Last call for Coach K
Duke legend set to retire after end of ’21-22 season
Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski, who has won five NCAA titles at Duke, will retire at the end of the 2021-22 season.
Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, 74, is planning to retire after the 2021-22 season, according to sources. Associate head coach Jon Scheyer has agreed to replace him.
Duke’s legendary men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski will retire at the end of the 2021-22 season and associate head coach Jon Scheyer will be named the coach-in-waiting, according to a source close to the process.
Krzyzewski, who turned 74 in February, is the second-longest tenured coach in NCAA Division I. He has amassed 1,170 wins and counting since first becoming a head coach at Army in 1975. He became Duke’s head coach in 1980, winning 1,097 games with the Blue Devils. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is the longest-tenured, having just completed his 45th season with the Orange.
Krzyzewski will end his career as the winningest men’s basketball coach in Division I history. He has led Duke to 12 Final Fours and national titles in 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010 and 2015. With North Carolina’s Roy Williams stepping down in April, Krzyzewski’s retirement plan signals a new era for ACC basketball.
As with Hubert Davis replacing Williams at UNC, Krzyzewski will be replaced by a first-time head coach who was a former player. Scheyer was a starting guard on Duke’s 2010 national championship team. He’s been an assistant coach on staff since 2014 and was promoted to associate head coach in 2018.
In addition to his success at Duke, Krzyzewski led the U.S. to three Olympic gold medals as head coach from 2005-2016, restoring glory to a program that had failed to win gold at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.
Krzyzewski made his retirement decision with Duke coming off a 13-11 season where the Blue Devils missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1995. That was the season Krzyzewski missed the final 19 games as he recovered from back surgery.
The Blue Devils played in the next 24 NCAA tournaments before struggling during the pandemic-altered season.
A Chicago native, Krzyzewski played college basketball at Army for head coach Bob Knight. It was Knight who held the record for most career coaching wins in college basketball, at 902, before Krzyzewski recorded win No. 903 on Nov. 16, 2011. He’s been the all-time record holder ever since. He became the first men’s D-I coach to record 1,000 wins on Jan. 25, 2015.
Krzyzewski took over the Blue Devils after Bill Foster had coached them to an Elite Eight appearance in the 1980 NCAA tournament. Foster left to become South Carolina’s coach, and Duke went 38-47 with no NCAA tournament appearances in Krzyzewski’s first three seasons.
When the Blue Devils were humiliated 109-66 by Virginia in the ACC tournament in 1983 season, Duke boosters wanted Krzyzewski fired.
But athletic director Tom Butters, who had hired Krzyzewski three years earlier, decided to retain him as coach. Duke made its first NCAA tournament appearance under Krzyzewski the following season and, by 1986, played in the Final Four where the Blue Devils lost to Louisville in the NCAA championship game.
That season started a stretch where Duke played in seven Final Fours in nine years, with five appearances in the national championship game.
Krzyzewski led Duke to its first men’s basketball championship in 1991 and followed that up with another NCAA title in 1992.
Over the years, as numerous NBA teams sought to lure him away from Duke, Krzyzewski stayed in Durham. The closest he came to leaving was in 2004 when the Lakers offered him a five-year, $40 million contract.
Instead, Krzyzewski stayed with the Blue Devils, proclaiming that his “whole heart” was at Duke.
Duke turned into one of college basketball’s all-time great programs under Krzyzewski. He’s led the school to 12 of its 16 Final Four appearances.
After back-to-back losing seasons in his second and third years with Duke, the only losing record the Blue Devils suffered since the 1982-83 season was in 1994-95 when Krzyzewski only coached the first 12 games due to his health.
Duke is entrusting another Chicago-area native to keep the program at this level of success.
Born in suburban Northbrook, Illinois, Scheyer was an All-America guard with the Blue Devils. A team captain as a junior and senior, he averaged 18.2 points per game during the 2009-10 season that culminated with Duke winning the NCAA title.
He became an associate head coach under Krzyzewski in 2018 and has become renowned for his recruiting prowess.