The Legends Club

by John Feinstein

  Later, Smith would admit it was one of the most disappointing losses of his career. He knew how good his team was, and when he teared up a little in his postgame press conference talking about how much he had wanted to win, “for the seniors,” he knew that Jordan—at least in basketball terms—was one of those seniors.

  Indiana went on to lose in the Elite Eight to a Virginia team that North Carolina had beaten twice during the regular season. A year after failing to make the Final Four with Ralph Sampson starting at center, Terry Holland made it back with Kenton Edelin, a onetime walk-on, as his starting center.

  Smith flew to Seattle to attend the annual coaches’ convention at the Final Four. Standing at the rent-a-car counter, he was handed the keys to a compact car.

  “A compact?” asked someone standing nearby.

  Smith shrugged and smiled wanly. “I didn’t rent until the last minute,” he said. “I thought I’d be on a bus out here. My team’s bus.”

  19

  By the time the 1984–85 season rolled around, the dynamic among the three Triangle coaches had changed, in large part because Dean Smith’s early prediction—that if Mike Krzyzewski could survive the trials of his first few seasons he’d be around for a while—had proven true.

  The three games the two teams had played in 1984 had made the Duke–North Carolina rivalry real again. During Krzyzewski’s first three seasons, there had been moments—the angry nonhandshake/handshake between the two coaches at the 1980 Big Four; Duke’s only victory in Gene Banks’s final home game—when the intensity flared, but they had been few and far between for the simple reason that the programs weren’t on a level playing field.

  That had changed. All three games in 1984 had been memorable for different reasons: Krzyzewski’s “double-standard” comments after the game in Cameron; Duke’s belief that it should have won the game in Carmichael; and, finally, Duke’s win in Greensboro. Smith’s anger—his sarcastic comment to Keith Drum, his not-at-all-subtle shots at Danny Meagher, aka “May-har”—made it clear how badly he wanted to beat Duke and, perhaps more significant, Krzyzewski.

  Smith had always seen Duke as North Carolina’s primary and most dangerous rival. As good as N.C. State had been at times, especially during the David Thompson era, he rarely recruited against Norman Sloan or Jim Valvano. On the other hand, he almost always had to recruit against Duke. The two schools—regardless of who was coaching at Duke—were selling essentially the same thing: big-time basketball and a primo liberal arts education for anyone who decided to pursue it in those hours when he wasn’t working at becoming an NBA player. Very few players who had the chance to play in the ACC were thinking about any postcollege career other than basketball.

  Additionally, it was a simple, ironclad fact that Duke people and North Carolina people looked down their noses at State. To them, it was the “cow college”—it had been founded as an agricultural school—and the Raleigh campus, while nice enough, couldn’t compare with the aesthetics at either Duke or North Carolina.

  One of the Duke students’ more enduring obnoxious chants was always directed at the Wolfpack—especially when the Wolfpack was whipping the Blue Devils throughout the 1970s: “If you can’t go to college, go to State,” they would begin. And then, just to be certain they sounded like spoiled, arrogant kids, they would add: “If you can’t go to State, go to jail.”

  Of course they never brought that chant out for Carolina. They viewed the Tar Heels as near equals—an attitude that infuriated Smith. He was constantly researching studies that showed Carolina to be superior academically to Duke—which it was in any number of ways. One of those was the presence of a journalism program. While Duke had produced some prominent journalists—most notably Time magazine editor Clay Felker—it couldn’t begin to touch the list of prominent UNC journalists, among them The New York Times’s Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Tom Wicker; Vermont Royster, who became the editor of The Wall Street Journal; and Jeff MacNelly, the Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist.

  The sports world was filled with prominent writers who had Carolina diplomas on their walls. The best of them were Peter Gammons, who had been on the team bus that fateful night in 1965 when Billy Cunningham pulled down the effigy; Furman Bisher, who wrote superbly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for more than sixty years; and Mark Whicker, who started at the Winston-Salem Journal before moving on to Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Many talented UNC graduates remained in state: Ron Green and Bob Quincy, columnists for The Charlotte Observer; Lenox Rawlings at the Winston-Salem Journal; and Drum, who worked in Durham until he became an NBA scout.

  There were also many UNC graduates who worked at papers in North Carolina and, unlike Drum, remained loyal-to-the-core Tar Heels. That was often reflected in both their reporting and their writing, causing Krzyzewski to say often, “No matter how much we might win, I know I’m always going to be working as the minority in this state. I’ll never outnumber them, so I have to outwork them.”

  Duke’s breakthrough season in 1984 had put Krzyzewski’s job on firm ground and had also put him into a position where he now believed he could take Smith and North Carolina on in an area where the Tar Heels had been virtually untouchable: recruiting.

  For many years, Duke and North Carolina had gone head-to-head in recruiting on a regular basis. One of the turning points for Smith had come in 1964 when he convinced Larry Miller, a six-four forward from Allentown, Pennsylvania, to turn down Duke and Vic Bubas to go to North Carolina. That had started a twenty-year run during which Smith won most of his recruiting battles while encountering Duke less and less.

  In fact, when Krzyzewski first arrived at Duke, he and his assistants quickly figured out that trying to beat Smith for players, especially in the state of North Carolina, was going to be a waste of time more often than not.

  “If you think about it for a minute, it made perfect sense,” said Chuck Swenson. “Carolina was the state school, and they’d been great for a long time. If you were a kid in state, unless you had some connection to N.C. State, you grew up a Tar Heel fan. If you could play basketball, you grew up wanting to be a Tar Heel. Even when Duke was good, it was always going to be viewed in state as the northern school. Even before the end of our first year, we’d figured that out.

  “In a lot of cases, Bobby [Dwyer] and I honestly believed that if we could get Mike into a kid’s home, there was a good chance we’d get him. Even back then, he was that good. But there were certain homes where, no matter what he said, no matter how much he impressed the kid and his family, he just wasn’t coming to Duke. Our job was to find the kids who we had a break-even chance with starting out. When that was the case, we had a shot. We learned early that almost none of those kids were going to be from North Carolina. We needed to go north and we needed to go west.”

  Danny Ferry was from Annapolis, Maryland. He was six foot ten, could pass and shoot, and had about as good a basketball pedigree as one could hope to find. His father, Bob, had played in the NBA for nine years and was general manager of the Washington Bullets. Danny’s older brother, Bobby, was ten inches shorter than Danny but still a good-enough player—and student—to be Harvard’s point guard. Ferry played at DeMatha High School—coached by Morgan Wootten, the same Morgan Wootten who had turned down N.C. State prior to the hiring of Jim Valvano and would later become the first high school coach voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

  By the time Ferry was a DeMatha sophomore, he was being targeted by the top basketball schools in the country as a must-get recruit. DeMatha was literally two miles down US-1 from the Maryland campus, and Lefty Driesell was willing to do almost anything to keep Ferry home. Dean Smith knew that a player with Ferry’s skill and basketball smarts would fit his system perfectly. And Mike Krzyzewski believed that Ferry would be a great addition to an already very good team in 1986 and then could be Duke’s next key player once his first great senior class—Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, David Henderson, Jay Bilas, and Weldon Williams—graduate
d.

  When Harvard, led by Bobby Ferry, came to play Duke during the 1984–85 season, the Duke students were more than ready to let him know how much they wanted his little (though much taller) brother to come to Duke. Throughout warm-ups, they chanted “We want your brother!” in Ferry’s direction. They were prepared to give him a standing ovation, unheard-of for a visiting player, when he was introduced with the other four Harvard starters.

  Sure enough, Ferry was the last player introduced. When longtime Duke PA announcer Art Chandler got to Ferry—“A six-foot senior from Annapolis, Maryland, Bobby Ferry!”—the students were on their feet. And then, they stopped—stunned into complete silence. The player who trotted onto the court when Ferry was introduced was Dane Hudson.

  Dane Hudson was African American.

  “Might have been the only time I’ve ever seen the students not have any answer at all,” said Tommy Amaker—now Harvard’s basketball coach. “They had no idea what to do.”

  “Arguably the best performance by a visiting player in the history of Cameron Indoor Stadium,” Krzyzewski said.

  Even though Bobby Ferry outwitted the Duke students, it might have been their sense of humor that ultimately drew his brother to Duke. The Ferrys get their sense of humor from their father, who was known around the NBA for his keen wit. It would follow that his sons would also enjoy a good laugh.

  While Ferry was trying to decide where to go to college, North Carolina, Maryland, and Duke were all having very good—if not great—basketball seasons.

  There was nothing Smith savored more than to play the role of an underdog—something he rarely got to do. But with Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, and Matt Doherty gone, Carolina wasn’t picked to win the ACC. In fact, the Tar Heels weren’t even picked second. Georgia Tech and Duke were the favorites, each having a plethora of returning talent. Of course Carolina, with Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, Joe Wolf, Dave Popson, Buzz Peterson, and Steve Hale all still around, wasn’t exactly dealing with a bare cupboard.

  In fact, almost everyone in the ACC appeared loaded. Maryland still had senior Adrian Branch and junior Len Bias, who had emerged as a star during his sophomore year. North Carolina State might have had more talent than anyone. In addition to seniors Lorenzo Charles, Cozell McQueen, and Terry Gannon, Ernie Myers was now a junior. Chris Washburn, the number-one rated recruit in the country, had run into trouble—stealing a stereo—so he wasn’t eligible to play. But Valvano had added Nate McMillan and Vinny Del Negro, who would both go on to very productive NBA careers.

  Del Negro hadn’t been recruited very heavily, and during the preseason, someone asked Valvano if it was true that he had recruited Del Negro because the kid was Italian.

  “Absolutely not,” Valvano said. “I recruited him because I’m Italian.”

  He had recruited him because he could play.

  So could Spud Webb, although he certainly didn’t look like a player. Webb was five foot seven (maybe) and weighed 138 pounds (maybe). Valvano had been very skeptical about recruiting a player that small to play in the ACC, but after N.C. State won the national championship, Tom Abatemarco had convinced him to at least take a look at Webb and meet him. As it turned out, Webb, who had just graduated from Midland Junior College, visited campus before Valvano had a chance to see him play. When Valvano and Abatemarco went to the airport to pick him up, they had trouble finding him.

  Finally, they went to the baggage-claim area, where they found a lone passenger from Webb’s flight standing forlornly by himself, looking lost.

  “He looked about fifteen,” Valvano said later. “I said to Tom, ‘If that’s Spud, you’re fired.’ ”

  It was Spud. Abatemarco wasn’t fired. Webb ended up taking over the point guard spot from Sidney Lowe. Not only did Webb have a stellar two-year career at State, he played in the NBA for thirteen years. As an NBA rookie in 1986, he won the Slam Dunk Contest at the All-Star Game.

  In 2015, most of those who were the ACC’s best players in 1985 would have been long gone to the NBA. But back then, great players almost always stayed in college for three or four years. The league—like all of college basketball—was dominated by juniors and seniors.

  In 1985, no one from the ACC made the Final Four. But Georgia Tech, North Carolina, and N.C. State reached the Elite Eight; Maryland got to the Sweet 16; and Duke—with Mark Alarie injured—lost in the round of thirty-two. Those five teams finished within a game of one another during the ACC regular season. Georgia Tech, North Carolina, and N.C. State were 9–5 in league play, Duke and Maryland were 8–6.

  “Those two years, 1985 and 1986, the league was unbelievable,” Krzyzewski remembered. “It seemed like everyone, even the teams near the bottom, had very good players and, of course, some of us had great players. The experience and the depth were amazing. You don’t see college basketball teams like those teams anymore because the best players don’t stay in college.”

  Duke ended up 23–8 that season, losing in the ACC semifinals to Georgia Tech after Alarie was hurt in an opening-round win over Maryland. The NCAA Tournament expanded to sixty-four teams that season, meaning there were no byes and everyone played in the first round. The Blue Devils managed to win their first-round game against Pepperdine but were then upset in the second round for a second straight season, losing to Boston College. Now Duke fans had a different complaint about Krzyzewski: he couldn’t win in postseason.

  Valvano had no such problems. Two years after the “survive and advance” miracle of 1983, the Wolfpack almost went back to the Final Four, losing to top-seeded St. John’s in the West Region final. Valvano had been convinced his team was good enough to win the tournament again.

  “I remember there was a time-out with about twelve minutes left in the St. John’s game,” he said. “We were up, I think, four. I got in the huddle and said, ‘Guys, we’re twelve minutes away from the Final Four.’ I looked at the seniors and said, ‘Are you ready to do this again? You know how to do this.’ I was convinced we were going back. But [Chris] Mullin wouldn’t let it happen.”

  Mullin, the player Krzyzewski had coveted during his first season at Duke, had become a first-team All-American at St. John’s. He was every bit as good as Krzyzewski had believed he was going to be when he had recruited him. Down the stretch against N.C. State he made several critical shots and went 7 of 7 from the free-throw line when Valvano began fouling. He finished with 25 points; St. John’s won 69–60 and went to the Final Four for the first time since 1952—when Frank McGuire was the coach.

  Valvano went home as disappointed as he could remember being at the end of a season. “It was a little bit like my last season at Iona because I believed we were good enough to beat anybody we played,” he said. “The difference was in eighty-five we were so close to going back [to the Final Four].”

  Valvano was lying on his office couch as he spoke. It was three years later and his team had just lost a home game to Georgia Tech. He sat up on the couch and took his last sip of wine. “Now, if I was Dean, I’d tell you I was really disappointed that day for my seniors. Don’t get me wrong—I loved all three of them [McQueen, Charles, and Gannon], but, what the hell, they’d already won a national title. They were fine.

  “Come to think of it, after a while I was fine too. I knew we were going to be good again the next year. Some years the breaks go your way, some years they don’t. In eighty-three all the breaks went our way. It was as if God said, ‘Everything that’s ever gone wrong for you, I’m making up for it all at once.’ Then, after we won, he said, ‘Okay, we’re even now.’ ”

  As hard as Valvano took losing in the short term, he didn’t dwell on tough losses. He put on his “a W is a W and an L is an L” face and moved on. Smith and Krzyzewski didn’t dwell on that sort of loss either. Krzyzewski’s oft-repeated motto became “Next play.” Regardless of what happened—win, lose, play well, play poorly—you had to move on. Smith had no mottos but he never had trouble getting wound up to compete again.

  “A
ctually the waiting to compete is what’s hardest for me,” he said one night, pacing a hallway prior to a game at Virginia. “If I had my way, we’d play every game at noon.” He smiled and added, “Not any earlier than that, though. I’m not really a morning person. Actually, one o’clock might be better.”

  Smith’s last loss in 1985, like Valvano’s, came in the Elite Eight. Prior to the season, if someone had told Smith his team would advance to within one game of the Final Four, he undoubtedly would have signed up for that. But Carolina had played so well in the games leading to the Southeast Region final that everyone, from Smith down, was convinced they were going to the Final Four.

  “He was as good that year as he’s ever been,” Roy Williams said, talking about Smith’s coaching job. “He always loved a challenge, especially when outsiders doubted him—or, more importantly, doubted his team. He wanted to show people that, even though we’d lost Michael and Sam and Matt, we could still be very good. That was always his greatest strength—he didn’t believe in down years. Every year was an opportunity as far as he was concerned.”

  Villanova was a team that had been close to making the Final Four on several occasions under Rollie Massimino. It had been to the Elite Eight three times since he had become the coach on Philadelphia’s Main Line—losing to Duke in 1978, North Carolina in 1982, and Phi Slama Jama in 1983. The presence of the Wildcats in the Elite Eight was a surprise to most. They had lost ten games in the regular season and had barely squeezed into the tournament as a number-eight seed.

  The committee’s opinion of them was pretty evident when they were sent to play Dayton in the first round—on Dayton’s home court. They somehow got out of that game, winning 49–48, then played a textbook game in the second round to beat top-seeded Michigan before taking out Maryland in the round of sixteen. Villanova’s strength was that it was old. Three starters were seniors, two were juniors. What’s more, they had played in the Big East, a league good enough to produce four Sweet 16 teams that year—including Georgetown, the defending national champions.