The Daily Tar Heel
URL: http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2012/02/hate_duke_further_the_american_dream
Current Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 11:38:10 -0400
Column: Hate Duke, further the American Dream
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Reed Tucker is a UNC alumnus who co-authored the book “Duke Sucks.”
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Sometime during tonight’s epic Duke-Carolina match-up, while Butter is busy carving up the Blue Devils defense and John Henson has smacked another of the 16 Plumlee brothers’ weak shots back to Durham, you will turn to whomever you’re watching the game with, exchange drunken high fives and know true contentedness.
There are few things in life better than seeing Duke get beat down. Not chocolate gelato, not the first season of “Lost,” not even sex. (Though most of my experience with that has been at a New York bus depot, so I could be doing it wrong.) Blue Devil hatred is the one universal thing that binds all sports fans.
There are so many individual reasons to loathe Duke, both old and new. We hate them for “The Stomp,” for Coach K’s foulmouthed surliness and for Ryan Kelly’s complete lack of chin.
We hate them for their obnoxious, overpraised fans and for their crappy faux-Gothic campus built on the back of the stained teeth and tarred lungs of a cigarette empire. We hate them for Austin Rivers, who decided to give himself a nickname.
But the thing is, Duke hatred on a national scale can’t possibly stem from a random collection of individual offenses, be it a single “stray” elbow to Tyler Hansbrough’s nose, a phony flop or an F-bomb by Coach K — no matter how terrible those things are taken alone. No, something bigger is definitely going on.
If you ask me, the tidal wave of bad feelings toward Duke comes from the same kind of populist outrage that drives the Occupy movements. Duke is the one percent, the Goldman Sachs of basketball — and not because the average freshman sleeps on a bed of his daddy’s $100 bills like Scrooge McDuck, though that doesn’t help. What Duke has in common with those fat-cat bankers is that both offend our sense of fairness. They are downright anti-American.
Think about the reason you hate Duke most. Reduced to its simplest level, it probably comes down to a feeling that they’re getting away with something, never held accountable, that they’re being treated differently than other teams — be it by the refs, the media or the NCAA — and that is what is so galling.
Take two recent examples.
Let’s start with Coach K, that “leader who happens to coach basketball.” And who also happens to shill for more brands than Vince, the ShamWow guy. Last November, he was crowned the winningest coach in the game after he notched his 903rd W. Only problem is, by any reasonable measure, he’s not quite there yet.
Let us direct your attention to the 1998-99 season when the Devils racked up 37 wins with the help of Corey Maggette, a player who later admitted to taking cash from an AAU coach.
The NCAA ultimately imposed no penalty on Duke, even though in similar cases other schools, including UMass and Missouri, had been quickly forced to vacate wins. Let the real countdown to Coach K’s record begin. Whatever his total, just subtract 37.
Now how about those Cameron Crazies? If we have to hear Dick Vitale or other announcers bluster on about how they’re “the best fans in basketball,” we’re going to drink a gin and Drano.
As you’ve no doubt heard, the Blue Devils have actually had a hell of a hard time filling Cameron in recent years — yes, including the championship year — and now students claim only about half of their allotment, leaving the university to scramble to sell the rest.
Embarrassing but not all that hateworthy. Maybe the students are busy counting their butlers or something instead.
What is so hateworthy is that the myth of the Cameron Crazies as the greatest fans continues to get shoved down our throats year after year despite reams of evidence to the contrary. No one ever calls them on their crap.
The university’s image never gets tarnished by truth, allowing them to recruit the best players and win more games. But like the big banks, Duke’s decades of rigging the system must come to an end.
So let’s go Heels. Switch into Black Falcon mode, Harrison. Prepare that sweet hook, Tyler. Make it rain 3’s, Reggie. By trouncing Duke, you’re not just striking a blow for basketball fans, but for nothing less than the American dream.
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47 comments
Our campus was built on the backs of slaves… We need to be careful on that path.
@Just Saying – a lot of universities were. Doesn’t make it right, but also is not necessary in this context. If you’re going to make that argument, please make sure it is relevant because frankly, it isn’t here.
sorry, dude. you’re just not there yet.this was not very good…
i feel like the author thinks he really hurt some feelings too. Interesting that he placed such little emphasis on the two current teams playing and their statistics. Clearly, proclaiming that Duke was anti-American (?) was more important. Glad he didn’t officially say he is a current Tarheel.
Keep this kind of writing among the other freshmen in Hinton James.
@really? – who cares if it’s not the best Duke-bashing column ever written. you’re really going to hate on the guy, the morning of the game, because his attack on our rival wasn’t up to your technical standards? that is SUPER lame, and also kind of sad.
GO HEELS GO AMERICA!!!
naaaw, man, dude is a Carolina GRAD living in nyc working in “media.” he and a bud, an rtp desk jockey (and fellow grad), just wrote a book with the imaginative title “duke sucks.” if this trite article is any indication of the “hilarity” in the book then i doubt even the most diehard carolina fans will read it. seriously, dude here needs to come up with some new material (which doesn’t bode well for his career imo). methinks reed is a bit out of water up there in nyc hundreds of miles away from the good ol by network of unc to support him. time to come home and write for the charlotte observer, reed. yer taking up space, man. nyc is crowded as it is.
it SHOULD have been better. this is what the guy is doing with his “career.”
Remind yourself of this: It is only an amateur game!!It means nothing, except campus pride, which is at stake. This bs is big time business, with the NCAA making a mint off these kids, posing as “student-athletes.”
College ball is bs completely overblown. Don’t’ tell that to the rich boosters and alumni who pay a fortune to get the best seats in the house, to fund a new stadium just so they can have a winner. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.
Both UNC and Duke are class teams, with great talent….may the best team win…..Go Tar Heels…but I dont make a big stink over it. The whole scene is so phoney.
The pro’s is where it’s at. There, you know it’s a business. Frankly, I don’t give a crap who wins.
When a coach of a game gets paid over a million a year, and profs make not even half that….their is something seriously wrong with the system. I know; I was a scholarship athlete and saw the bs. firsthand and up close.
@really? – Maybe you should do some research of your own, and discover that the writer is a graduate of the J-school and a successful writer for the New York Post. And perhaps you’ve lost your way, because to hate on a fellow Tar Heel at any time – especially on game day – is surely not the Carolina Way.
“the writer is a graduate of the J-school and a successful writer for the New York Post.” that just makes him look worse. the post is a conservative tabloid run by RUPERT MURDOCH, who through his works at other such fine paragons of journalistic integrity as Fox News has done more to hurt the American Dream than Duke ever could.
Duke grads on dth comments threads. hilarious.
Go to hell duke!
Embrace the free market, players – if you’re worth more than a single year scholarship at a time, fight for it, don’t let them keep you down while your coach is bringing in money you most likely will never make.
Hey I live next to a dookie. He’s a nice guy. But I hate dook. I hate all things dook. dookies are everything that is wrong about America. If my kid went to dook I would disown them. If al-Qaeda was playing dook I would cheer for al-Qaeda. If a dookie and a goat were trapped in a burning building I would go back in for the goat. There is a reason their mascot is a devil. My fondest hope is that if there is indeed a hole in the ozone it is over Durham, centered on the dook campus.
@Sven Goli – if you’re going to try and convince people to care less about college basketball, this is probably not the day to do it.
It is true that Dook’s campus was built on cigarette money. But UNC’s campus was too. Why? Because it is a state institution in a state where (at least at the time) the biggests business was the tobacco business. So you could say that while Dook was built on tobacco money, UNC was built on the taxation of tobacco money.
It is a stretch, you may say. And perhaps you would be right. It is not, however, as much of a stretch as my azz hole stretches when I drop a deuce.
This article was done in bad taste and is embarrassing for UNC. It’s really pathetic our fans/alumni act like this. A rivalry is fun but this is overboard.
I can’t believe some of these comments. This is THE biggest rivalry in all of college basketball. The 2 – 3 games per year between these two teams is what is great about college basketball. Forget critiquing the author on his writing style, career choices or rehashing the same old tired argument about this is what’s wrong with college athletics.
Sven Goli – college bball overblown? you’d rather watch the pros?! really? those 2 statements alone say plenty about you.
Senna – This article is embarrassing for UNC? Really? Get over it and lighten up a bit. You obviously do not understand or appreciate this rivalry and what it means to so many. Don’t take yourself or anything surrounding the rivalry so seriously.
TxTarheel – Preach on brother! I’m a grown a$$ man and I am not the least bit embarrassed or ashamed to say I HATE DOOK. I hate everything about it…K, the players, the pimple-faced student body, Dickie V and his unwavering man love for K, I could go on and on.
Appreciate this article and this game for what they are and don’t turn it into something else. This rivalry is beautiful thing.
GO HEELS!!!
I can say with 100% certainty: No one at Duke cares this much about the rivalry. It’s not because we don’t respect you – it’s just not that important to us. This honestly just makes y’all look bad.
Signed, A former Carolina fan, not from the Northeast, who is not rich or douchey, who goes to Duke. And I am not at all a minority here in any of those things (except maybe the former-Carolina fan thing. I still root for y’all when you’re not playing Duke!).
As someone who grew up in NC and a UNC fan but now goes to Duke, I have been on both sides of the fence and definitely agree with A Carolina Dukie.
Actually, it’s almost disappointing how little our kids seem to care about the rivalry…
Txtarheel’s comment was more entertaining than this whole article. The author took something as pure and beautiful as our school-wide hatred for Duke and tarnished it with his own extreme left-wing views. Totally unacceptable.
Carolina hating Duke? A poorer, mostly local, group hating a richer, more exclusive, more ethnically mixed group? You don’t say…
haters gonna hate! Just a little touchy?!? Thing is, the way you feel about Duke is the way the whole ACC feels about the smurfs!
Yeah! This game and the rivalry are really important!
The people saying that Duke students just don’t care about the rivalry…well…it’s really the student body lately. The NYTimes actually ran an article about how the Crazies have died out a bit this year. I don’t think it’s that Duke doesn’t see as a rival or as on the same level…it’s almost as if their students are suffering from some sort of boredom with basketball.
@Ohai Actually, UNC and Duke’s diversity numbers are quite comparable. It’s true Duke has more Asian students as a percentage, but our numbers of African American and Latino students are very close. Also, exclusive for whom? I would have had a much easier time getting into Duke’s program for my subject than at UNC. Exclusivity is relative for what you’re interested in, especially at the graduate level.
to the Carolina Dukies, i just want to get this straight.
u clicked on this DTH story, took time to comment, sign up your email address, type in a captcha for security all because you dont care about the rivalry. riiiight.
duke fans always seem to feign indifference when carolina clearly has the better team.
that’s exactly the kind of obnoxiousness that makes many college basketball fans, not just those from carolina, hate duke.
it’s kind of a shame too. as a carolina alum, i’ve always liked duke and generally root for them when not playing the heels. but u two are a bunch of #suckas for that
I find it hard to believe that students camp out for weeks in the winter to get tickets to a game they don’t care about. The rivalry is definitely still alive and I don’t think Duke will have any problem filling the stadium when they play us at home.
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