My Coach K story

by JD in Portland , Portland OR, Saturday, January 31, 2015, 11:32 (3364 days ago)

In 1991, I was living in Chapel Hill. One of my best friends then and now was R.E.M’s personal atty, a law professor at U of Georgia, and a leading national expert in entertainment law. Jay Bilas was a Duke law student, a grad asst for bball team, and the head of the Duke Sports and Entertainment law club. His housemate / law school classmate was an ND grad and friend of mine.

The ND friend knew of my connection to the R.E.M. atty. And my R.E.M. atty friend, despite being a UGA law professor, was a rabid ACC and GA Tech fan. And he sometimes, when the stars lined up, set up speaking engagements around GA Tech away games. So Jay Bilas through my ND friend asked if I could get my pal to come speak at the law school for his Sports and Entertainment Law club and I told him the odds were better if it could be when GT came to Cameron Indoor to play Duke. It all worked out and we set it up.

Since it was for a law school guest and featured speaker (my pal waived the standard honorarium), Jay was happy to set us up with 2 tickets to the game. GT had Kenny Anderson, had been to Final 4 the year before and was good. But Duke with Laettner/ Hurley etc. crushed GT 98-57 (just looked it up), total blowout from get go.

Our seats were mid court in upper bowl, maybe row 2, terrific. My pal had given me a GT hat that day so I wore it. He had nothing GT on. We sat quietly, watched the blowout and visited. Two women were sitting behind us, one older one younger, very rabid and knowledgeable fans. They argued every call and screamed their heads off, swearing like longshoremen, especially the younger one. I recall that maybe with 2 min to go, Duke up by 40, Kenny Anderson with 4 fouls made a little contact with someone, no call, and she flew from her seat screaming – “Oh of course ref. You can’t foul out the great Kenny Anderson! How could you not call that you idiot!?” My friend turned around and with huge smile said, “I wouldn’t worry too much, I think Duke has got this.” She then asked him where we were from and how we got the tickets. He said he was from Athens Georgia and was a guest lecturer at the law school about Entertainment Law the following day and had gotten tickets through the law school. He congratulated her on the great win and we both told her that this Duke team was one of best college bball teams we’d ever seen. My friend mentioned I was his good friend who had recently moved to the Triangle but actually an ND grad and fan. Very pleasant 10 second chat.

The next day I got a frantic call from my ND buddy at about 8:30 a.m. asking me what had happened at the game with the fans sitting behind us. I didn’t recall the 10 second conversation enough to even have any idea what he was referring to. So I said we’d not had anything happen with any fans.

He explained that Coach K had called an emergency meeting of the team at 8 a.m. to demand to know “who had given team seats to the enemy”, explaining that his wife and daughters’ “experience at the game was ruined from having to sit behind obnoxious GT fans”. I explained that it was a 40 point blowout, we hadn’t made a peep the whole game, were well aware we were guests at Cameron Indoor and my friend was not that kind of fan anyway. I did then figure out who the foul-mouthed crazy young woman sitting behind us and the older woman with her was, and why they were so knowledgeable about the team and game. He said Coach K and his family were especially upset about my hat.

Coach K read Bilas the riot act in front of the entire team and implemented a new rule that guest seats could never again be given to anyone not a bona fide Duke fan.

A couple months later, R.E.M. headlined a sold out show at the Dean Dome in Chapel Hill on their Green tour. Two days before the show, the R.E.M. business office got a call from the Duke Basketball office seeking 4 free tickets to the show for Coach K’s daughter. The R.E.M. folks explained that they were required to turn in their guest list to the promoter already and it was full but they could probably still get the promoter to arrange to leave 4 good seats at the door COD. The Duke person got very testy and said did they understand that this was for Coach K’s daughter, and that R.E.M.’s atty had been given free tickets to a Duke basketball game so this was a required “quid pro quo” here. The R.E.M. staff checked with their boss who said to let the Duke staff know that he was a guest speaker at the law school so the situations were not that comparable but that he was happy to hear that Coach K’s daughter was so eager to see R.E.M. and visit the Dean Dome, so much so that he would pay the cost of the tickets to the promoter himself as a gesture from one ACC basketball fan to another. The Duke people said that would be okay provided the seats were in the front row. The R.E.M. staff explained that was unlikely but they’d be sure they were good seats.

Coach K’s daughter got to see one of the great rock tours of all time from free, very good seats. Plus 3 of her friends; note: no one asks for 4 free tickets to big concerts like this, the standard guest list is for 2.
R.E.M. office never got a thank you or any acknowledgment.

Jay Bilas and my pal, who had never met before his lecture and this incident, went on to become friends. Jay was always very nice to me the few times after that I met him with my pal, and we’d laugh about all this, usually backstage at R.E.M. shows or in some bar in Durham or CH when GT bball team and my R.E.M. pal came to town. Bilas liked to ask me why I wasn’t wearing my GT hat.

Footnote: Bilas always said good things about ND and seemed to have great deal of respect for our school. Good guy.

That's the real Coach K right there.