Duke basketball: Six reasons Coach K may never retire
By Matt Giles
3. K may choose to protect wins record for eternity
It’s unlikely Mike Krzyzewski loses sleep over staying atop the all-time wins list. He’d be right not to worry much about his record falling to his active coaching peers. Keep in mind, his 1,000th overall W came five years ago, and No. 2 on the list, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, remains 36 victories shy of that milestone at age 75.
North Carolina’s Roy Williams, 69, is next among current head coaches with 885; assuming 14 wins per year — you know, his previous total — he’d need to hold off his own retirement until the age of 89 just to reach Coach K’s current mark of 1,157. Scrolling down, West Virginia’s Bob Huggins, 66, has 881, so he could emerge as a threat in a decade if the Duke of Duke was to stop right away. Kentucky’s John Calipari, 61, has 733 and might have been a legit threat if not for his vacated wins from stints at UMass and Memphis.
Perhaps the top threat is Kansas’ Bill Self, 57, who sits at 708 and hasn’t dipped below 25 wins in a season since 2005. Yet so long as the fella in Durham keeps chugging along for a few more seasons, there is no such threat. The only true threats at that point would be some teenagers, toddlers, and unconceived persons. But if Coach K finds enough in his tank for 10-plus more years of sustained excellence, the thought of anyone ever catching him would be farfetched.
Granted, Coach K may not care at all about all that, yet this next reason he may never hang it up could matter more than most might suspect…