Some signs that the end might be near came last season. But Krzyzewski has remained steadfast in his program’s tenets even as his teams adapted to the game.
Maybe the signs were there all along last season that Mike Krzyzewski was ready for an exit: scolding a student journalist for an innocuous question, having an N.B.A. prospect quit midseason to prepare for the draft, and openly questioning whether there should be a season while the coronavirus was rampant in the United States. And, of course, Duke being absent from the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament for the first time in 26 years — a circumstance set up by a 13-11 start and cemented by a late-season virus outbreak within the program. Those episodes, all taken together, made it seem plausible that for Krzyzewski, with his five national championships, record 1,170 victories over his career at Army and Duke and standing as a lion of the coaching fraternity, enough was enough. It wasn’t quite that way, though, Krzyzewski said Thursday at Cameron Indoor Stadium during an hourlong news conference that was in equal parts pep rally, farewell tour kickoff and confirmation that, like almost everything else about Duke men’s basketball in the last 41 years, Krzyzewski’s exit would be dictated on his terms. Krzyzewski,74, will coach one more season because he still relishes his job — who wouldn’t given a roster primed for another crack at a national championship? Then he will vacate his seat for one of his assistant coaches, Jon Scheyer, so he can spend time doting on his grandchildren and working as an adviser and an ambassador for the university. “I love what I do,” he said Thursday in reply to a question from Jake Piazza, the Duke Chronicle reporter he’d scolded last season. “If you work at what you love it’s not work. I’ve never looked at it like I’ve got a bad job. I’ve got a great job. And I think about it all the time.” The last coach to retire after winning a national championship was Marquette’s Al McGuire, who quit at age 48 in 1977 and became a broadcast personality. Two years before that, John Wooden — the only coach to win more championships than Krzyzewski — retired after winning his 10th title at U.C.L.A. Wooden, then 64, told his team after its semifinal victory that the championship game would be his final game.
