Duke Moves Wins to K’s Record, Passes Knight for All-Time Mark

The following is a satirical look at UNC fans’ attitude towards the 4-15 record Pete Gaudet had as Duke’s head coach in 1994-95.  The general idea from Chapel Hill is that the 15 losses that K was not a part of should count towards his career numbers.  However, as Coach K sits two wins behind Bobby Knight for the all-time wins record in Division I, I’m thinking they have suddenly come to an agreement that Coach K should not be credited with the 4 wins during Gaudet’s tenure.  None of the following is true.

No fanfare.  No speeches.  No standing ovations.  That’s exactly how Duke’s Coach K wanted it to happen.

Following Duke’s opening round blowout win over Hampton, Duke fans filed out of the stadium happy with the win, but completely unaware that they had just witnessed basketball history.  Coach K had just passed his mentor, Bob Knight, for first place on the all time wins list with his 903rd career victory.  And only two people, Krzyzewski and athletic director Dr. Kevin White, had any clue that the mark had just been broken.  So how does a feat like this go completely unnoticed?  Well, you have to go to back to 1995 to find the answer.

In the 1994-95 season, Duke was enjoying a 9-3 start coming off of a heartbreaking loss in the National Championship and on the tail end of a historic run that saw Duke in the Final Four seven out of nine years.  But something was different.  Instead of Grant Hill, Christian Laettner or Bobby Hurley, Duke was running out Cherokee Parks, Joey Beard and Tony Moore.  Coach K saw the writing on the wall and realized that he’d gotten lazy on the recruiting trail.  This team was destined for failure, and recognizing that being a part of a historically disastrous season would harm his legacy and his reputation, K dug deep for answers.  In a move that so classically illustrates how Coach K is always three moves ahead of the rest of us, K used a medical leave of absence to recharge his batteries and to distance himself from a team that had no hope of winning.  As a result of that decision, Duke set the stage for yet another historic run, and set up long-time assistant Pete Gaudet as the perfect fall guy.  Duke finished that season with a 13-18 record, and in a move to demonstrate just exactly how removed Coach K was from that year’s team, the 4-15 record was moved from K’s coaching resume and placed on Gaudet’s.  Following the season, Duke and Gaudet parted ways, and K returned coming off of a 9-3 season and began working on his next masterpiece.

Gaudet was clearly out of his element without K picking up the slack on the sidelines.  Once responsible for coaching Duke’s post players, Gaudet locked up entirely when faced with being responsible for the operations of the most famous team in college basketball.  Two players on that year’s roster weren’t about to have their Duke careers derailed, and backcourt partners Chris Collins and Steve Wojciechowski took matters into their own hands.  After practices, which mainly consisted of shooting contests from half court, “Wojo”, just a freshman, would get some extra work in by putting big men Erik Meek and Greg Newton through drills.  Junior guard Chris Collins spent his free time drawing up plays designed to get himself open for three point shots and studying the NCAA compliance handbook looking for loopholes.  Not everyone adjusted as easily, however.  Sophomore guard Jeff Capel fielded daily phone calls from his younger brother Jason who mercilessly poked fun at Jeff saying things like “Way to turn a great program into a laughing stock” and “You should have gone to UNC, they’d never have a season like this.”  Assistant coach Mike Brey completely withdrew from mainstream society and spent his nights in coffee-houses listening to beat poetry and building a collection of mock turtlenecks.  Times were definitely tough at Duke that year for everyone.  Everyone except for Mike Krzyzewski.

Four years later, Coach K was back in the NCAA championship.  Two years after that, he won his third national title.  And last Friday in Charlotte, he became the winningest coach in NCAA Division I history.  In a move that can only be defined as “classic Krzyzewski”, K requested that Kevin White re-instate Gaudet’s 4-15 record onto his own record which immediately lifted a burden on his team and allowed his players the freedom to focus on their own goals, and not on Coach K’s accomplishments.  In the locker room following Duke’s 2-point victory over Michigan in the round of 32, captain Nolan Smith hugged his coach and said “Coach, I was scared we were going to lose it for you.  All of us want you to break the record this year, we want to be a part of it.”  Coach responded, “Nolan, you were a part of it.  You just didn’t know that you were.”

After seeing the joy and relief on his players’ faces, Coach K knew he’d made the right decision.  This week leading up to the Sweet 16 could be about Duke, and about two great seniors, and another run at back-to-back titles.  But through the cheers and celebration, Coach K knew there was unfinished business.  Like when Ray Kinsella heard the whisper “Ease his pain” in Field of Dreams, Coach K knew what he had to do.  He turned to his right-hand men who are now referred to as “Coach Wojo” and “Coach Collins” and calmly said “Guys, get me Gaudet on the phone.”