DURHAM, N.C. — The day was surely going to come, eventually. Mike Krzyzewski couldn’t stay away forever. Not from Duke basketball. And not from Cameron Indoor Stadium.
That day turned out to be a random Tuesday night in February, for a narrow 68-64 win over a 10-15 team with two ACC wins of all opponents, because Mike Brey’s final return provoked his mentor’s first return. And for the first time in a long time, Bucky Waters wasn’t the only former Duke coach in Cameron.
As he promised before his final season, Krzyzewski had remained in the shadows since Jon Scheyer took over. Aside from the odd non-sporting public appearance — awards and keys to the city and the like — the singular figure who had loomed over Duke basketball for 40 years essentially disappeared into his new life.
But with Brey making one last visit to Cameron, where he had spent eight years working for Krzyewski in the ‘90s, Krzyzewski broke his self-imposed exile and returned in full public view, at the opposite corner of the court from the bench he once roamed, a day after his 76th birthday.
Krzyzewski and his wife Mickie sat along the baseline where Duke enters and exits, wearing the same outfit of blue Duke pullover and black pants that he wore to coach most of his final season. Once he and Mickie took their seats, a steady procession of well-wishers paid their respects.
First Brey, who announced last month this would be his final season at Notre Dame after more than two decades. Then Krzyzewski’s successor, Jon Scheyer, following his players onto the court but stopping to hug both Krzyzewskis. And finally, veteran referee Ted Valentine, who earlier had distributed Valentine’s Day candies to the scorer’s table. Even on February 14, Teddy V can’t outshine Coach K, not in this building.
Still, the respect being paid wasn’t really to Krzyzewski. It was going the other direction. His first appearance at a Duke game at Cameron since that awkward night last March when North Carolina ruined the party was his true tribute to Brey, personally delivered.
The two had met earlier Tuesday at Cameron, when Krzyzewski — at this point, a certified expert on farewell gifts — gave Brey an engraved magnum of wine to celebrate his career. But Krzyzewski’s mere presence Tuesday night was an honor of a deeper nature, the ultimate show of respect.
After all, he had held true to his intentions when he retired, not to loom over Scheyer or the program but remain in the background, neither seen nor heard (except on his Sirius XM show). Neither Phil Knight nor a trip to Madison Square Garden — revered, even by a native Chicagoan, since his days at Army — could pry him from his self-imposed basketball exile.
But Brey could. If Scheyer needed time and space to steer the program in his own image, Brey had earned this much. He remains the most robust limb of Krzyzewski’s coaching tree, although Jeff Capel may have turned a corner at Pittsburgh, and Scheyer is certainly in a position to someday top the list.
Brey, though, endured the most difficult season of Krzyzewski’s career, when his back and his spirit gave out and he stepped aside in 1995, reevaluating every aspect of his program and emerging from the ashes to win three more national titles. Those bonds were strong enough, long before Brey went to Delaware and Notre Dame and became a peer in the ACC — an elder statesman, even, by the time Krzyzewski retired.
And now Brey follows him into that void, 13 years younger at 63, still interested in potentially coaching again, although television will certainly beckon.
Notre Dame, like North Carolina last spring, paid its own tribute by refusing to quietly acquiesce. The Irish, who had beaten only fellow also-rans Georgia Tech and Louisville in ACC play, were within one before Mark Mitchell’s corner 3-pointer with 10.8 seconds to go. Krzyzewski, some 106 feet away, never showed even a hint of emotion.
At the last timeout of the first half, Krzyzewski was formally introduced to the crowd like one of the former Duke players who return for games. He stood, then pulled Mickie to her feet to join him. He waved. He bowed toward the students, as they had so often bowed toward him.
Then the applause faded and Krzyzewski sat back down as the band blared in his ears and the cheerleaders ran past and the game and Duke’s season carried on as it had without him, rushing back in to fill the space around him until he was just another fan in very good seats.
