1991), The Sporting News and Naismith (1992), Basketball Times (1997), the National Association of Basketball Coaches and Naismith (1999), Chevrolet (2000) and the Victor Awards (2001).  He was named Coach of the Decade for the 1990s by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and was the second recipient of the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award.

Presented by his college coach Bob Knight, Coach K was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on October 5, 2001.  Krzyzewski joined Temple’s John Chaney and former NBA star Moses Malone as 2001 inductees.

In October 2005, Coach K received an unparalleled honor when he was named the first United States National Head Coach in USA Basketball history.  While previous individuals have coached national teams in specific competitions, Coach K will lead Team USA for a three-year term that runs through the 2008 Olympic Games in China.  Said Jerry Colangelo, the Managing Director of USA Basketball’s Men’s Senior National Team, about Coach K’s appointment, “Mike Krzyzewski is the right man at the right time.  His professional record speaks for itself.  His loyalty and commitment to his country is more than self-evident and his success as a leader of men is also a part of who he is.”

In 1992, Krzyzewski became the first college coach to be named the Sportsman of the Year by The Sporting News.  The magazine said of Coach K, “On the court and off, Krzyzewski is a family man first, a teacher second, a basketball coach third, and a winner at all three. He is what’s right about sports...”Krzyzewski received another prestigious honor in 2001 as he was named “America’s Best Coach” – all coaches, any sport, any level of play – by Time Magazine and CNN.  “No college hoops coach has won more in the past two decades,” wrote Josh Tyrangiel of Time, “and Krzyzewski has accomplished all this with a program that turns out real-deal scholar athletes – kids who go to class, graduate and don’t mind telling everyone about it.”

Off the court, Krzyzewski has been involved with three major book projects.  Coach K’s latest book, Five-Point Play, intertwines the story of the 2001 National Championship season with many of his favorite leadership tactics.  In The New York Times bestseller Leading with the Heart: Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business and Life, Krzyzewski discusses numerous lessons he has learned as a basketball coach, and translates them into universal advice for any leadership position.  He is also a co-author of A Season Is A Lifetime: The Inside Story of the Duke Blue Devils and Their Championship Seasons, which chronicles the Blue Devils’ 1992 championship season and gives an insightful look into Coach K’s relationship with his players. 

Coach K is active in several service activities, including the Duke Children’s Hospital, the Children’s Miracle Network, the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research, the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Coaches vs. Cancer, the Brain Tumor Center at Duke and the Hoop Dreams Advisory Council.  In 2000, he was the first winner of the Verizon Reads with the National Association of Basketball Coaches Literacy Award.  He also led fundraising efforts in Durham for the Emily Krzyzewski Family Life Center, a community center named in honor of his late mother. The center opened in Feburary of 2006.

In a rare move by any university, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business named Krzyzewski as a faculty member as part of The Fuqua/Coach K Center of Leadership and Ethics (COLE).  The center develops business school cases and teaching materials on leadership and ethics, creates short non-degree courses for Fuqua Executive Education, serves as a global library for leadership writing and research, gives research grants to faculty at Fuqua and other schools, and sponsors leadership conferences each year with Coach K and Fuqua students.  Along with these other projects, COLE will also sponsor a speaker series on leadership and ethics.

Krzyzewski is married to Carol “Mickie” Marsh, originally from Alexandria, VA.  Coach and Mrs. K have three daughters, Debbie Savarino, Lindy Frasher, and Jamie Spatola, and four grandchildren, Joey, Michael, Carlyn and Emelia Savarino.

Coach K, in his 34th year of coaching, continues to succeed in spectacular fashion in every area of life that he explores.  It is impossible to fully describe the way in which he has impacted countless players, students, young people and individuals of all ages and interests, but renowned CBS commentator Jim Nantz comes about as close as words will allow.  Nantz said after Coach K’s 700th win, “700 wins is a wonderful milestone.  I could give you 700 superlatives to describe my respect for Coach K, but I prefer to look beyond the numbers.  Mike has been the face and voice of college basketball for almost 20 years.  Tell me another sport that could have a better representative.  He is not a man who can just be described as a hugely successful basketball coach.  We are talking about one of the great leaders, motivators, and humanitarians of sport.  I've never been one given to hyperbole, but knowing Mike and his family, the way he relates to people, his military background, and his unimpeachable integrity, he would make a great president if he put his mind to it.  Not the President of Duke University, but the President of the United States.  But before he concerns himself with 1600 (Pennsylvania Avenue that is!) let him savor 700 and the remarkable journey he has navigated from Chicago to West Point to Duke.”