Johnny is Going to Coach at Stanford

Former Duke Player and Duke Associate Head Coach, Johnny Dawkins has been named head basketball coach at Stanford. Another Krzyzewski protege is moving into the ranks of head coaching. He was part of Coach K’s first recruiting class at Duke that begin the string of successful seasons for Duke. He was also one year ahead of me in school. So when Johnny went to Dallas for the Final Four in 1986, I went too. I was also in attendance when his jersey was retired.

This also meant that as my academic schedule swerved between rigorous (pre-med) and not so much (pick a major, meet requirements and move on to graduate school in the future), I shared several classes with Johnny. The most memorable was an additional science requirement for non-science majors which used a book that was actually called Physics for Poets.

The non-basketball memory of Johnny that has always stayed with me was that he was someone who referred to himself in the third person. It was a bit disconcerting to have a conversation with him, and he would say something like, Johnny has a busy day today. I would assume that after all these years he has dropped this practice.

Read more about the coaching announcement here

Jeffrey L Cohen

Jeffrey L Cohen