Ian OConnor - Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski

To my world-class big brother Dan, who left us far too soon

Thanks for always having my back

Until I see you again

To the great Mrs. O

Thanks for being a mom to us all

H OSPICE WAS ALREADY IN , and Joe McGuinness needed to tell Mike Krzyzewski something important before he died.

I did not quit.

In his final week, as nasopharyngeal cancer was killing him, the fifty-five-year-old McGuinness repeatedly told his older brother Ed that he badly wanted Coach K to hear those words. Joe had been a small but rugged point guard on Krzyzewskis last West Point team. Coach K would often say that he should have taken McGuinness with him to Duke University, that Joes defensive tenacity would have made life in Durham, North Carolina, a little easier in the early 1980s.

Their relationship started in 1977 inside the McGuinness home in Nanuet, New York, where Krzyzewski arrived for a recruiting visit like few before it. We were the traditional Irish family, said Joes brother Ed. We always had a million people over.

Joes grandmother Anne was among those who sat in on the visit across the table from Krzyzewski and she was overwhelmed by the fact that the head coach at West Point wanted her grandson. Anne had two boys who served in the South Pacific during World War II, including Joes father Jack, who spent two years on a PT boat and fought the Japanese in the decisive Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Joe, the middle of his three boys, earned Division I offers from Wagner College and the United States Military Academy while starring at Clarkstown South High School. During Krzyzewskis visit to Nanuet, Joe interrupted the dinnertime conversation by digging a couple of fingers into the cream cake his mother Florence had baked and scooping a divot into his mouth.

Joe was Florences personal golden boy, so she would have likely let this misdemeanor go. But Coach K? Youre not going to be doing that at West Point, he assured his recruit.

The familys German Shepherd, Luke, nearly knocked a full drink all over the visiting coach. The McGuinnesses had a silly post-dinner tradition of trying to scorch each other with the spoons used to stir their hot tea, and in Krzyzewskis presence Joe playfully burned his grandmother. Coach K was like, These people are crazy, recalled Ed McGuinness.

But when Krzyzewski walked out the door that night, there was no doubt Joe was going to play for him. All the McGuinnesses from Grandma Anne on down fell hard for the Army coach, and the Army coach fell hard for them. Grandma Anne would bake and send cookies to Coach K at West Point, and again in his early years at Duke, and when she called his office once to congratulate him on a big victory, Krzyzewski dropped everything to take the call. When he made a recruiting visit to New York City in an attempt to sign Brooklyn high school sensation Chris Mullin for the Blue Devils, Krzyzewski asked Jack McGuinness to join their dinner so he could explain to Mullins parents what it was like to have a son play for Coach K.

Truth was, Joe McGuinness had been something of a hellion at West Point. He failed a couple of courses as a plebe and struggled to accept the sanctioned hazing from upperclassmen, who screamed in his face when he did not properly square off a corner while walking to class. They mess with your mind, Joe had said. Asked by his local paper how much he liked military life, Joe responded, I like to play basketball.

But as a college ballplayer, Joe was exactly what Coach K had envisioned he would be a pass-first point guard who played the game the way Krzyzewski played it at Army. Reddish and pale, the map of Ireland all over his face, McGuinness was a relentless disruptor when guarding the opponents most skilled backcourt scorer. In one game against tenth-ranked and unbeaten LSU at Madison Square Garden, little Joe McGuinness, as the Daily News described him, made his mark off the bench. He threw some pretty passes, shut down the Tigers high-scoring guard from the Bronx, Al Green, and helped Army rally from a huge deficit to lose by only six.

McGuinness made a less favorable impression in a lower-profile matchup with Manhattan. Joe was enjoying a good game when Jim Ward, a guard for the Jaspers, decided to start using his elbows to rattle his opponent. It didnt take much to get Joes Irish up, and sure enough, McGuinness wheeled on Ward and punched him, earning an ejection. Joe was shampooing his hair in the shower after the game when he suddenly turned to find an enraged Coach K two inches from his face, his jacket and tie taking on water while he started ripping into his point guard.

You motherfucker, Krzyzewski screamed. Dont you ever fuckin put yourself ahead of my team again.

Joe was crushed when Duke hired away Coach K after his sophomore season; he finished his college career at Manhattan, of all places, as a buddy of Jim Wards, of all people. He played and coached professionally in Ireland and became a college and high school coach back in the States. He won sectional state titles for the varsity boys and girls basketball teams at a high school ten minutes from his boyhood home in Nanuet, Albertus Magnus, where he was also the athletic director. Joe never stopped talking about Coach K, never stopped acting like him on the sidelines. Joes sons Patrick and Conor would watch Duke games and notice disapproving looks on Krzyzewskis face that mirrored expressions on their fathers.

Joe was probably a little crazier on the sideline, said his younger brother, Jack Jr., who would also play for Army. It takes Coach K a little while to get crazy, but Joe was out of his mind the whole game, pulling his hair out.

Just as Coach K heavily involved his wife Mickie and three daughters in his basketball program, Joe made sure his wife Cynthia and daughter Megan were a constant part of the conversation about his teams. McGuinness learned from Coach K to value end-of-bench reserves and team managers, and he encouraged earnest students who struggled with their studies. My father brought that to each and every team and class he taught, Megan said.

So it was a devastating blow to the Rockland athletics community when McGuinness received his diagnosis. Krzyzewski was immediately on the phone with a contact he had at Memorial Sloan Kettering in the city they came to know Joe in the hospital as Coach Ks guy and he put Joes wife in touch with an oncologist at Duke. Krzyzewski got involved in ensuring that McGuinness had access to the latest trial treatments. He regularly called and texted his former player with words of support, telling him, You can beat this. Go after it. Never give it an inch.

One day Joes sister Kate was in the car with him, stuck in Manhattan traffic after treatment, when Coach K called to ask if he could do more to help. The calls and texts helped sustain Joe as his condition deteriorated.

Joes son Patrick would hand his father his phone with long text messages from Krzyzewski expressing his love for his old point guard. You could see that after he received a text from Coach K his energy level went up and he was able to get through the day a little better, Megan said.

Krzyzewski was the last man on earth McGuinness wanted to disappoint, so Joe was concerned that he was letting him down when the endgame became clear. Joe fought the cancer so relentlessly that, years later, his siblings would say that they wished he had let go earlier. The chemo wasnt working, and the radiation left Joe unable to speak clearly, or to swallow, or to rest comfortably. His last few months were absolute torture, Jack Jr. said.

Joe spent his final days inside his home in New City, New York, where he once ran his three kids through basketball drills on the court outside his door. Patrick and Conor grew into accomplished high school and college players and followed their old man into coaching, just as Joe had followed Coach K.