Dear Diego,

Happy Birthday! Enjoy being 17!

I thought I’d tell you about the college I went to, Duke University, and our basketball team. Our most famous building is the big chapel. Our mascot is the Blue Devil. Our coach is named Mike Krzyzewski. It’s pronounced sort of like sheh-shev-ski. We call him Coach K for short. He retires this year, and we’re all sad to see him go.

Basketball is very popular among students. For the best games, students stay in line for weeks to get tickets. They live in tents to keep their place in line. The lawn where the tents go is called Krzyzewskiville.

Our biggest rival is the college just down the road, the University of North Carolina (UNC). Their team is called the Tar Heels, which is a historical reference. When the Carolina colony was founded, the colonists made and sold tar, which was useful for making ships. Their mascot is a ram named Rameses, which is a reference to an ancient Egyptian king. When the Tar Heels play the Blue Devils, anything can happen!

Most of my family, including my parents and my sister, went to UNC. I’m the only one who went to Duke. They joke with me about that a lot!

This year, both teams got to play in the big tournament. It happens in March, so it’s called March Madness. Both teams won enough games that they were among the Final Four teams. They played each other in a semi-final game a few days ago. It was very close. My sister kept sending me messages on my phone. At the very end, UNC won by just a few points. It would’ve been very special for Duke to win the tournament because this is Coach K’s last year, but both teams played so well that I can’t be too sad. (The University of Kansas defeated UNC in the final game a couple of days later.)

Coach K had a great career. He coached the USA’s basketball team for the Olympics. Duke won the big tournament 5 times while he was our coach. He has donated to children’s hospitals and scholarship funds. His many fans wish him happy retirement! He will be missed.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7