An Apology From Our Editors: Coach K Did Not Give The ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech

Unfortunately, we in good conscience, must come clean. You see – sometimes in the rush of the 24-hour news cycle and being first to print, mistakes get made. The editors at Sports Riot sincerely apologize for incorrectly reporting that former Duke basketball coach Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski gave the iconic Civil Rights speech, “I Have A Dream.”

In reality, the speech was given by a different man, known for different letters — Martin “MLK” Luther King Jr. — at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. in 1963, and not while cutting down the net after winning Duke’s fifth national title in 2015. We missed this one and regret such an error.

Further, we’d like to clarify that Coach K did not say, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” He actually said, “always give 110%. Go Duke!” In our defense they’re pretty similar, but still our bad.

Our editors believe the error most likely stemmed from the fact one man wrote “I Have A Dream,” and the other was an assistant coach to the “Dream” Team in the 1992 Olympics. Many historians and several biographical accounts over the years have made such a similar error but we hold ourselves to a higher standard than the likes of the Associated Press, ESPN, or Ken Burns’ 36-part-MLK Documentary.

We recently reached out to Coach K for comment, but discovered, sadly, he had been assassinated in Memphis in 1968.