Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER The definitive biography of college basketball’s all-time winningest coach, Mike Krzyzewski. Mike Krzyzewski, known worldwide as “Coach K,” is a five-time national champion at Duke, the NCAA’s all-time leader in victories with nearly 1,200, and the first man to lead Team USA to three Olympic basketball gold medals. Through unprecedented access to Krzyzewski’s best friends, closest advisers, fiercest adversaries, and generations of his players and assistants, three-time New York Times bestselling author Ian O’Connor takes you behind the Blue Devil curtain with a penetrating examination of the great but flawed leader as he closes out his iconic career. Krzyzewski built a staggering basketball empire that has endured for more than four decades, placing him among the all-time titans of American sport, and yet there has never been a defining portrait of the coach and his program. Until now. O’Connor uses scores of interviews with those who know Krzyzewski best to deliver previously untold stories about the relationships that define the venerable Coach K, including the one with his volcanic mentor, Bob Knight, that died a premature death. Krzyzewski was always driven by an inner rage fueled by his tough Chicago upbringing, and by the blue-collar Polish-American parents who raised him to fight for a better life.  With updated coverage of Coach K’s stunning final season, O’Connor shows you sides of the man and his methods that will surprise even the most dedicated Duke fan.“Basketball fans might feel as though they already know Coach K—or Mike Krzyzewski, the decades-long coach of the Duke Blue Devils who’s set to retire after this season. In this insightful biography, sportswriter O’Connor captures the formative experiences and inner drive that catapulted the coach to icon status. Even the most die-hard fans will learn something.” —  Washington Post