College hoops season is now just a few weeks from starting up, and the one story that will take precedent above all others will be the Coach K retirement tourn.
It will be exhausting. It will be infuriating. It will be gag-inducing when he's given a weird gift at every stop along the tour (we all know he's getting a Louisville Slugger when he plays at Louisville, right?)
It will also be expensive. And for the biggest game of the year, Duke's season-finale at home against North Carolina it will be expensive.
How expensive? How about $1 million dollars for a family four.
Ok, so that's a tiny bit of an exaggeration, but Tuesday was ACC basketball media day, and during the festivities, Coach K stopped by the set of "Packer and Durham" to talk about the season ahead.
During that time he dropped this little nugget: During a charity auction this summer, four tickets for his final home game, against North Carolina on March 5th, went for a cool $1 million.
Putting aside Coach K's little smug "No, I'm the big man because I've got the tickets" comment, this little nugget really does signify just how big this season is going to be.
Whatever you think of Coach K, he's an icon, a guy who has coached against the greatest that have ever come through college basketball, from coaches like Dean Smith, Jerry Tarkanian and John Thompson, to players like Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal and the Fab Five. For all the flack he gets, we almost certainly just aren't going to see a guy get a job at a big-time school, and keep it for 40 damn years, racking up a cool 1,000+ wins in the process.
Still, it doesn't mean the Retirement Tour is going to be any less exhausting.
A tour which starts in a few weeks, with a season opener against Kentucky.
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