On an early morning in 1983, after the worst loss of his career (109-66 against Virginia) 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 the first NCAA national championship in school history.
In Five Banners, Feinstein tells the inside history of Coach K's forty-two-year career at Duke and the 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 12-26 in one year as head coach), includes the "drought years" of the 1980s, the glory of the teams of the 1990's, and moves into the present day with John 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 into 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.
Industry Reviews
"Feinstein was on the scene for so much and seems to have forgotten nothing. Telling stories that will be a revelation to even the most devoted followers of Duke basketball and college sports in general, Five Banners is the definitive book by the definitive chronicler." -- Alexander Wolff, author of * Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure *
"There is nobody better to chronicle Duke's championship culture than John Feinstein. John has been close to Coach K and his program from Day One and takes us all behind the scenes for each of Duke's quintet of titles in Five Banners. Nobody captures the essence of sport better than John Feinstein, and he's written another great one." -- Jay Bilas * ESPN *
