Dan Meagher grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario — a small industrial city on the Canadian side of the Niagara Peninsula, about as far from the ACC as a basketball player could get. Born in Kingston, Ontario, in 1962, he came of age in a country where hockey was king and basketball was an afterthought. But Meagher was built differently: 6-foot-7, 215 pounds, with the physicality of a hockey enforcer and the competitive fire to match.
He was good enough to attract attention from American schools, and in 1981, he made the improbable decision to cross the border and play for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke. This was Krzyzewski’s first season. There was no dynasty, no Cameron Crazies mystique, no legacy to sell. Duke was a program in transition, and K was an unknown from West Point. Meagher was, in a very real sense, one of the first recruits to bet on Krzyzewski — a Canadian kid who chose Duke before there was any reason to choose Duke.
He arrived on campus the same year as Vince Taylor and the holdovers from the Foster era. He would still be there when Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Jay Bilas, and David Henderson arrived as freshmen. He was the bridge between two eras — the only player who lived through the entire dark period and emerged on the other side when the light began to break through.