In the same calendar year that Derek Jeter recorded his 3,000th hit, an equally-loathed sports figure set the NCAA men’s basketball record for wins as a coach. In beating Michigan State, Coach K passed his mentor and former boss, Bobby Knight, for the most wins by a coach in Division I basketball history. As much as it sickens the majority of sports fans to see individuals like Jeter and Mike Krzyzewski (the pronunciation of his last name is nothing short of a field day for linguistic majors) succeed, we have to respect their accomplishments and the general class with which they went about their business.

I’m hesitant to praise Coach K’s character because of the events of the last few weeks, which have shown us that nobody is immune to a dramatic fall from grace. It can be said that Coach K did things the right way, however, and his 903 wins stand as one of the cleanest records in a world where Barry Bonds is still acknowledged as the all-time home runs record holder.

In his career, he’s never been stricken with NCAA sanctions as a result of recruiting violations like many of his peers. Coach K’s success serves as a direct contrast to those like John Calipari, whose first untainted Final Four appearance came this past spring despite its being his third visit. In this day and age, it’s rare to find a major college coach who hasn’t committed some form of a recruiting violation.

It’s almost nauseating how much of a role model the coach for a school like Duke can be. When he’s not keeping J.J. Redick from picking up a DWI until after his Duke days end, Coach K serves his country as the coach of a revamped national basketball team. Like his incredibly disciplined Duke teams, Krzyzewski ran the U.S. team without egos and successfully channeled the talents of Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to a gold medal (Erik Spoelstra, the Heat’s coach, could take a few pointers here). It’s safe at this point in time to ask if anyone in the country could possibly run a more successful clean program.

Or, for that matter, can any current coach run a more successful program at all? Looking at the win totals for active coaches, Coach K’s record could be safe for many years to come. The two closest coaches to Krzyzewski, Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim, are both older than Coach K, making it unlikely that they will catch him. The trend for the rest of the list is very similar; any coach over 600 wins currently is either too old to seriously contest Coach K or — in the case of Bob “Huggy Bear” Huggins — parties a little too hard to have the stamina to reach 900 wins.

So where does that leave Coach K’s record? Assuming he continues coaching (he’s only 64 years old), Krzyzewski may set the bar so high that his record remains untouched for generations to come. One must look at the next crop of rising coaches to find a serious challenger.

The challenger that immediately comes to mind is Brad Stevens, Butler’s boy wonder coach. At the age of 35, Stevens has amassed 117 career wins while leading his mid-major university to two NCAA championship games. (It took Coach K until the age of 43 to reach his second title game.) Considering that Krzyzewski had already reached 219 wins at the age of 40, it isn’t hard to project that Stevens could collect 20 wins per year and celebrate his 40th birthday with a number close to K’s.

This speaks more toward Coach K’s achievements than Stevens’, though. It takes a large amount of optimism to believe that Stevens can keep winning for the next 30 years and enter the same conversation as this legend. Even J.J. Redick’s rap career has a better chance of making it than a challenger to his former coach’s accomplishment.

Very rarely is there a situation in sports when a nice guy truly finishes first. Mario Lemieux and Jim Valvano were forced to battle cancer during their careers and Roberto Clemente tragically died in a plane crash. It’s refreshing to see Coach K be rewarded for his career, one that saw his players excel on the court and in the classroom. Between 2004 and 2008, 92 percent of Duke basketball players graduated, a percentage significantly above the national average.

In basketball and life, Coach K is a winner and a role model, and this record only serves to draw attention to this living legend. It’s just a shame he accomplished all this at Duke.

Corey Blaine is a junior in the McDonough School of Business. The Bleacher Seats appears every Friday.