Michael K. Krzyzewski
Head Coach, Men's Basketball
Duke University

To many, Mike Krzyzewski is the face of college basketball. The head men’s basketball coach at Duke University for the past 25 years, Krzyzewski entered the 2005-06 season with 721 victories in his 30-year Hall of Fame career. He has led the Blue Devils to 21 NCAA Tournament appearances, 10 Final Fours, nine ACC Tournament championships and three national championships. He has accumulated more wins in the NCAA Tournament than any other coach in history.

Yes, the man known simply as “Coach K” is an extremely successful coach. But to those who know him best, he is much, much more.

Krzyzewski is first and foremost a family man. He and his wife, Mickie, have been married for nearly 36 years. They wed the day Krzyzewski graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1969. They have three daughters, Debbie, Lindy and Jamie, and four grandchildren. The Krzyzewskis are a close-knit family.

Family, however, takes on a larger meaning to Krzyzewski. The Chicago native is the patriarchal figure of the extended Duke family – his players, coaches and staff. The Duke student body and Blue Devil fans nationwide embrace him as a beloved leader.

Krzyzewski is a coach, sure, but more importantly he is a leader. He guides the young men he coaches and helps them develop into not only the players, but the students and citizens that they can become. He is unquestionably the leader of the Duke family.

Krzyzewski is also an important member and a leader of The V Foundation family. Mike Krzyzewski and Jim Valvano became close during Jim’s battle with cancer. The two coaches, the two fathers of three daughters, shared stories of basketball, and more importantly, of life. They shared laughter and tears. As Coach K spent time with Jimmy V, he realized again how short life can be. He learned to treasure, more than ever, the time he had with his loved ones. And he joined Jim’s V Foundation team.

“I rode on the plane up today with Mike Krzyzewski, my good friend and wonderful coach,” Jim said in his 1993 ESPY speech. “People don’t realize he’s 10 times a better person than he is a coach, and we know he’s a great coach.”

A member of The V Foundation board of directors since the Foundation’s inception in 1993, Krzyzewski has been in the forefront in the fight against cancer. He served as an Honorary Chairman of the Jimmy V Celebrity Golf Classic for the event’s first nine years. For the past five years, the Krzyzewski family has hosted The V Foundation Wine Celebration in Napa Valley.

“Mike is a very active V board member,” V Foundation Chairman of the Board Bob Lloyd said at a recent Wine Celebration. “He shares our passion for fighting cancer. He and Mickie are members of the President’s Club. The Wine Celebration wouldn’t be the same without them, their three daughters and their spouses. The Krzyzewski family makes the event better. Mike makes The V Foundation better.”

“The V Foundation has been about friends helping friends,” Krzyzewski said. “In Jimmy’s last months, when he had the idea to form The V Foundation, he asked me to be a part of it. The Foundation was formed because of emotion. The primary emotion was anger. In his last few months, Jimmy was a very creative person, a very loving person, but he was also very angry. As a coach and as a competitor, he was frustrated. He was angry because he had a form of cancer that could not be beaten. He was willing to try anything. He wanted to win. He wasn’t ready to leave. He realized that he could not beat cancer on his own; that’s how The V Foundation was formed.

“We’ve accomplished some amazing things since then,” Krzyzewski continued. “But I think we should get angry. I think we should use the emotion of anger to propel us to a higher level. We raise a lot of money, but we don’t raise enough money. With Jimmy, there was a sense of urgency to win. We need that urgency.

“You look around and see cancer survivors. We are beating cancer, but we haven’t beaten it. We didn’t get into The V Foundation just to get into the NCAA Tournament. We didn’t get into it to win the first-round game or a regional final. We got into The V Foundation to win the national championship. The national championship will be obtained in our will and our courage to beat this dreadful disease. When every patient who comes in and is told, ‘You have cancer,’ is then told, ‘This is the protocol to beat it because we can beat every kind of cancer,’ then we will have won.”

While working to beat cancer is a passion and focus of his, Krzyzewski also takes time for other community betterment programs. In addition to his work with The V Foundation, Krzyzewski serves as the chairman of the Emily Krzyzewski Family Center, a community center named for his mother near the Duke campus in Durham, N.C. He is a chairman of the Duke Children’s Miracle Network Telethon and is involved in the Duke Children’s Classic. In 2000, Krzyzewski was named the first recipient of the GTE Reads with the NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches) Literacy Champion Award.

Krzyzewski. A coach. A husband, father and grandfather. A friend. A leader. A great man. To those who know him best, Coach K is always a winner.