By Lee Strawther
The Sporting Tribune
The John R. Wooden Award will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this season. Leading up to the award ceremony on April 10, 2026, The Sporting Tribune in partnership with the Wooden Award and the Los Angeles Athletic Club will highlight past winners of the Wooden Award and the Legends of Coaching Award.
Right in step with the handful of truly legendary coaches of college basketball, Mike Krzyzewski will go down as one of the greatest minds (and leaders) in the game. And we’re talking about coaches the likes of Adolph Rupp, Denny Crum, Bill Self, Dean Smith, and of course John Wooden, to name a few.
The son of working class Polish-American parents, Michael William Krzyzewski was Born February 13, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois. He briefly attended St. Helen Catholic School in Ukrainian Village, a Chicago neighborhood, and later Archbishop Weber High School, a Catholic boys prep school in the Windy City, where he was an all-state player and team captain.
A first-generation college student, Krzyzewski was a point guard and three-year letterman at Army from 1966 to 1969, playing under another legendary coach Bob Knight. He was named captain of the team by his senior season (1968–69) and led the Cadets to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden where they finished fourth. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1969. By 1975 he was named head coach of his alma mater, a position he held until 1980.
“He did the best job of anybody I’ve ever coached, going from high school to college,” Knight once said of Krzyzewski. “He couldn’t shoot worth a damn. I told him he had to guard people and run our offense. He understood roles.”
From 1969 to 1974, Krzyzewski served as an officer in the U.S. Army and directed service teams for three years.
Discharged from active duty in 1974 with the rank of captain, he began his coaching career as an assistant on Knight’s staff with the Indiana Hoosiers during their historic 1974–75 season. After one year with Indiana, Krzyzewski returned to West Point as head coach at age 28; in his five seasons he led the Cadets to a 73–59 (.553) record and an NIT berth in 1978.
In March of 1980, Krzyzewski was named the head coach at Duke University, and after a handful of rebuilding years, he and the Blue Devils became a staple on the collegiate hoops scene, earning 35 NCAA Tournament berths in the past 36 years and 24 straight appearances from 1996 to 2019.
Affectionately known to most as “Coach K”, Krzyzewski was head coach of the Duke University Blue Devils for 42 years where he led the Blue Devils to five national titles, 13 Final Four appearances, 15 ACC tournament championships, and 13 ACC regular season titles. In fact, among all men’s college basketball coaches, only UCLA’s John Wooden has won more NCAA championships (10).
Krzyzewski has also coached the United States national team, which he led to gold medals at the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics, was head coach of the U.S. team that won gold medals at the 2010 and the 2014 FIBA World Cup, and a was an assistant coach for the famed “Dream Team” at the 1992 Olympics.
He is a three-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame; in 2001 for his individual coaching career, in 2010 as part of the induction of the “Dream Team,” and in 2025 as head coach of the 2008 United States men’s Olympic basketball “Redeem Team”.
In 2005, Krzyzewski was presented with West Point’s Distinguished Graduate Award and, in 2006 he was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 2009 he was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame, also with the “Dream Team”. Ultimately he was awarded the prestigious John R. Wooden Award “Legends of Coaching” honor in 2000.
Krzyzewski will be fondly remembered for the fiery rivalry his teams had with the in-state rival North Carolina Tar Heels, but he has meant so much more than that to the game. He was captain of each of the teams he played on for a reason, just as he’s regarded as one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time for a reason.
At the end of the day, his coaching philosophy was simple, “You develop a team to achieve what one person cannot accomplish alone,” he was quoted as saying. “All of us alone are weaker, by far, than if all of us are together.”