“Dean, Jim, and Mike. Or, as their loyal followers would call them, Coach Smith, V, and Coach K. They were hardly the Three Musketeers—their most intense duels were against, not alongside, one another. But in the end, they did become comrades—linked together in basketball lore, forever.”
I’m Mark Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and John Feinstein in his book The Legends Club, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry recounts the story of three college basketball legends, their legendary rivalries but also their quiet humanity.
The Legends Club begins in the spring of 1980 when Mike Krzyzewski was named the head basketball coach at Duke University, and Jim Valvano to North Carolina State. Dean Smith had already been the coach at North Carolina for 19 years. Coach K and Jimmy V were inducted into the madness that is ACC basketball and especially basketball in North Carolina. The book tells enough basketball stories to satisfy even the most hardcore sports fan.
The greater story is the humanity of the three men. Jim Valvano’s death from cancer is retold, along with his courage and inspiration. Coach K, a former rival became Jimmy V’s best friend and support through his cancer battle. The bitterness—stemming from their competition -- that existed between Coach K and Dean Smith evolved into friendship and respect.
John Feinstein in The Legends Club ends with this quote from Coach K, “What we became, as individuals, but maybe even more as a group is an amazing story.” Mr. Feinstein goes on, “Although Krzyzewski knows that no one lives forever, he also knows what he and Smith and Valvano became. Their intense battles, their friendships, their rivalries, their victories, and their legacies—as coaches, as rivals, and as men—will undoubtedly live forever.”
