DON'T BE FOOLED: KRZYZEWSKI'S WORLD HAS NO ROOM
FOR MEDIA RELATIONS

By Dave Glenn, ACC Sports Journal
March 18, 2002

DURHAM — It happens every year about this time. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski steps down from the podium following a masterful performance at a required press conference, prior to one of the Blue Devils' NCAA Tournament games. He's funny, charming and well-spoken on the major issues of the college game.

Someone who doesn't know any better invariably will say: "That was great. He must be a pleasure to deal with on a daily basis."

If only that were the case. In reality, nobody in the media really knows one way or the other. Most of those who think they do, well, they don't have many nice things to say.

Truth is, this is the only time of year when Krzyzewski descends from his retinal-scan-protected office at Cameron Indoor Stadium to mingle with the great unwashed masses of the media. Even then, it isn't his idea. He does it because, in the postseason, coaches and players are required to participate in press conferences, which get longer as the tournament goes along.

Otherwise, Krzyzewski has decided that he no longer needs to talk about his highly successful program. He apparently thinks he no longer needs to answer questions, intimating at times that he is beyond reproach and his players do no wrong, the social lives of Reggie Love and Chris Duhon notwithstanding.

On Selection Sunday, CBS gathered the head coaches of the No. 1 seeds to discuss their prospects and talk about the tournament in general. Kansas' Roy Williams was there. Maryland's Gary Williams was there. Cincinnati's Bob Huggins was there, amiable as always, the gun to his head getting into only a few of the live shots.

Krzyzewski was not there. He regularly declines to participate in events that promote the sport that made him a multimillionaire, got him a lucrative shoe endorsement deal and gave him a forum to become one of college athletics' most recognizable spokesmen. At this point in his career, he turns down TV interviews, radio interviews, print interviews, sideline interviews and the rest.

"I would rather live in my own little world," Krzyzewski said, "coaching basketball, being with my team and getting ready for the opponent we are about to be facing."

That's the same little world Dean Smith always utilized as his personal retreat. It's just another way the Duke coach is turning into his one-time arch-enemy, the same Smith who once asked a reporter during a press conference: "Do you have to write down everything I say?" During a press conference!

Both Smith and Krzyzewski would be perfectly at home in one of those abandoned al-Qaeda caves in Afghanistan, if any of them had a full-sized practice gym and a direct phone line to Phil Knight's office at Nike.

Krzyzewski has created his own little world, one in which he cut off access to all of his players the week before the biggest game of the season, one where he can berate the media for writing stories he doesn't like. It's not good for the game.

As he does every year, Krzyzewski chided the media on several occasions. He gave his steel-piercing glare and made several biting comments in the direction of Bryan Strickland, the young Duke beat writer for the Durham (N.C.) Herald-Sun, after a piece that addressed rumors (transfer to Texas Christian, early departure for the NBA, etc.) about the future of junior swingman Mike Dunleavy. The story, written in response to several national commentaries on the same subject, simply allowed the player himself to respond to the rumors. Dunleavy did just that, and the speculation quickly disappeared. The coach, who of course wasn't available to respond in the story, thought it never should have been written.

Krzyzewski chastised the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer after columnist Ned Barnett wrote in a benign manner that one of the Blue Devils was in the coach's doghouse. The coach responded that his doghouse was a "House of Love." He also took issue with the same newspaper for using his picture with a story about a spate of unsportsmanlike incidents during the middle of the season. He encouraged the media to look into the work of several charitable foundations that he and his family support, as if that had anything to do with why Krzyzewski kept getting caught dropping the F-bomb on national television. In fact, he probably should be thankful that people don't write about that little chink in his armor more often.

Most recently, he steadfastly refused to comment on anything regarding the suspension of Love, whose internet pictorial debut got more hits than Pete Rose.

Big deal, right? Nobody cries for the scum-bag media.

But here's what most fans who flood the internet with rants about biased coverage, lazy reporting or published misinformation frequently don't understand: Without the ability to interact with the principal people involved with programs across the board, newspaper, radio and television coverage often degenerates into the kind of tabloid journalism the coach would like to limit in the first place.

The ACC grew into one of college athletics' power conferences in part because it understood the importance of media coverage. Core newspapers from Maryland through Georgia, and especially those in North Carolina, have written about the league in mostly positive tones since its inception. Innovative television broadcasts infected the mid-Atlantic region with ACC basketball fever long ago. Other leagues were left scrambling to catch up. Most are still trying, largely in vain.

There's a reason the ACC has the most lucrative television-rights package for its football and basketball games of any league in the country: Fans are hungry to watch, read about and follow everything that happens with their favorite teams. Publishers from all over the nation have attempted to duplicate the overwhelming success of this ACC-oriented magazine over the past 25 years. Almost all of them have failed miserably, losing literally millions of dollars, at least in part because college sports observers in most other parts of the nation don't even come close to the multi-sport passion of ACC fanatics.

Krzyzewski said there is too much interest about too many things that don't relate to basketball. Perhaps that line of thinking explains why, ever since he redshirted the 1995 season with back surgery, the coach has become increasingly less available to the media, who ask pesky questions about his players and program. Some of them even criticize what the NCAA Tournament's most successful coach since John Wooden does or says during the course of the season, such as his manic actions against Georgia Tech earlier this year or his regular use of the words that used to be taboo on television.

First, he cut out the local media, for whom he has very little respect, limiting them to hasty post-game briefings, one summer cattle-call press conference and about 10 minutes per week on the ACC's weekly coaches teleconference. His other appearances during the season are as rare as a Blue Devil loss.

Next, just as Smith did in 1995, Krzyzewski stopped allowing the television broadcasters doing Duke games to attend practices the day before a game, a common practice at most schools.

Recently, he even stopped returning the calls of the national writers he has long adored for their ability to reach what he considers his recruiting base: the world outside North Carolina.

Harried Duke sports information director Jon Jackson, who has one of the toughest jobs in college basketball as Krzyzewski's designated "no" man, likes to remind people that Krzyzewski remains available some 40 times a year: following every game and during the dozen or so weekly teleconferences.

When Krzyzewski first returned from his back surgery, he said he was going to spend less time doing the things he didn't want to do and more time with his family enjoying life. He handed his weekly radio show over to his assistants and stopped returning phone calls.

When ACC beat writer Gregg Doyel of the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer wrote a book about Krzyzewski after the 1999 season, the coach refused to be interviewed for the project. Subjects often decline to participate in unauthorized biographies, but Krzyzewski went a step further, actively discouraging the project. Doyel once told a colleague that he had been making do by interviewing former Blue Devils such as Kenny Dennard, Jay Bilas and Antonio Lang — but that sources stopped returning calls. One can only wonder if the author ever learned the reason: Krzyzewski had another one of his designated pit-bull guardians send a letter to former players and coaches, asking them not to do interviews for the book.

Another example: A writer from a small newspaper in Maryland, obviously unaware of the brick wall he was about to encounter, contacted Duke and asked for an opportunity to talk with Krzyzewski. The topic: legendary coach Don DeVoe. The 60-year-old Navy leader, who ranks among the 20 winningest active coaches in the nation, was an assistant under Bob Knight at Army when Krzyzewski played there in the late 1960s. The writer wanted a quote. Of all the others contacted for the DeVoe story, everyone agreed to talk. Even Knight, not exactly the warm and fuzzy type, responded with a personal phone call — to a writer he'd never met and never spoken with — within a few days.

The response from the Duke sports information department? Coach K doesn't do interviews. Not even to talk about one of his former coaches? No. Not even one question? No. Even if it's submitted in writing? No. How about a forwarded e-mail, from the writer to the SID to the coach, and he can respond with a single quote at his convenience? No. How about a simple statement, without any specific questions? No. Even if this whole thing takes less than 60 seconds? No. No. No.

Krzyzewski gradually has decided, thanks to the explosion of the internet and alternative forms of media, that he just wants to stem the flow of all information because there are just too many people who want to ask questions. So he has cut off everyone.

"Who do you say no to? Who do you say yes to?" Krzyzewski said in his pre-NCAA Tournament press conference, one of the rare times he is available to the local media all season. "Because you can't handle all the requests. You have to have certain rules, no matter who it is. Since the Florida State game, we haven't allowed anybody at our practice, even parents. The other week Mike Dunleavy's dad was in town, but I couldn't let him in.

"Before a game, we used to allow TV commentators in the day before. We don't do that. It's because you get to talking and say things. Everyone asks all these questions that pertain to a multitude of things now that are out there. It used to be that they asked specifically about the game. You understand what I am saying? They ask about all the stuff that is on the internet and chatrooms and websites and talk shows. You can't keep up with all that stuff, so I would rather not keep up with any of it."

What the coach doesn't address is that cutting off the mainstream media that he does have some control over — the regularly credentialed newspaper, radio and television reporters who cover games and write bylined stories — creates a vacuum that is filled with the kind of back-alley information that he obviously detests.

He also has engendered some ill will with his colleagues. They should have just as much clout to close down practices or shut off access whenever they want. But they don't, so when Krzyzewski does it, it just looks like he is getting special treatment. Which he does.

Consider this: The ACC office moderates the weekly teleconference that serves as Krzyzewski's only access, and it knows about Krzyzewski's no-interview policy. It allows him to take advantage of the relative lack of interest in Clemson and FSU basketball for additional time on the teleconference. The moderator sometimes will cut short Clemson's Larry Shyatt, who precedes Krzyzewski, then let the Duke coach run a little longer than he should, which cuts into Florida State's time. And you thought the only reason other league coaches resent Krzyzewski was because he keeps beating them?

No. They think he gets special treatment. Maryland's Gary Williams would have loved to deny access to his players and himself earlier this season, as Krzyzewski did with his program in the days before the first Duke-Maryland game. Privately, Williams also regularly complains that most media members go out of their way to propagate an unrealistically positive image of the Blue Devils, while regularly passing up opportunities for legitimate criticism. In the case of Williams, among others, resentment is the perfect word for their feelings about Duke basketball and, occasionally, Krzyzewski in particular.

The problem is that the only people who might have the power to change the way Krzyzewski, the highest-paid person at a very prestigious university, does business are the school's president, who shouldn't have to be involved in such things, or ACC commissioner John Swofford, who should. Athletic director Joe Alleva, Krzyzewski's off-the-court buddy and hand-picked successor to former AD Tom Butters, simply isn't a factor.

Swofford reportedly wants to address several issues regarding coach and player access in the offseason, but it is hard to believe that Krzyzewski will take orders from the former athletic director at North Carolina.

The coach has created his own little world, remember, and only a few people are allowed to live in it.