Coach K Hall of Famer

4 Pages 965 Words

In choosing Knight, the rules were simple: A Hall of Fame member must be a presenter. For Krzyzewski, there was no second choice. Knight recruited him to go to Army in the mid-1960s. He played for him for four years. He followed him to Indiana to be an assistant before taking over at Army as head coach in 1976.

Knight was a mentor to Krzyzewski throughout his coaching career, which began at Army and then moved to Duke in 1981. But the relationship soured a bit in the early 1990s after Duke beat Indiana in the Final Four in 1992. But any tension is apparently gone.

"Coach Knight was the only person that could have presented me," Krzyzewski said earlier Friday. "Everybody needs a start and I got two starts with him -- one as a player and one as an assistant coach."

"Which was really a helluva lot more than most guys could handle," said Knight, interrupting Krzyzewski and putting his hand behind coach K's neck in an affectionate manner.

"Going to West Point changed my life," Krzyzewski said. "When coach (Knight) walked out of my house, my dad said 'that's where you're going.' I didn't necessarily want to at the time, but I followed his advice and it turned out to be an amazing decision."

A week before Knight's new coaching life at Texas Tech officially begins with the first team practice, he was by Krzyzewski's side, not about to upstage Krzyzewski on his day. Knight was on his best behavior and couldn't have been more outwardly pleased with how far Krzyzewski has come since he recruited him out of Chicago's Weber High.

"No one (of Knight's players) picked something to do and got so far in that profession, and got as far as Mike did," Knight said. "I didn't encourage anyone to go into coaching. I said to him, 'what the hell is someone as smart as you going into coaching for?' Mike could have gone into anything. But the most important thing is he's done everything the right way. That's more important than what he has done....