How in the world does a Division I men’s college basketball coach win 1,000 games? Well, one at a time, I suppose, but think about it for a minute. Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski won his 1,000th career game Sunday, as the Blue Devils beat St. Johns 77-68. For a Major League Baseball manager to even coach 1,000 games will take six seasons plus 28 games. A professional basketball coach will take 12 seasons plus 16 games. So to win 1,000 games, based on Krzyzewski’s winning percentage of .765 going into Wednesday’s game in South Bend, how many seasons is that? In baseball, that would be just 17 games short of 11 seasons, counting regular season games only. But that would mean you’ve managed to exceed the record for regular season wins 10 times by an average of eight wins a season. Still, would that be good enough to please the Steinbrenner family? In pro basketball, you’re coaching about halfway through your 21st season, and your team averages just under 63 wins a season. To be fair, that single-season number has been achieved 14 times by teams that didn’t win a title. So odds are your team isn’t the 20-time defending world champions, so that takes a lot of the pressure off. Since I’ve got a calculator handy, I can tell you it’ll take 110 seasons for an NFL coach to win 1,000 games. By then I’m very sure I’ll be tired of Bill Belichick. I know, I know. At some point in time I’d think he would leave this earth. But since the stories about him and his team never seem to die... Obviously, Krzyzewski’s teams haven’t won national titles every single year, and it’s been 35 years since he accepted his first head coaching gig. So let’s approach 1,000 from different prospectives. If you’re reading this at 6 p.m. Tuesday, a thousand hours later it will be 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 4. The NCAA brackets will be out the following Sunday. A thousand days from today will be Monday, October 23, 2017. It’ll be an off-day in the World Series, and the Bears will host the Vikings on Monday Night Football. Jay Cutler will still be the Chicago quarterback, and most of the Bears fans I know will be buying Rogaine in 55-gallon drums. Just 1,000 months from now it’ll be Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2101. Now I’ve got Zager and Evans going through my head. If you don’t know who Zager and Evans are, look it up on the internet, just like I did all these dates and times. Hint: they have nothing to do with wine coolers. I don’t know if 1,000 bricks will build a house, but I can confirm it takes a while to vacuum 1,000 BB’s from the tile floor of a 1980’s dorm room. All this thinking about numbers is giving me a headache; I’m a writer for a reason. So let me conclude with this thought; how much more staggering is it that Krzyzewski is only second in all-time Division I wins – behind former Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summitt’s 1,098 – and he’ll need another three years minimum to become No. 1. Other things I wonder about: isn’t is about time to play the Super Bowl on Saturday night? More kids in the Eastern time zone could see the spectacle, and those of us with the ability to go to work Monday morning would still have plenty to talk about. Those who, shall we say, need recovery time could get it, even if they are praying more than they normally would on Sunday morning. It’s hard to remember a time when the oddsmakers couldn’t decide on a clear-cut favorite in the Super Bowl. The cynical side of me thinks this means someone’s going to get kicked around pretty well on Sunday. But take away last year and recent Super Bowls have lived up to the hype. As a fan I’m laying claim to the Chiefs being the only team to beat both Super Bowl teams this year, and taking Seattle with a feeling the game will be interrupting the commercials by the start of the fourth quarter. Lastly, how in the world can a sports columnist in America write and not mention a certain sports equipment-based controversy by name?
