Hubert Davis' father-in-law reveals unique connection to Duke's Coach K

Hubert Davis and the North Carolina Tar Heels will hope to spoil Coach K and the Duke Blue Devils‘ season by beating them in the Final Four on Saturday.

In a report that emerged from ABC 11 this week, the two rival coaches actually share an odd connection.

The man’s name is Bob Siegle, who is also Davis’ father-in-law, and he was on the Army basketball team with Mike Krzyzewski when the Duke front man was a plebe at West Point.

“He was a freshman when I was a senior, and freshmen were not allowed to play that year. So I joke with him, if he would have played, I wouldn’t have,” joked Seigle.

Nearly a decade later, it was Seigle who was part of a group on the athletic board that recommended Krzyzewski for the then-vacant head coaching job at Army.

Siegle shared a funny anecdote about Coach K when he broke into the industry.

“None of them could pronounce his name. It was just like the rest of the world at the time when the announcement was made. ‘Krazewski,’ just everything,” Seigle recalled.

His time at Army, where he compiled a 73-59 record, helped prepare him to become Duke’s head coach in 1980; Rogers joined Krzyzewski’s staff at Duke as an assistant where he served for seven seasons before transitioning to a role of special assistant to the athletics director.

Bob Siegle conflicted over Coach K, Hubert Davis in Final Four

In a wild twist of events, Siegle’s daughter Leslie is married to UNC’s first-year head coach, Hubert Davis.

“He has been nothing short of being just a great guy, a good father, and a good Christian man,” said Seigle.

Davis grew up just a couple of blocks away from Seigle’s family, and the pair both attended UNC, where Davis was a star under Dean Smith before embarking on a career in the NBA.

He would return to UNC as an assistant coach under Roy Williams in 2012, before being tapped to replace Williams as head coach last April. The announcement made Davis, who had previously never been a head coach, the leader of the third-winningest program in NCAA history.

Siegle shared insight into his feelings toward both coaches ahead of the Final Four showdown on Saturday night.

“We are just extremely proud of everything they’ve put up with. Because we got a little glimpse inside of how big-time college athletics work. Not everyone was as thrilled with Hubert being selected to be the coach of Carolina as we were. But we were very proud of him. I talked to Mike about that, and Mike said ‘he is a good guy,'” said Seigle.

Seigle will be watching Saturday’s showdown from his home.

Still, Siegle is conflicted and won’t claim to root for Coach K or Davis.

“All of our family is very much in favor of just a good college basketball game. We hate to see games that I describe as a track meet, where one team is running, and the other team is just keeping score,” Seigle said.

It’s clear he’s stuck in the middle, an odd place to be for the rare person with a rooting interest for the two hated rivals.