The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry

by John Feinstein

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The riveting inside story of college basketball's fiercest rivalry among three coaching legends—University of North Carolina's Dean Smith, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, and North Carolina State's Jim Valvano—by the king of college basketball writers.

"One of Feinstein’s best."—Chicago Tribune

On March 18, 1980, the Duke basketball program announced the hiring of Mike Krzyzewski, the man who would restore glory to the team. The only problem: no one knew who Krzyzewski was. Nine days later, Jim Valvano was hired by North Carolina State to be their new head coach. The hiring didn't raise as many eyebrows, but the two new coaches had a similar goal: to unseat North Carolina's Dean Smith as the king of college basketball. And just like that, the most sensational competitive decade in history was about to unfold.

In the skillful hands of John Feinstein, The Legends Club captures an era in American sport and culture, documenting the inside view of a decade of absolutely incredible competition. Feinstein pulls back the curtain on the recruiting wars, the intensely personal competition that wasn't always friendly, the enormous pressure and national stakes, and the battle for the very soul of college basketball.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385539425
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
Lexile:	1040L (what's this?)
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

The Legends Club is John Feinstein's 36th book. He is the author of A Season on the Brink and A Good Walk Spoiled, both #1 New York Times bestsellers and Last Shot, which won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for mystery writing in the Young Adult category. He was inducted into the U.S. Basketball Writer's Hall of Fame in 2000; the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. He currently writes for The Washington Post and Golf Digest and is a regular contributor to The Golf Channel, Comcast Sports Regional Networks and hosts a college basketball show and a golf show on SiriusXM Radio. He lives in Potomac, Maryland with his wife Christine and is the father of three children, Danny, Brigid, and Jane.

Editorial Reviews

"The book is one of [John Feinstein's] best, a beguilingly personal, sometimes heartbreaking look at the psychic cost of doing battle in America’s most brutally, nakedly competitive (and actual) arenas. It makes a fitting bookend to the author’s first, “A Season on the Brink” (1986), his hair-raising exposé of Indiana coach Bobby Knight, expletives included."
—The Wall Street Journal

"A compelling story of the complex relationships and backyard rivalries of the three coaches who dominated college basketball during the 1980s and early ’90s...Feinstein’s relationship with all three coaches gave him the intimate details that form the backbone of the book. One story leads quickly to another story in this fast-moving account of a memorable era in college basketball. Dating back to Feinstein’s first interview with Smith, this book was nearly 40 years in the making. It was worth the wait, because it is one of Feinstein’s best."
—Chicago Tribune

"Feinstein entertains readers with fair, objective observations based on fact and his unique inside access gained not only through years of his coverage but also through many new interviews with former players, coaches and administrators...In a famous speech before he died, Valvano implored all of us to attempt to do three things each day: laugh, think and cry. He would be pleased with “The Legends Club” because it will evoke all three from readers, no matter where their college basketball allegiances lie."
—The Washington Post 

"The legends are right there in the subtitle: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry. The unbilled fourth legend is the author. His longstanding relationships with the principals give the book its insider appeal; his history with each man goes back decades, and the intersecting, layered looks at each are built on firsthand knowledge...Funny and smart."
—USA Today

"Duke, UNC and N.C. State fans might quibble about the details, as they always do, Feinstein faithfully captures a rivalry that will remain a legend in sports."
—BookPage

“Fascinating. . . . The book is crammed with enough minutia and fresh anecdotes about the three competing coaches to satisfy any basketball junkie.”
—Lincoln Journal Star 
 
“The author informs his narrative with myriads of interviews with all of his principals—and with those who have survived them—and enriches all with his deep knowledge and love of the game. He navigates through the murky waters of recruiting and explains how certain rules have affected the game—e.g., the 45-second shot clock, the fairly recent NBA ruling that forbids young men to enter the draft right out of high school. A text that will delight college basketball fans.”
—Kirkus
 
“Feinstein’s long history with these coaches gives him intimate knowledge of his subjects, allowing him to provide an insider’s perspective that likely will be new even to ACC aficionados.”
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2016-01-18
A veteran sportswriter returns with an account of the basketball wars—on- and off-court—among three iconic coaches in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Feinstein (Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in the Minor Leagues of Baseball, 2014, etc.), who also writes columns (Washington Post, Golf Digest) and appears on broadcasts of sporting events, proceeds more or less chronologically from 1980, when Mike "Coach K" Krzyzewski began his career at Duke University and Jim Valvano began at North Carolina State. The author charts the rises and falls of the three teams—Duke, North Carolina, and North Carolina State—and, eventually, the deaths of two of his principals—Valvano in 1993 and UNC coach Dean Smith in 2015. Feinstein's affection for the three is patent throughout, no more so than in his accounts of the deaths of the two late coaches. But he can barely restrain his admiration (and fondness) for Krzyzewski, whose accomplishments he chronicles with almost a family member's devotion. (In the acknowledgements, the author notes his close friendship with Coach K.) Feinstein goes into detail about some key games, delves into the biographies of some of the players, and generally becomes swept away at times by the tidal power of his own affections—perhaps most evidently (and excessively) in his clichéd final sentence that claims that the stories of these three "will undoubtedly live forever." To his credit, the author informs his narrative with myriads of interviews with all of his principals—and with those who have survived them—and enriches all with his deep knowledge and love of the game. He navigates through the murky waters of recruiting and explains how certain rules have affected the game—e.g., the 45-second shot clock, the fairly recent NBA ruling that forbids young men to enter the draft right out of high school. A text that will delight college basketball fans but also raises tacit questions about the effects of big-time athletics on a university's academic mission.

Kirkus Reviews