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At Duke, Jon Scheyer knows he can't be Coach K - Sports Illustrated
From a distance, Jon Scheyerâs job of replacing Mike Krzyzewski seems impossible. Up close, it looks even harder.
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At 11:42 p.m. last Saturday, Dukeâs head menâs basketball coach walked out of the locker room, and it wasnât Mike Krzyzewski. Jon Scheyer, the guy after The Guy, went back to the team hotel, the Intercontinental in New Orleans, saw his family for a bit, and then headed to Krzyzewskiâs room, where Coach K was recovering from the loss to North Carolina with his wife, Mickie, and daughter Debbie Savarino. âI just wanted to say thanks,â Scheyer explains. âWe didnât get too much into whatâs next. He is so great at knowing whatâs ahead, though. He just said he is there for me.â Then Scheyer went to his own room, where he did what head coaches do: not sleep.
Krzyzewski has assured Duke fans âWe have a great succession plan,â and that may turn out to be true. But itâs a relatively new plan. One year ago, Scheyer interviewed for head-coaching jobs at UNLV and DePaul, and he and his wife, Marcelle, were just another young couple with small children imagining a new life for themselves. âHeâs thinking about the job,â Marcelle says. And âIâm thinking about, Where will my kids go to school? Where are we living?â At various points, the Scheyers thought they would end up in Las Vegas or Chicago. At no point did they think they would end up here, with Jon ascending to Kâs throne.
Duke athletic director Kevin White had told Scheyer that the only way to take over was if he became a head coach somewhere else first. Jon says now: âI was resigned to the fact that I wasnât going to be the next coach at Duke.â Then UNLV and DePaul hired other coaches, White announced his retirement and Krzyzewski followed with his own. White was still Dukeâs AD during the coaching search, but Krzyzewski and Whiteâs replacement, Nina King, helped choose Scheyer.
The Blue Devilsâ new coach is only 34. He will be the youngest leader in the ACC by a decade. He has never been in a top job. Beyond an agent, he has never hired or fired anyone. Duke has gone from a coach who writes leadership books to one who reads them.
Scheyer will report to Coach K Court. Students will presumably still camp out in Krzyzewskiville. (Alternative: âSchey-town!â cracks the Chicago native. âWeâre going to have one person.â) From a distance, replacing Krzyzewski seems impossible. Up close, it looks harder. Scheyer must fill more than Krzyzewskiâs job. Somehow, he must also replace his presence.
On March 4, the night before Dukeâs final home game, Krzyzewski addressed the Cameron Crazies with such cool charisma that Scheyerâs mother, Laury, texted Jon: âNo pressure!â He responded with an exploding-head emoji. During the postgame ceremony the next night, Marcelle watched Krzyzewski with his family and had an âugly cryâ thinking about what he had built with them.
When Krzyzewski arrived on campus, in 1980, Duke had never won a national championship. He would go on to claim five. Yet Scheyer, a man of such ingrained optimism that he doesnât even like to discuss the possibility of failing, says his goal is not just to match Krzyzewskiâs record but to improve upon it. His dad, Jim, says, âHe doesnât see it as daunting.â
Yes, Scheyer is 34, but Krzyzewski was 33 when he took the Duke job, and Brad Stevens was 30 when he became Butlerâs coachâand Scheyer has been planning for this a lot longer than Duke has. He has watched assistant coaches get head-coaching jobs without really planning on how to be a head coach. Scheyer started designing plays as a kid and never really stopped, but in recent years he has also thought hard about human behavior, about how successful organizations are built, about time management and media relations and what makes Duke great and what it could do better.
He has been a childhood phenom, a freshman starter, a sophomore coming off the bench, a captain, a national champion, a designated Hateable White Guy From Duke and a victim of a fluky, gory, devastating career-ending eye injury. He played under Krzyzewski for four years, worked under him for nine, and studied him for all of it.
Coach K won his first national championship in 1991; the next season, with basically his whole squad back and favored to repeat, he said his team was not defending a championship, it was pursuing another one. This is how Scheyer looks at the job. He is not just maintaining Krzyzewskiâs program. He is building a new one on top of it.
Dukeâs basketball offices will soon be under construction. Scheyer is open to renovating anything else in the program, too. He plans to tweak the offense in ways that he says will be noticeable. He has continued Dukeâs recent philosophy of recruiting a new class of elite athletes every year, but Scheyer is increasing the emphasis on players who have a feel for the game like he did: passers, cutters, guys with court vision, who easily blend with others.
Smaller jobs have swallowed more established men. Scheyerâs success rests on two questions. How does he adapt Dukeâs program to a rapidly changing environment while retaining what makes it great? And: How does he adapt his life to fit his new job, while retaining what makes him happy?
He must answer both to answer either. Otherwise, he will lose more than just games.
âI promised myself the day I got the job,â Scheyer says, âthat I wouldnât let it overtake me.â
