ESPN came to Happy Valley on Monday to film a segment on the legendary coaching careers of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski entitled “Difference Makers: Life Lessons with Paterno and Krzyzewski”. The 90 minute special, which was hosted by Rece Davis, will air on June 30 at 8 p.m. on ESPN, with the last half hour being shown on ESPNU.
This was the first time the two had ever met.
Over the two plus hours of taping, the coaches talked about their families influence’s on them and how they have adapted over the years to teach a newer generation of players the same values as the ones before. Krzyzewski said that he has always kept a close eye on how Paterno runs his program, and hoped to be able to do the same with his at Duke.
After Paterno and Krzyzewski taped their segment, former players from both teams took the stage to talk about how their respective coaches had impacted their lives. Jay Williams and Jay Bilas represented Duke, while Matt Millen and Michael Robinson talked about their days running out of the tunnel with Paterno.
Both the coaches and former players answered questions from the audience. Penn State students asked the coaches questions on stage, while students from Duke were able to participate via a live video feed from Durham.
In the midst of so much scandal and controversy in collegiate athletics today, it was refreshing to see these two men, both icons and legends at their respective schools and in their respective sports, in the spotlight. For so long they have deflected the attention from themselves back onto their players, and it’s a shame they had to wait until numerous corrupted programs had emerged in order to get the recognition and praise that they have deserved for quite some time.
Joe Paterno and Mike Krzyzewski are difference makers. For as long as they continue to coach, they will not only be teachers of the game of football or basketball, but professors in the game of life. They will run their programs with the utmost integrity and mold boys into men through their coaching. That’s the way a program and a team should be run.
That’s the right way.
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