When I saw in the Altoona Mirror that Mike Krzyzewski, basketball coach at Duke, and Penn State's Joe Paterno, the winningest football coach in Division I, would be interviewed together by ESPN for a special program, I had this vision of the two helping each other after Monday's meeting at Eisenhower Auditorium.
Coach K says to Joe, "I need some help in making our football program more competitive."
Joe puts his hand to his chin and ponders what Coach K needs. And then he says to Coach K, "I need some help also but with the men's basketball program since we have a new coach taking over the reins."
So Coach K comes back and tells Joe, "I'll do this for you. I will talk to some recruits that we have no room for in the program. They are five-star players."
A big smile comes across Joe's face, and he says, "I have some great current players who want to transfer out.
"And I will be glad to reciprocate with sending you some future five-star recruits that I couldn't use and would rather have them go to a great academic university like Duke rather than enrolling at The Ohio State University and Nebraska.
"I anticipate these two schools will be a present and a future headache to me down the road."
Well, both coaches seem quite proud of what they want to do for each other's school. And so they part ways by shaking hands.
Les Hart
Duncansville
