We know Mike Krzyzewski is one of the best coaches ever, but apparently he's one of the best father-in-laws ever according to Chris Spatola.
“Jamie (Spatola) and I’s romantic story is a lot like Coach (Mike Krzyzewski) & Mickie (Krzyzewski's) story," Spatola said. "I think coach knew if I was able to make it through West Point then there’s gotta be a part of me that’s probably capable enough to date his daughter.”
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Mike Krzyzewski and his son in law Chris Spatola have this in common — they both were the skinny kids with dark hair who played basketball at Army West Point. These days Spatola can be heard on his radio show or calling college basketball games where he doesn’t shy away from criticizing Duke as an analyst. The same place where he sat under the Krzyzewski learning tree as an assistant coach from 2007-2012.
“We started having conversations about the one and done thing while I was still there," Spatola said. "I was very much apart of the fundamental stages of that transition recruiting wise.”
Basketball will always be a foundational piece to their relationship — but these days their conversations are about something much different.
They talk a lot about wine.
“The reason I got into it is because I wanted to be worthy of the wine he was breaking out, but also be able to converse with him about it," Spatola explained. "Outside of all the obvious stuff, that’s another area of common ground.”
Sometimes the Spatola’s will host the family holiday meal where they provide everything. But they’ll never say no to Coach K breaking out a special bottle of wine.
“We have different tax brackets so the purchasing of wine is different," said with a smile. "My home, we’ll do the meal, but if you want to bring the wine, we can relent on that because I always know we’ll be drinking a lot better wine if he’s bringing it than if I was providing it.”