Reasons To Believe!

One of the first things I noticed about Coach K is how natural it is for him to be part of Durham.  Read his off the cuff remarks below and see how he personifies Durham’s overarching brand or character and personality both at home and wherever he might be.  Coach K is clearly a reason to believe Durham is indeed “Where Great Things Happen!”

As if the big community celebration at Cameron wasn’t enough, the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau brought together a partnership with the City, County and Chamber to congratulate the national champs including coaching staff at back to back events Thursday first at American Tobacco Historic District and then across the street at a Durham Bulls game, after DCVB reminded the co-sponsors to include the Durham Bulls national championship in the recognition.

That’s Mayor Bill Bell with Coach K, who along with Commissioner Michael Page as chairman of the Board of Durham County Commissioners recognized the national champions.

Here are verbatim comments Shelly Green, DCVB’s CEO, recorded at the event:

Coach K:

“Thanks for making Durham such a great place not just to go to school, but to live…

…We truly have one of the great cities in the United States.  And when you win a sports championship, whether it be with the Durham Bulls or the Duke Blue Devils, it’s a heck of a thing. But what it does, it brings the spotlight on what we do here in our home town. So thank you.

I could tell you that the guys sitting behind me. I’ve had 30 teams at Duke. This was the most together team I’ve ever had an opportunity to coach. This is the first team that I allowed a guy to have a beard. It’s the first team where I allowed a guy to wear a white belt. I’m mellowing.

I speak on behalf of our whole staff. We love our team. We loved everyday being with them. A lot of times a lot of you are parents, teachers, you’re leaders in your businesses, and you give a lot to your family or to your business team and a lot of times people don’t give back to you. I can tell you, this is the freshest I’ve ever been at the end of the season because anything that we gave to this team, this team gave right back to us

.
I just want to thank you for coming out this evening. I know we have our home opener tonight [Durham Bulls] and we just swept the series so let’s sweep another one. Let’s keep smiles on our faces all year round. And remember that Duke and Durham, we’re the same. We both start with a D. Second letter is still U and there are a lot more similarities than that. Duke always wants to be a part of the Durham team. And we always want to be your hometown team.” – Coach K

Players:
“First off, I want to thank the city of Durham for your support and everything. It feels good to be able to bring this to this city and to know I was a part of it. And you know our team, we worked very hard all year to get to this point. Our senior class it took us four years to get here and just to be able to come back to Durham and Cameron and see a banner that we put up, I don’t think there is any better feeling. So again, I just want to say thank you. It’s been a great four years and the rest of these guys behind me, there’re going to keep it moving.” – Lance Thomas

“I just want to echo what Lance said. Thank you guys for all your support. It’s been a great feeling having the Durham community around us; especially with all this Carolina country around us. This is a nice area where it is all unified and we get a lot of support and just to be around this community and I can’t tell you the amount of times people have come up to me and just said thank you and I just want to thank you guys right back.” – Brian Zoubek

“Going off what these guys said. I just want to stress how proud we feel. How great of an experience it has been for us. But, we feel so proud to play for this university and I feel so proud to play with these guys; it’s a special group. And I think it has shown throughout the year but I don’t feel like, teams like this don’t come around all the time and to play with guys like these was a special experience. You guys are great and it’s just been an honor for me and an honor for us so thank you so much, I appreciate it.” – Jon Scheyer