SAN FRANCISCO — The Army’s old Post Gymnasium at the Presidio is still there long after the Army is gone, concrete arches and cinderblock walls, the epitome of Vietnam-era military architecture. It’s a YMCA now, filled on a Friday afternoon with people of all ages and races and genders working out. A lone man wearing headphones and a hoodie lazily took shots at one of the baskets in the main gym, the thump of the ball echoing off the walls.
In the six-decade journey of Mike Krzyzewski from Chicago’s West Side to the verge of a 13th and final Final Four on Saturday, the chances that it would ever circle back to this place, in a city hosting its first NCAA Tournament games since 1939, where perhaps the least heralded — but as formative as any — part of Krzyzewski’s basketball career took place.
Step outside of that gym, and there’s a majestic view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the parking lot, the top of the bridge shrouded in low-lying clouds, as beautiful a spot as there is in the continental United States. Step back inside, and there’s nothing to mark why or when it was built, no plaque or historical marker, but the answers to both say a lot about Krzyzewski.
