Konfusing

Grayson Allen displays
tripping technique

His name is Krzyzewski, but you don't pronounce that first "K." That's not the only thing that's confusing about Mike Krzyzewski, the basketball coach at Duke University whose job is to mold young men into upstanding, mature members of adult society. In any situation in which a young man needs guidance and a firm hand on his shoulder to point him in the right direction, we can count on K to be a pillar of rectitude. As one writer (Chris Chase) says, "In a situation where everybody was expecting the least of the Duke coach, he managed to outdo even the lowest of expectations."

Allen displays penitence

I don't care for basketball at all, since it seems to me that of all the big four sports, it lacks well-thought-out strategy, in favor of being 8 feet tall. But whatever; it's fine for those who like following it. These days, K has a player named Grayson Allen, whose idea of strategy is to stick his size 32 shoe out and trip the other players. This is what is done on playgrounds and in kindergartens all over, but this kid Allen is playing bigtime college basketball and behaving like an infant.

Not just once. Not just twice, after getting a strict warning. Three times he has done this, the most recent event being in a game against Elon College when opposing player Steven Santa Ana hit the hardwood. Kryszewski, a man of probity and goodness, stepped up and issued an indefinite suspension for the wayward player.
Then, while the rest of us ignored this childishness over the holidays, Duke played Virginia Tech and lost.


And suddenly, wise old Coach K realized that young Grayson surely had learned his lesson, and put him right back out on the floor.

Length of the indefinite suspension turned out to be definitely one game.

It would be good to point out that K is a West Point graduate, is the coach of the USA Olympic team, and is supposed to be a charitable man.  

He's going out for back surgery anyway, so while he's home on the mend, I recommend that he reads this article from American Thinker. It details the events of November 1963, when Joe Namath, star quarterback for the U of Alabama, admitted to taking a few sips of beer at a diner.  Word of this got back to his coach, the legendary Bear Bryant.  

There was an ironclad rule on the Alabama football team: no alcohol during the season. Not "no alcohol, but a few sips of beer would be ok if you're the star of the team."  None. Nada, zilch. 

So the Bear called Namath into his office and said Joe Willie could keep on playing, but then, he (Bryant) would have to resign, because it would violate his principles to back down on a well-understood rule.  Namath accepted his punishment, missed a final game against Miami, and the Sugar Bowl, and then came back the next fall, going on to great fame and acclaim, a better man for having learned his lesson.

Men are known by the company they keep.  Here's
 K with Joe Paterno.

By all accounts, Grayson Allen is the best player on the Duke team. One can't help but feel that if were a benchwarmer, K would have thrown him off the team for good "in order to teach everyone a lesson about sportsmanship and following the rules." Instead, Krzyzewski taught us all a lesson about how much the rules mean to him.