Blue flew

First Duke's star senior fell down, then the whole squad fell fromthe big picture. First the team lost the national championship, thenthe program lost its moorings. First a doctor cut into the coach'ship, then the whole world took a swipe at his reputation.

If Mike Krzyzewski weren't so seemingly open, if his programweren't such a role model of integrity, these developments wouldn'tbe so shocking. But now everyone - from the college basketballlayman to the die-hard Dukeologist - must concede that the damagefrom Coach K's acid April has altered the sport's horizon in someprofound way.

At long last, it seems, the gothic sanctuary of the student-athlete - The Program Nobody Left for the Pros - has been slappedinto reality by the NBA's rookie salary cap. As the hardly true BlueDevils made early departures, one after another - first Elton Brand,then William Avery, then Chris Burgess (who transferred to Utah),then Corey Maggette - the first family of Division I degenerated intosniping, rumor-mongering and such a diminished state of grace thatits 52-year-old leader was left, by turns, silent, furious andbewildered.

Hobbled by hip-replacement surgery, Krzyzewski watched from homeas the deviltry broke loose. Ace sidekick Quin Snyder was off inMissouri, 930 miles away, settling into the head coach's office. Forone reason or another, Coach K was so frustrated at the turn ofevents that in his final, crucial meeting with one of the youngJudases, he unleashed his Chicago street-guy temper on the player'smother.

"Your son is going to (bleep) my program," he said.

Now, though the coach might wish to repair things, thatconfrontation with the Avery family might dog his program.

"Coach K got bad-mouth, rude, personal," says Avery's mom, TerrySimonton, who made the trip to Durham, N.C., shortly after she hadbeen laid off from her job at a power plant in Augusta, Ga. "Heforgot who he was talking to."

"The language was bad, but what bothered them more wasKrzyzewski's attitude," a family friend says. "Will's mind wasn'tmade up when he went in there. If the coach had handled itdifferently, if he had been sensitive to the economic factors, if hehad made more than a cursory look into Will's NBA prospects . . . hemight have convinced Will to stay. And if Krzyzewski thinks how hehandled Avery didn't impact Maggette, he's kidding himself."

Even Krzyzewski acknowledges his foul language.

"I talked to William like I always talked to William," he says."I told him what I felt was the truth. If you don't want to hearthat, you're not going to like what I say. But that's what I oweWilliam."

As for Simonton, Krzyzewski says she didn't seem that upset anddidn't offer much input. Now there's no stopping her.

"Coach K is selfish," she counters. "He talks about a so-calledclose Duke family, but he just wants to protect his program. He liedto us about where William would go in the draft. Late in the firstround, maybe even second round? Come on. Even I could pick up thepapers and read he was going earlier than that."

The sophomore point guard was, in fact, the last of the BlueDevils chosen in the June 30 draft. But he went No. 14 overall tothe Minnesota Timberwolves, not far behind sophomore Brand, who wentNo. 1 to the Bulls; fifth-year senior Trajan Langdon, who went No. 11to the Cleveland Cavaliers; and freshman Maggette, who went No. 13 tothe Seattle SuperSonics, then was traded to the Orlando Magic.

"I understood where K was coming from," Avery says. "The guy wasall medicated up after the (April 4) surgery. He was on crutches. Iknow he wasn't at his best. But I didn't even start thinking aboutthe NBA until he brought it up. He said he'd been hearing I wasleaving. He wanted me to make a decision. I needed to talk to mymom. I left school and went home. He didn't like that. When me andmy mom came back to talk, I don't think he was truthful."

"I was never critical of William," Krzyzewski responds. "Idisagreed with his decision. That's telling the truth. He was upsetbecause certain people wanted him to be upset. I knew he was gettingfamily pressure. I said, `Let's see how much better you can takecare of your family a year from now.' I just wish we were given achance to explore the options."

Krzyzewski's reaction was even more shocking to peers and Dukefaithful because his old rival, former North Carolina coach DeanSmith, is acknowledged to have set the standard regarding earlydefections. No matter how unprepared a Tar Heels player might havebeen (J.R. Reid), how much more he could earn after another season incollege (Jerry Stackhouse) or what kind of character he might havehad (Jeff McInnis), Smith's public encomiums always left sweetfeelings all around.

"Dean was probably way ahead of his time, but he's the model tofollow," UCLA coach Steve Lavin says. "Take the high road. You candisagree without being disagreeable."

In fact, Krzyzewski was far more graceful when Brand declaredhimself eligible for the draft April 14. Don't think Avery andMaggette didn't take notice. Duke held a news conference at CameronIndoor Stadium with all the trimmings. By speaker phone, therecovering Krzyzewski saluted Brand's decision as "a no-brainer." Hecalled it "a great day" for Duke. Twenty-four hours later, whenAvery was ready to join the party, the festivities ended. His familywas told to conduct its own news conference back home in Augusta.Duke simply released "a confirmation."

"I truly think there was a domino effect here," Krzyzewski says."Once Elton decided to go, the others felt it was OK for them, too.They all might have been scared to be the first. But when your peersare leaving, it puts pressure on you to make quicker decisions.Nowadays, if a kid sees he may have to stay in college four years, hethinks, `Gee, I'm not that good.' "

After Duke lost the national championship game to Connecticut onMarch 29, someone posted a cartoon X-and-O play on the Internetskewering Langdon - and Krzyzewski - by showing "Lottery Pick 1,""Lottery Pick 2" and "Lottery Pick 3" standing around while "LotteryPick 4" dribbles downcourt and falls to the ground. Of course,Maggette was on the bench at the end of the game, which provoked manyto question Krzyzewski's coaching wisdom. The rest wondered whatMaggette was thinking six weeks later when he announced he wasturning pro.

"I think his mom and dad wanted him to stay in school," Krzyzewskisays. "There were others giving him bad advice. It's like you'regoing on vacation and you listen to the weather. Someone says itnever rains, it's always sunny and there's no humidity. What I toldthem was, `At the very best, it's going to be partly cloudy.' Hisfamily had heard Corey might go in the top five. Of all my sources -and I do this every year - I never heard that."

Apparently, Maggette's 23-year-old brother, Jimmy Jr., known asMandrell, had a big say in the decision. Everybody else - from hismother, Margarite, to close family adviser Mickey Hamano to MichaelJordan - advised the freshman to stay at Duke for at least one moreseason.

"MJ even called up my mom," says Maggette, who worked at Jordan'sCalifornia camp last summer. "She was shell-shocked. He laid outboth sides, but he never really, like, urged me to stay. He said hewould understand either way."

"I told Corey the same thing," Langdon says. "I told him the onlynegative to staying at Duke was he wouldn't get the big bucks assoon. But next year, Corey would have been The Man. He'd be allover the place, like Elton was. Magazine covers, TV, All-Americateams. He would make friends for life. I wondered why he would giveup another year of that."

Some suggest Maggette's head was turned in June by a ChicagoTribune article that predicted he might be chosen by the Bulls. Butin midseason, he was telling Arizona's Michael Wright, a childhoodfriend, that he was thinking about leaving. His lack of playing timewas a sore spot. Before Maggette's arrival in Durham, only five Dukefreshmen had averaged in double figures under Krzyzewski. Maggetteaveraged nearly 11 points in only 17 minutes, but he didn't start agame until the semifinals of the Atlantic Coast Conferencetournament, when he scored 24 points against North Carolina State.Against UConn in the biggest show of all, he played only 11 minutes,only three in the second half.

"My parents thought I'd gotten into trouble in the locker room,"Maggette says. "I wondered what I'd done wrong."

Adds Hamano, whom the Maggettes later would ask to handle theirson's contract negotiations: "You bet the kid was upset. He took asharp turn to the NBA right there."

"I don't put my decision to leave on that game alone," Maggettesays. "But my family was upset. I'll admit I was afraid to tellCoach of my decision. I knew he wouldn't condone my leaving. Whenwe talked, he told me next year I would get 20 shots a game. Hey, ifI'm starting, I'm going to get 20 regardless. Tell me something Idon't know."

Hamano has known Maggette since he became a friend of Hamano's sonin the fifth grade.

"If Krzyzewski had shown him he was his player of the future,things could have been different," Hamano says. "But he showed hisdark side."

Once upon a time, Chris Burgess was the prize of the Class of2001. Not Brand, not Avery, but the 6-10 center from Irvine, Calif.,who spurned UCLA and Kentucky to be the next Christian Laettner.

Never happened.

Though Brand missed 15 games with a broken foot as a freshman,Burgess did not progress enough to average more than four points and12 minutes. As a sophomore, he boosted those numbers to five and 16.Early last season, though, against Fresno State in the Great AlaskaShootout, Burgess rang up 15 points and 16 rebounds while playing atandem post with Brand. According to his father, Ken, that's the wayit always was supposed to be. When Chris returned to the bench, Kenburned Coach K's ears. Eventually, the coach stopped taking hiscalls. So Ken turned to the media.

"Coach K has more dead high school All-Americans on his bench thanhe has live players in the pros," he told one writer.

"Coach K is petty, dishonest and tells blatant lies," he toldanother.

In a recent interview with Pat Forde of the Courier-Journal ofLouisville, Ken said: "If you aren't on Krzyzewski's good side, hedoesn't fix that. If you are, you can do no wrong."

"Being a sub was very frustrating," Burgess says. "Even when Igot in, I was told to be a screener and rebounder. I didn'tcomplain. If you get caught up in thinking about yourself, you fallfurther down the bench. But I decided that no matter who left or whostayed for next year, I was leaving. If it didn't work for me thefirst two years, I didn't want to take a chance on my last two."

On April 26, one day after Duke's postseason banquet, with thestarting center position his for the taking, Burgess told Coach K hewas gone. Krzyzewski says he was surprised. He had been preparedfor Burgess to leave, but only to satisfy his Mormon missionaryobligation.

"After the season, I told him if he wanted to take a mission, we'dunderstand," Krzyzewski says. "I didn't want him to feel he wasunder pressure to stop doing something for his religion. I told himwe wanted him back. I never had an inkling he wanted to transfer."

"That's unbelievable," Burgess says. "Of course, he knew I wasthinking about a transfer. If it wasn't for my teammates, I'd havetransferred at midseason. Quin (Snyder) knew that. What reallybothered me is that Elton, Shane (Battier) and I were recruitedtogether and told we'd play `Three Big.' I won't say Coach promisedme certain minutes, but he did guarantee we would play together.That didn't happen. Every time we came up against a shorter lineup,Coach K would say we have trouble matching up. I took thatpersonally. I just felt I'd always be on the wrong track at Duke."

"I always felt it would happen for Chris his junior year,"Krzyzewski says. "He's got the talent and the drive. But when theguys you've come in with progress and get so much better than you, ithurts. We hoped Chris thought he'd paid his dues and was going toget a shot at big success. He apparently didn't feel that way."

At the end of the day, it seems, Duke is not much different fromany other modern factory of higher leaping.

"We're about relationships, not winning," Krzyzewski said afterhis massively favored team did not win the national title lastspring.

But try selling that to the expatriate Dookies now licking theirwounds in Minneapolis, Orlando, Salt Lake City and other relationshiprehab centers.

"Look, the whole college game was in danger with these defectionslong before this happened to Duke," Coach K says. "We had never lostanybody, but I'm not so naive to believe we never would. It's not ahelpless feeling for me. It's a realistic feeling. I'm not cryingabout it. It happens everywhere."

Now that it has happened at Duke, Krzyzewski vows to be moreprepared. He continues to flirt with those McDonald's All-Americans- he signed four for next season - but he's more cautious aboutinviting them home.

"Every kid I've ever recruited, I've done so with the thought he'dbe here for four years," he says. "If a prospect tells me, `I'm onlygonna stay two years,' I would pass. That means the kid thinks healready knows what he's going to have to do to make it as a pro.He's not showing confidence in me. You can't come into our situationwith the mind-set that you're going to be that good in a certainamount of time. You have to just let things happen."

Well, this time, as even the Cameron Crazies will attest, stuffhappened faster than Krzyzewski could write his own name.

"Coaches have no control in this thing," he says. "It's all aboutcommunication patterns. Some were broken by my surgery. I know Icould have handled this better if I was healthier. Others werebroken when Quin took the job at Missouri. He was closer to theplayers than anyone. But I have to take responsibility. The problemis, I never get to confront the other side in these scenarios. I'mfighting germ warfare, a hidden enemy. Somebody says, `Coach K isdoing this for his own self-interest.' Attacks my credibility. Whomdo I attack?"

Why not start with the weatherman? Because now, even at Duke, theforecasters must consider one other possibility for next season.

Partly cloudy.

Reprinted with permission from ESPN The Magazine.