Steve Wasendak is a modest man who has achieved great success.
“Here we have my Duke University Hall of Fame ring,” Wasendak said, pointing to one of his many awards.
“I played hard all the time,” Wasendak said of his playing days. “I was a very good defender.”
Vachendak is modest. He was the ACC Player of the Year in 1966 and led Duke to two Final Fours between 1963 and 1966.
“I was just so proud because my teammates were amazing,” Wasendak said, looking at a photo of himself during the Duke basketball team warm-up. “They were the most beautiful group of men I have ever seen in my life.”
Vasendak was drafted by the San Francisco Warriors. He won the championship with the Pittsburgh Pipers of the ABA. In 1980 he returned to Durham. This time as a deputy sports director. Tom Butters was the athletic director and put him to work.
“When I was hired, Tom said, ‘OK, your first task is to go and find us a basketball coach,'” Vatsendak said. “I didn’t get paid until June, I could have fired myself before I was hired.”
Duke was returning from a trip to the Elite Eight. Bill Foster left the program to take over as head coach in South Carolina.
“At the time, South Carolina wasn’t necessarily the center of basketball,” Wasendak said. “People have wondered what is happening and why it is happening. There was a lot of pressure on Tom to bring in someone great.”
One of the first candidates that came to mind for Vatsendak was a young coach named Mike Krzyszewski. A few years earlier, Vasendak had had the opportunity to watch Krzyzhevsky manage the Army program at the Army vs. Navy game in Annapolis, Maryland. Vasendak’s high school coach Jack Gallagher was friends with Bobby Knight and invited him to a Krzyzewski coach meeting.
“It was a wonderful insight,” said Vasendak. “Mike unsettled him, as far as I could tell, in his preparation and willingness to play this game.”
Wasendak put together a list of candidates and information to help Butters find a job. Vatsendak believed that Krzyszewski had all the qualities to succeed at Duke, despite only having a 73-59 Army record.
“What stood out was his character, all his personal qualities and value system,” Vasendak said. “This is probably the turning point in Mike being hired by Duke.”
After the third interview, Krzyzewski Watsendak took him to the Raleigh-Durham airport. Krzyzewski was at the exit when Vatsendak received a letter from Butters with a simple message: don’t put him on this plane.
“Invite him to dinner,” Vasendak recalled, as Butters had told him. “I said, ‘What you’re doing, it’s been a struggle.’ He said, “Well, I’m going to offer him a job, but just don’t tell him.”
Wasendak invited Krzyzewski to dinner at Angus Barn with an elephant in the room.
“Mike asks what’s wrong,” Vatsendak said. “I sit there knowing that he will be offered a job and not sharing it with him. It was a natural inclination. They offered it to him after that dinner when I gave him a lift.
Forty-two years later, Krzhizhevsky’s term is almost over, but his reign is not over.
“I like to sum it up by saying that we hired the right person at the right time at a great university and it was a wonderful marriage,” Wasendak said. “Mike’s retirement is not a divorce because he will continue to work in a different role and I am confident that I will help the university.”