Month: November 2021

Mike Krzyzewski

Bill Thompson

The men’s NCAA college basketball season opens tomorrow. And it will be the final season for one of the game’s winningest and most successful coaches ever.

Mike Krzyzewski, also known as Coach K, has been head coach at Duke University since 1980. He announced last June that he would be retiring after this season.

Under his leadership, the Blue Devils have made it to the Final Four 12 times, and have won five national championships, second only to John Wooden’s ten.

I met Coach K 21 years ago, when he wrote a book on leadership called Leading with the Heart.

So here now, from 2000, Mike Krzyzewski

Mike Krzyzewski is 74 now, and we’ll leave the game as one of its all-time greatest

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Yakov Smirnoff

Bill Thompson

Who knew Russians had such a great sense of humor?

Well, few Americans thought so, until the 1980s, when the young Russian-born Yakov Smirnoff burst onto the scene.

When he arrived here in 1977 from Ukraine, Smirnoff actually spoke no English.

But quickly he was able to turn his foreigner’s naivete into a very successful comedy act.

In 1987, with Smirnoff’s popularity nearing its peak — and just before a visit to the U.S. by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — Smirnoff went on a book tour to promote a hilarious book he call America on Six Rubles A Day.

So here now, from 1987, Yakov Smirnoff.

Yakov Smirnoff is 70 now. He still performs occasionally at his theater in Branson, Missouri, and tours world wide.

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Beverly Sills

Bill Thompson

Any list of the greatest operatic singers of modern times will include, somewhere near the top, the name Beverly Sills.

The statuesque soprano was an audience favorite for decades. Time Magazine once dubbed her :America’s Queen of Opera.”

By the late ‘60s the singer whose nickname was Bubbles had also become a very popular TV talk show guests.

But she also struggled with personal crises.

Her daughter Muffy was deaf and suffered from multiple sclerosis. Her son Bucky, born two years later, was severely mentally disabled.

In 1988 Sills wrote her autobiography. And that’s when I met Bubbles.

So here now, from 1987, Beverly Sills.

Beverly Sills died in 2007. She was 78. Her daughter Muffy died in 2016, at age 57.

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Linda Greenlaw

Bill Thompson

Thirty years ago today, November 1, 1991, off the New England coast the six-man crew of the sword fishing boat the Andrea Gail were fighting, and losing, their battle with what has come to be known as The Perfect Storm.

A close friend of those six was fellow swordfishing boat captain Linda Greenlaw.

If you’ve seen the 2000 movie The Perfect Storm, Greenlaw was played by actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

Greenlaw eventually wrote three books of her own, including a 2004 called All Fishermen Are Liars.

So here now, from 2004, Linda Greenlaw.

Linda Greenlaw will be 61 next month. She is still a sword-fishing boat captain, and lives in Maine.

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