"Five Banners tells the inside story of Duke University's five NCAA Men's Basketball championships, from the first against Kansas in 1991 through the most recent championship in 2015 against a formidable Wisconsin team. Bestselling author and Duke University alumnus John Feinstein explores a basketball legacy that begins with his days as an undergrad Duke Chronicle reporter covering Coach Bill Foster and ends with John Scheyer's succeeding Hall of Fame Coach Mike Krzyzewski. Feinstein was present during the entirety of Coach Krzyzewski's 42 years at Duke. We experience the dual approaches of building a program with players who stayed four years and developed their game all the way through to the "One and Done" era we now inhabit. He covers all five of Duke's national championships (1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, 2015) and the "drought years" leading up to them. The voices of players such as Grant Hill, Nolan Smith, Christian Laettner, Tommy Amaker, and Bobby Hurley bring new insights to those championship moments. Feinstein takes the reader on a mesmerizing ride inside the locker room, into the tunnel and onto the court in this work combining new interviews with the unique perspective of someone who relishes an argument. In doing so, he unveils the experientialforce of college basketball as a game of intense relationships, intimate conversations and both physical and emotional power"--
Legendary sports journalist John Feinstein tells the inside history of Duke’s five NCAA championships set against the arc of Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s forty-two-year Duke career.
On an early morning in 1983, after the worst loss of his career (109-66 against Virginia) and amid the cries of powerful athletics boosters calling for him to be fired, Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski went to breakfast at 2:00 a.m. to vent with friends. Sports journalist and Duke alumnus John Feinstein was at the table. For Coach K, "the night at Denny’s” would mark a turning point in his career and for the team, and eight years later, the Blue Devils would win their first NCAA national championship.
In Five Banners, Feinstein tells the inside history of Coach K’s forty-two-year career at Duke and its five NCAA championships, from the first, against Kansas in 1991, to the most recent, in 2015 against Wisconsin. With unparalleled access to Coach K, the team, and its staff, Feinstein takes readers on a mesmerizing ride into the locker room and onto the court. Full of intimate details, personal memories, and previously untold on- and off-court stories, it is a book that only Feinstein could write.
Feinstein explores a basketball legacy that begins with his days as an undergrad Duke Chronicle reporter covering coaches Bucky Waters and Neill McGeachy (who went 10-16 in one year as head coach), includes the “drought years” of the 1980s and the glory of the teams of the 1990s, and moves into the present day with Jon Scheyer’s succession. Drawing on new interviews, Feinstein highlights the voices of Grant Hill, Nolan Smith, Christian Laettner, Tommy Amaker, and Bobby Hurley, who each bring new insights on the championship years.
Throughout, Feinstein unveils the momentous force of college basketball as a game of intense relationships and intimate conversations. Candid, revelatory, and engrossing, Five Banners is an essential book for all Duke fans and anyone who loves the college game.
