December 17, 2023 / By mobanmarket
Click:gate valve manufacture
CHICAGO — Mike Krzyzewski has developed a deep appreciation for North Carolina on both a personal and professional level over the years, but in his heart of hearts, he knows Chicago will always be home.
It was here, college basketball’s winningest coach acknowledges, where many of the values he leaned on over the years — first at West Point and then at Duke — were engrained inside of him. It was here, where he first learned the value of teamwork and togetherness that became staples of his coaching philosophy. So, it only made sense that when Krzyzewski was enshrined in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame on Wednesday night, it happened in his hometown.
Krzyzewski was one of five members of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023 who were honored in a ceremony Wednesday night. The 12-time National Coach of the Year who led Duke to five national championships before he retired in 2022 was inducted into the Hall of Fame along with former Duke standout Johnny Dawkins, North Carolina All-American Tyler Hansbrough, legendary Division II coach Herb Magee, and long-time basketball scout Tom Konchalski, who spent 43 evaluating players before dying from cancer in 2021.
Krzyzewski, who grew up in the neighborhood that is now Ukrainian Village, points to his formative years in the schoolyard at Christopher Columbus Elementary as foundational to what followed. In 47 years of coaching — including 42 seasons at Duke — Krzyzewski collected 1,202 victories and established Duke as one of the top college programs in the country. Krzyzewski also coached the U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team to three gold medals but says that much of the standards he passed onto his players over the years were based here.
“My parents, my neighborhood, and my teachers taught me a work ethic and gave me a value system,” Krzyzewski told Patch before Wednesday night’s induction ceremony. “I was lucky to grow up (here).”
He added: “I think one of the main things (I learned here) is that you don’t do it alone. You’re part of your family, your part of your church, you’re part of your school – you’re always part of something bigger than you. So, in those moments when you might be a little bit weak, you know that you have a team behind you.”
Krzyzewski’s mother, Emily, worked as a cleaning lady at the Chicago Athletic Club, and his father, William worked as an elevator operator — choosing to use the last name of Cross rather than Krzyzewski to avoid ethnic discrimination, fearing he would never get a job with only two years of a high school education. Krzyzewski said that he grew up here just dreaming of being a high school teacher and coach – never imagining that his career would reach such amazing levels.
Krzyzewski, 76, who attended St. Helen Catholic School before playing high school basketball at Weber High School, says that his neighborhood provided him with valuable roots. He built lifelong friendships in the tightly knit Polish community where he built lifelong friendships with a group that became known as “The Columbos” based on the Columbus Elementary schoolyard where they forged an unbreakable bond.
The group of childhood friends met at the age of 6 and have remained in touch ever since. Krzyzewski said Wednesday that The Columbos were “my guys” who taught him important lessons about loyalty and friendship that have stuck with him throughout his life – all thanks to the years he spent in Chicago before leaving for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
“Everyone loved one another, pulled for each other, and had each other’s back,” Krzyzewski told Patch on Wednesday. “Those are pretty good principles to carry on.”
He added: “You can find every person from every nationality, every race — probably every country is represented in some way throughout the city. The diversity of the city is what makes the city so very special.”
Dawkins, a consensus first-team All-American at Duke and the 1986 National Player of the Year credits Krzyzewski for molding him and other players who played under “Coach K” into men. Dawkins says that after the Blue Devils struggled at the start of his career and in Krzyzewski’s first three years in Durham, says that the program really took shape under Krzyzewski, who turned the Blue Devils into a national power under simple principles that Dawkins carried with him into his own coaching career.
Dawkins first served as an assistant at Duke for 12 years before taking his first head coaching job at Stanford before leaving to take over the program at Central Florida. Dawkins said on Wednesday night he always appreciated the personal approach that Krzyzewski took with each of his players starting when he was recruiting them and that carried on into adulthood.
“He’s a person that wants you to be yourself,” Dawkins told Patch on Wednesday night. “He doesn’t want you to be him. He told me that when I took my first head coaching position – he said, ‘Don’t go out there and try to be me — that has never worked for any coach. Go out and be yourself.’ I took that from him.”
Krzyzewski never lost his own sense of identity despite struggling in his first few years at Duke. The Blue Devils posted losing records in two of Krzyzewski’s first three years in Durham before Duke reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time under Krzyzewski in 1984 and finished up as the NCAA runner-up two years later in 1986 when Duke finished 37-3 in Dawkins’ senior year.
In the years following, Krzyzewski led Duke to five national championships and 12 Final Four appearances, the last of which came in 2015 when the Blue Devils captured their most recent NCAA title. Krzyzewski also became a face of the Duke-North Carolina rivalry that has become among the best in college sports and again took center stage during Wednesday’s Hall of Fame ceremonies when three of the five inductees represented the two programs.
Said Hansbrough: “What (Krzyzewski) has done at Duke, I’m not sure the rivalry would be what it is without Coach K.”
Several of Krzyzewski’s former players, including Dawkins, Jay Bilas, Mark Alarie, and Tommy Amaker attended Wednesday night’s ceremony in Chicago, as did former North Carolina head coach Roy Williams.
While Krzyzewski is also a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., which honors all aspects of basketball, he said he feels fortunate to be part of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (based in Kansas City) because it honors college basketball specifically, which Krzyzewski called “our home.”
Fittingly, it happened in his hometown but was well-represented by North Carolina, where Krzyzewski lives with his wife and with his three daughters and 10 grandchildren all within 10 minutes of his home.
“I feel like I was the luckiest guy in the world,” Krzyzewski said on Wednesday night.
He added: “I can remember being on the Columbus schoolyard shooting (baskets) and dreaming of being a college coach one day and a college player. So, what does the (Hall of Fame) mean? Are you kidding me? Forget about dreams. This is incredible for this to happen.”
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
Categories: News