Duke Basketball :: essays research papers

There are 12240 students at Duke University, and every year 12 out of those 12240 are put on a mission. The expectations are far above the ground, these 12 men and their coaching staff are called the Duke University Blue Devils basketball team. Year after year their mission is to bring home an NCAA basketball national championship trophy. Three of 84 teams at Duke University have reached their goal by winning a national championship. Duke is one of the nations best known basketball programs. Just eight miles away from Dukes campus, one of their toughest competitors and arch enemy, the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. The Duke ? UNC rivalry is one of the best in sports, they are usually one of the top teams in the nation. Duke is the forth- winningest program in the nation (1799-792). Under Coach Mike Krzyzweski they have become the winnigest program in the country (648-167). Coach K as they call him, has brought all 3 national championships to Durham, North Carolina (1991, 1992, 2001). Duke basketball dates back to when they were Trinity College, the name was later changed in 1923 to Duke University. Trinity never was as high-quality of a team as Duke has been in the last 20 years. Trinity won 48 games in the 65 years of their existence. In Dukes early years the basketball program did not triumph as in recent years. At the time the power sport at Duke was football. In 1949 a change came when a young man named Dick Groat came around, he became the star of the Blue Devil basketball and baseball team. Groat wasn?t recruited to play basketball he was on an athletic scholarship for baseball. None the less, he was elected as an All- American in 1951 and 1952 for his basketball talents. Unfortunately, he was never able to lead either of his teams to a championship. His basketball number (10) was retired, and now hangs on the ceiling of Cameron Indoor Stadium. The 1980?s rolled around and the ?Cameron Crazies? (Duke Basketball fans) felt as if there were no hope for their Blue Devils basketball program, but that?s where they were wrong. Along came what is arguably the greatest coach to step foot on a basketball court, Coach Mike Krzyzewski. Coach K has had unprecedented success at Duke, winning three national championships, and making Duke the powerhouse basketball school that they are today.