An Enduring Image

If anybody doubted the genuine love and respect (and some of these idiots are named elsewhere in this thread) between coach and players, there is no doubt now. If my son were talented enough to make the team, I would want him to play for Huggs. Calipari and his ilk can take a hike!

It is SCHEYER, not Schuyler. If you are going to be one of the people who hate Duke simply because “DUKE” is on the jersey, at least know the names of the players.

The Duke hate is funny. Never understood it, never will.

http://www.sbnation.com/2010/4/2/1398649/duke-final-four-2010-ncaa-tournament

but they also let you know HOW respectful they are and HOW clever and APPROPRIATE they are and HOW above it all they are. That is why I hate Duke, UNC, really the entire state of North Carolina. I’m from the south, Dad went to Clemson, so I grew up a huge ACC fan, loved Duke, even loved Christian Laettner, then I met some people that went to Duke, (UNC, Davidson, grew up in North Carolina) even dated one, hell I even applied to go to seminary there, but what I couldn’t see then and I see now is the smugness of the entire fanbase (which I used to think I was cool WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL). They believe that Coach K (Dean Smith/Roy Williams) invented basketball or at least perfected it, they believe that he doesn’t cuss or “work” the refs (or if he does he’s just being a good coach) and if other coaches cuss or “work” the refs, they are cheap and low-class.

It’s really about the smugness and arrogance, you didn’t invent basketball, you aren’t the only people that play basketball, you aren’t the only clever fans.

One last thing if you can’t see why someone would hate Duke, you need some real self-analysis maybe even professional therapy. For instance, there are people that think I’m awesome, there are also people that think I’m a HUGE asshole. I get both sides, mainly because I can take it and am emotionally mature enough (or try to be) to accept that maybe there are things I could work on.

Duke you could work on some things.

…this post and the one above give credence to the reason I read your posts, Oldtime. Right on. If only the Istan-bull could have rolled off the bench to give the black eye Zoobeck (mispelling intentional), broken nose, and fat lip he deserved…. AND…I, too, thought it was a moment (Huggins kneeling over Butler) not meant for television, a moment between people who know, trust, and love one another.

Which, as I alluded to above, begs the question: “who would want Rick Reilly to care?”

And, because I am, in a likelihood, considered as big a douche as anyone on this board, I have been pondering whoever’s comment above that he doesn’t understand the “Duke hate and never will.” I won’t lump the Poo Devils in with Yankees, since there is still some payroll disparity, but let me break it down in this way: Walmart or country store? It is that simple.

I can’t believe that the Mountaineers would have many fans that share similar love for WVU and some other blueblood team. When I meet them – those that adore WVU and say, the Yankees, I am amazed. And put off. Those that love any big market, treasured-history team can’t be anything but bandwagon WVU fans in my book. Because they get their sense of earned superiority from somewhere else. This is probably a longer post subject meant for its own spot elsewhere here…but I don’t really do that kind of thing anymore, so let me say this – My eldest son is playing on a baseball travel team. One of the kids on the team wears a Yankee warm-up suit to every single practice. An authentic Yankee warmup – pinstripes, stirrups, hat. Our team colors are maroon and white. His father screams at his son from the stands at every practice – everything the boy is doing wrong, everything on which he needs to improve, everything that he needs to do to be Derek Jeter. Now, anyone that has a lick of sense, that has been around sports at all, knows that the kids we watch, even at the college level, statistically are 1 in 30,000. At the pro level, it is almost 1-in-1,000,000. Yeah, six zeroes. And I am talking about nine-year olds – kids that haven’t even come close to making throws on a pro-level diamond, and have no idea what a 94-mph slider looks like. This is not to rain on the Little League/Pee Wee Football parade, but rather, to say, wake up. Your kid may be excellent at something, but it is probably not professional sports. Just odds. You can sink the same amount of time, thought, and rage into the lottery with the same results.

Which brings me back to rooting for Duke, the Yankees, etc. The reason that kid is wearing pinstripes is because his father identifies them as winners, even though he told me he has never been a Yankee fan, and only became one in 2001. People who don’t have a geographic reference to the teams for whom they care about are usually pretenders to a winning crown. Some of my best friends are fans of the Dallas Cowboys, the Poo Devils and their arch-nemisis the Tar Heels, the LA Lakers, the Yankees, even the Montreal Canadiens….and almost 100 percent of them have never been near the environs in which those teams play. Know why they root for them? Because those teams are winners. And they want to be associated with a winner.

Call a spade a spade. No real Mountaineer fan could say he is also a Duke fan, in the same way that no real Mountaineer would say he is also a Syracuse fan. Any Mountaineer fan that could claim the Blue Devils either had to live there as a youth, have an absent Dad that loves them, or most likely, became a Duke fan because the Blue Devils buoyed his spirits by winning a lot of times when the Mountaineers were nowhere to be found in the late rounds.

I was raised a Mountaineer fan. A Pirate fan (and times have sucked since ‘92). A Penguin fan (times are good). A Steeler fan (times are good, but Ben, please stop putting yourself in sketchy positions!). And I don’t care for the NBA. What do all those inclinations point toward? I was raised in Southern West Virginia and all the events I actually got to listen to, watch on TV, or attend, were within four hours of my hometown, which, I guess, at this point in a media culture that allows you to choose whatever you watch, makes me old-school.

I was at a rural West Virginian mall yesterday and I saw three young boys walking. Two wore Lebron James jerseys. One wore a Kevin Garnett jersey….the Celtics one, you know, the one after he left that other small market team. And this was in rural West Virginia. Not a place where those names would have even been known 20 years ago, because 20 years ago Magic and Bird were playing in the finals on tape-delay at 11 p.m. And even if you wanted a jersey, Spartan’s wouldn’t have had it. What does that say? People love winners and winners are marketable, even if some of those winners never even got near college.

If you aren’t from North Carolina, and you didn’t go to Duke so that you could experience its intense academic paranoia, which, by the way, would make you less of a supporter, why would you be a fan? Because you root for a winner, even if you may not be one yourself.

First, he’s not much of a Pitt fan if he is secretly rooting for WVU. I’ll never root for Pitt, no matter what.

Second, people in my office have been saying how it looked a little gay that Huggs was on the floor so close to DaSean, and that they were uncomfortable. They are really the only people I have heard say anything negative about it. Funny how perceptions are different.

I’m kinda having fun though…is that bad?