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Trash-Talking The 2013 Sweet Sixteen
Now that my brackets are so much smoldering wreckage, it is time for a big dose of what the original purpose of this blog was: a profanity-filled tirade about shit I don't like. This promises to be a particularly nasty edition since for the first time in the history of my filling out brackets, I've lost both teams I had playing on Monday Night in the first weekend tournament. So, since I can't like this tournament anymore, here comes the bile…
In alpha-suck-abetical order:
Why You Shouldn't Cheer For Duke: Largely Because Thanks to Lehigh, You Can't…And Mike Krzyzewski Is a Dick
First of all, Duke sucks. Even when they don't suck, Duke sucks.
Second of all, I honestly didn't think I would have to write my annual "Fuck Duke" post until next weekend, but thanks to the Mountain Hawks of Lehigh University, now that annual screed becomes more of a Blue Devil post-mortem. I went into this tournament thinking Duke was over-rated as a two-seed, but even I didn't have them going out in the first round (check out my bracket destruction at Sport Blog Movement).
So, having said that, let's take a look at why I thought Duke was over-rated:
- They have no inside presence
- They rely to much on perimeter shooting
- They can't defend against speed
All three of those thing congealed to end Duke's season early. But a big part of the problem with this season's team is that it traveled too far on a reputation that it couldn't back up, and a big part of that problem is the complete sham that is the reputation of Mike Krzyzewski.
What I've never understood about Krzyzewski is that he's a known disciple of Bobby Knight, and carries on just as much as Knight did, but Krzyzewski never gets called out for being such an unconscionable asshole. Sure, he doesn't throw chairs during games, nor does he have outbursts at press conferences, but all the other signs are there.
Raise your hand if you are tired of watching Krzyzewski scream unrepentantly at officials until every call goes Duke's way. Raise your hand if you wonder why the media has never exposed Krzyzewski for being every bit the abusive tyrant his mentor Bobby Knight was. Raise your hand if you don't get why nobody has ever noticed the Paterno-like ring of sycophants willing to lay down their lives for him. Raise your hand if you wonder when Krzyzewski and Dick Vitale are going to pick out a china pattern together.
Naturally, that last sentence explains a lot about why none of these questions ever get asked; resident ESPN analyst and personal Krzyzewski fellatrix Dick Vitale just can't understand why there is all this Duke hatred out there. Let's see if I can clear this up for Dicky V. While Knight may have been an asshole, at least he was an honest asshole. It is one thing to be an asshole; it is an entirely other thing to spend thirty years hiding you are an asshole.
The definitive rundown on this attitude toward Krzyzewski comes from a work called Duke Sucks authored Reed Tucker and Andy Bagwell. It is described by the good people at Deadspin as "a thorough charge-by-charge frisking of the worst college basketball program known to man." The following excerpt gives a detailing of the tone of this work, and if you still don't get it, we here at Dubsism will break it down for you.
Charge #9: [This charge has been redacted for fear that Coach K might call us and scorch the earth with f-bombs for twenty minutes.]
There's really no way to sugarcoat this for sensitive palates, so we're just going to come out and say it. Coach K is probably not the sweet hoops coach/business genius/grandfather-of-five that he, the media, the Duke basketball information office, Nike, Chevy, and American Express would like you to believe he is. In truth, he's probably kind of a jerk. Or a nickname-for-Richard. Take your pick.
Of all the high-profile coaches in the games, is there one you'd less like to spend a night drinking beer and playing Boggle with?
Okay, Rick Barnes, but after that? Really think about it for a minute.
Well, Bob Huggins always looked to me like he might be in the Russian mafia, especially when he took to wearing the track suits. Not to mention, Frank Martin from K-State..well, if he's not a KGB agent in the off-season is just a fucking scary dude. But, I digress…
On the likeability index, Coach K rates somewhere between Chris Brown and whoever runs Uzbekistan's intelligence agency. Krzyzewski is prickly. He takes himself way too seriously. His ego is inflated. He must be a little paranoid—a fingerprint scan is required to open the elevator doors to his office. No one would describe his sense of humor as "winning." He seems constantly in a bad mood and is quick to anger. He once told the media that he agreed with a player's assessment that his teammates were all a bunch of "fucking babies."
In the Old West, he'd be called "ornery." He's like one of those villainous dads from every high-school movie—the retired military man who makes his son's life miserable because of his unbending code of discipline. Hell, he probably uses military time. ("Practice is at oh-nine-hundred, sharp!")
That's a generous rating on the "likeability scale." In the old west, he'd be the guy who gets ambushed along the trail and left for the buzzards. For a West Point graduate, Krzyzewski is the kind of guy who becomes the Army officer who gets shot in the back of the head by his own troops, precisely because he does little beyond berating them. We'll come back to this point.
Here's a fun little exercise you can do yourself. Pull up a Google images search for "Mike Krzyzewski" and look what you come up with. See all those photos of him frowning or yelling? Keep scanning. Do you see any of him smiling? We mean, aside from his official university head shot where they probably ordered him to seem halfway cuddly? Do you see any candid photos of him on the sideline, out in the real world or at a press conference smiling? You don't. He looks downright constipated in most of the pictures.
But so what? He's an intense guy, we get it. That's probably, in part, how he's able to win so many games.
And that would be just fine, except that like so much when it comes to Duke, there's an element of hypocrisy here. You don't have to look too deep into Coach K before you realize that there's a huge disconnect between the guy's public image and the real person. Here's a man who theSporting News dubbed "what's right about sports." Here's a man who's beatified during practically every telecast. Here's a man who smugly intoned during his awful American Express TV commercial a few years ago, "I don't look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball."
How easy is it to dislike someone who exemplifies the most human characteristics of a rat all while being a two-faced elitist scumbag? This is Krzyzewski's major contribution to Duke; he is the titular head of the Hypocritical Douchebag Committee. At once, the Duke athletic culture (led by Krzyzewski) has developed a drum-beat, party-line rhetoric about creating scholar-athletes at a private university, which Krzyzewski seems to believe is the sacred ground for all that is holy in college athletics. This becomes more important later.
And when it comes to leadership, this guy is clearly more Dick Nixon than George H. W. Bush.
"I guess the thing that surprised me the most was you don't realize how much he curses and how much he's on the refs all the time," says former UNC guard Bobby Frasor. "I remember someone telling me about [former Duke player] Taylor King during his freshman year and how he thought his name was 'motherfucker,' because that's how Coach K got his attention. I don't know how true it is. I mean, he's a great coach and I'm not going to deny that at all, but the way he handles his players or acts with the refs and media, sometimes it kind of rubs people the wrong way."
Here's the part where you have to understand the difference between a leader who happens to be a dick (Bobby Knight), and a dick who is in a leadership role (Krzyzewski). While Knight had a reputation for being harsh with players, when he got the "bum's rush" out of Indiana, there were tons of former players who came forward in his defense. Again, he was an asshole, but he was an honest asshole. I get the feeling Krzyzewski would not get the same brand of loyalty, if for no other reason he has a huge case of "ivory tower syndrome," which is just a nice way of saying "complete hypocrisy."
Knight built a winning program and graduated his players at a public university, which Krzyzewski clearly has contempt for. What Duke and Krzyzewski simply don't get is that they have created a culture which mirrors all of the false idolatry which has gotten so many other people into trouble, yet stick their collective heads in the sand clinging to the "can't happen here" mentality with the false belief that Duke's ivory towers have some sort of shielding capability.
Duke and Krzyzewski in many respects have built each other. The Duke campus is rife with things named for Krzyzewski, there's a tightly knit culture in the program funded by wealthy donors and protected by an unwritten code about "keeping family business in the family."
Krzyzewski said it himself. In his 2007 book To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever, Will Blythe quotes Coach K as saying "Let's say at Ohio State that we did what we have done at Duke. There would be statues. There would never be anybody looking for anything wrong with what you did."
In retrospect, that's a chilling statement. While he uses Ohio State as his example of a large, public university with a brobdingnagian athletic department where a "Penn State" style problem can exist, there's no denying that Penn State completely fits the description he offers. Even worse are the suppositions hidden in that statement. Krzyzewski believes himself, and wants you to believe that such idolatry can only happen in a big, public-school setting, and that it is only because of private-school envy that people begrudge him in his success. Pot calling the kettle black, pure and simple.
So, how does that sort of hypocrisy affect one's leadership style? Well, for starters, it allows you to breed a culture of hypocrisy.
A New York Post reporter, sitting behind Duke's bench during a 2005 game, described the proceedings during a team huddle thusly:
"Krzyzewski himself was an unfiltered Chris Rock concert for much of the day, but one of his assistants was worse. During one timeout, with the starters sitting on the bench, gulping Gatorade, this was his idea of "coaching" them: "You're a bleep, and you're a bleep, and you're a bleeping bleep-bleeper of a bleeper-bleeper. You bleepers don't bleeping deserve to wear the bleeping colors of Duke University! Bleep! Are you bleeping bleeping me? Bleep all of you. Get out of my bleeping faces."
"At which point, he was replaced by Krzyzewski, whose assessment was far more succinct: "You bleeping make me bleeping sick."
That's more bleeps than a Source Awards telecast.
"His mouth is terrible. He has that reputation. You don't want kids sitting behind the bench, that's for sure," says former UNC guard Dewey Burke. "It takes a certain kind of player to deal with that over the course of four years. As players sitting around, yeah, we'll talk about how I don't know how I could play for a guy like that."
Of course, to really build such a culture, you have to let it spill down beyond the coaching ranks.
One of Coach K's tried-and-true motivating tactics is reportedly to completely blast the freshmen and other weak-link players during practice, only to later send a senior over to the player's room to explain why he was so angry.
After a particularly poor 2005 workout, during which Coach K reamed his players in front of more than two hundred invited guests, including NCAA president Myles Brand, forward Lee Melchionni told Sports Illustrated, "That's one thing about the Duke program: You're always going to get the absolute truth from Coach. You may go back to your dorm room and cry, but you're going to come back the next day and be better because of it."
This is the part where Dukies will try to tell me Krzyzewski gets loyalty from players. Sure they do, as long as they are still on the team. Krzyzewski is an unquestioned ruler, and you have two choices in Durham-istan; you can either toe the party line, or you can get shipped off to Siberia in a cattle car. I don't care how much hate mail I get for this, but I'm convinced Mike Krzyzewski is like the church minister who secretly likes little boys. He's got all the respect of the people who could out him, but none of them do because, after all, he is the minister. Besides, he's also that hypocritical asshole who preaches about character and discipline, then stomps around on the sideline like the biggest petulant shithead out there.
Oh, and then there's the fact that he treats everybody with a complete lack of respect.
And it's not just his players that he can be peevish with. It's also members of the media, whose existence Coach K seems to barely tolerate.
How many other head coaches won't deign to spend fifteen seconds with the designated TV sideline reporter at halftime, dispatching a lowly assistant instead?
"I don't agree with coaches doing that. It's a philosophical thing," Coach K has said. "The only people I should talk to are my players."
About the only time anyone gets access to the coach is during the postgame press conference, which can often turn churlish.
"Obviously, you didn't see the game tonight, okay?" Krzyzewski snapped, interrupting a journalist who was asking about Duke losing a lead during a 2004 game versus UConn. "Which question would you want me to answer?" he later barked.
During a 2008 press session for the U.S. Olympic team, the coach ridiculed a foreign journalist who asked in hesitant English whether the American team was showing off by dunking too much.
"There was no showing off," K said defensively, glaring at the journalist. "You dunk when you have to dunk. Maybe it's a difference in our languages. Maybe in your language playing hard means showing off."
And then there was Krzyzewski's most infamous run-in with the media—the student media, that is. In 1990, the coach blew his stack after a student sports reporter in the university newspaper dared to give his team a B+ midseason grade.
He summoned ten newspaper staffers to the locker room and let loose with an eight-minute profanity-laced tirade that would have given a gentler man a stroke.
Unbeknownst to K, one of the reporters secretly recorded the blowup with a tape recorder hidden in his bag.
Coach K began by calling the midseason report card "full of shit," and went on to whine, "I just wonder where your mindset is that you don't appreciate the kids in this locker room. I'm not looking for puff pieces or anything like that, but you're whacked out and you don't appreciate what the fuck is going on and it pisses me off—I'm suggesting that if you want to appreciate what's going on—get your head out of your ass and start looking out for what's actually happening."
Another coach might have been fired for a blue-streaked outburst against—again—student reporters. And not only students, but ones at his own school. But Coach K's reputation took only the slightest ding. Dick Vitale was probably on the air that very night gushing about how much K does for charity.
Are you starting to get the picture here? Lot's of other coaches would have at least been called on the carpet for such behavior. But not Krzyzewski, because he is the head of the Politburo in Durham-istan. That means he can get away with being a derogatory ass-hat, which by the way, is NOT a quality associated with great leaders. Nor is being a petulant cry-baby.
But let's face facts. The dude is just plain mean.
When Nick Collison, who was heavily recruited by Duke, called Krzyzewski to tell him he was going to Kansas, K didn't exactly wish him well. Or even pretend to. "He was like, 'I don't care. We got a commitment from Casey Sanders anyway,'" Collison told Kusports.com. (Sanders, a six-foot-eleven center, averaged 2.7 points for his career. Collison, meanwhile, currently plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder.)
During a 2005 Duke–North Carolina game at Chapel Hill, Coach K became incensed by a fan who yelled, "You've got [referee] Larry Rose in your pocket!" The coach had security move the fan farther away from the bench, according to the New York Post. The fan later turned out to be Scott Williams, son of UNC coach Roy Williams. Oops.
Anyone want to hire this guy to entertain children at a birthday party?
Why don't Krzyzewski's accomplishments come with a big, fat, shiny asterisk? Why does the man continue to be canonized in the media, while his surly side gets buried? Does winning basketball games make him that bulletproof?
No one is asking Coach K to become soft and cuddly, or even to clean up his language. His players, at least the ones that don't transfer, seem to like—or at least tolerate—his raw approach, and far be it from us to question that. But why can't a fuller picture of the coach be presented, so that we, the public, can form our own opinions, free of all the manufactured BS that Duke, Coach K, the media, and the advertisers want to shove down our throats?
When Yankees owner George Steinbrenner—another sports figure who was known to be demanding and prickly—died in 2010, his obituaries presented him as he was, warts and all. The New York Times recounted his felony conviction and the way he had been "overbearing and even verbally abusive" toward his children.
We can hope for nothing less for Coach K. But why wait until he passes away? No time like the present to start setting the record straight.
Verdict: What's former VP Cheney's first name again?
Frankly, to me, hating Duke always seemed so self-evident. It doesn't require Jim Rockford or the NASA supercomputer to figure out why. All you have to do is watch watch Coach Krzyzewski on the sidelines.
-Dubsism is a proud member of Sports Blog Movement
The Dubsism Top Fifteen Sports Stories of 2011
Being that we are at the end of what has proven to be a tumultuous twelve months, why not take a look back at the biggest sports stories of such a year? After all, I'm pretty sure nobody else does these sort of retrospectives…
15) The Establishment of Two All-Time Winningest College Coaches: Paterno and Krzyzewski
Will there again ever be a year in which we see the crowning of two all-time winningest coaches? We may not see either of those records (Paterno, 409 wins; Krzyzewski, 903 and counting) fall in the next half-century, let alone having them both occur in the same year.
14) Kevin Love's Double-Double Streak
For nearly 30 years, Moses Malone's record stood at 51 consecutive games, until Kevin Love scored 16 points and grabbed 21 rebounds against the Indiana Pacers for his 52nd straight double-double. Love's streak ended at 53 three days later at the hands of the Golden State Warriors.
13) Two More Yankees Make The Record Books
Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter…Get ready for two more monuments behind the center field fence in Yankee Stadium. Rivera notched his record-setting 602nd career save, eclipsing Trevor Hoffman's previous mark. And in the same season, Yank captain Derek Jeter smoked a long ball to reach the 3,000-hit milestone, becoming only the the 28th member of the exclusive club and the first 3K Yankee.
12) The End of The Peyton Manning Era
The Colts spent two decades as an NFL afterthought before the arrival of the wunderkind Manning in 1998, and now neck surgery may spell the end of the Manning era in Indianapolis. Manning's surgically rebuilt neck, his back-loaded contract, and the Colts prime real-estate in the upcoming NFL Draft form a perfect storm scenario in which if Manning does ever take an NFL snap again, it may be in a uniform not of Colt blue.
11) The Improbable Run to the Championship
When is the next time you will see such a harmonic convergence of "underdog" champions?
- NFL: The Green Bay Packers make the playoffs as the bottom 6th Seed.
- MLB: The St. Louis Cardinals literally make the playoffs as a wild-card on the last night of the season, then they win what may be the greatest baseball game in a generation, Game 6 of the World Series.
- NHL: Granted, The Boston Bruins were a #3 seed in the East, which isn't a prohibitive underdog, but nobody gave them a chance in the Stanley Cup Finals against the President's Trophy winning Vancouver Canucks
- NBA: Like the Bruins, the Dallas Mavericks entered the playoff tournament as #3 seed, but it was their complete domination of the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers which set the tone for the next two series, both of which saw Dallas facing teams which seemingly should easily over-match them in terms of talent on the floor. That was until Dirk Nowitzki decided to become unstoppable.
- NCAA Men's Basketball: Again, the #3 seed proved magical, as the Connecticut Huskies rode that to the top of the field of 64. The fact they played their way to that seed was only slightly short of a miracle, considering they entered their conference tournament as a #9 and had to play AND win four games in four days to ensure getting into the NCAA tournament. Honestly, the ten-game streak in the Big East and NCAA tournaments pulled off by the Huskies may be one of the great playoff runs of all time.
- NCAA Men's Ice Hockey: Another #3 seed…are you sensing a theme here? The University of Minnesota-Duluth (which is really the UCLA of hockey) had an improbable run to the championship of the Frozen Four.
- NCAA Women's Basketball: I know that it is hard to call a #2 seed an underdog, but let's not forget the womens' basketball world was dominated by a single goliath at Baylor which Texas A&M had to slay, but there was the ever-present team dragons in Tennessee, Stanford, and Connecticut.
10) The NBA Lockout
In what may prove to be a Quixotic exercise in abject futility, the NBA owners locked out the players on July 1st for reasons I still really can't understand given what has happened since the lockout ended. Star players getting big money has been the rule in professional sports for decades; Babe Ruth was the first jock to pocket more than the President of the United States. But when the Samuel Dalemberts of the world world are getting $13 million a year in a league that can't pull in big-time national TV money, the problem is much larger than a simple collective bargaining agreement.
9) The Death of the Man Who Made the NFL What It Is Today
There's a certain amount of irony in the fact the world lost Al Davis and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il in the same year. Much like the regime of Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il, the end of the Al Davis Era marks both the end of an era that once made the Raiders a serious factor in the world of the NFL, but now leaves them as an isolated dictatorship viewed as a pariah in contemporary circles.
Kim Il-Sung shaped at least a half-century of world history when he ordered the North Korean army into South Korea in 1950, starting a war that is still technically unresolved to this day. Al Davis forever changed the face of the NFL when he sued the league for the right to move his franchise as he pleased.
Much like Kim Il-Sung left his eternal mark on North Korea beyond the war, the legendary Raiders owner had six decades' worth of unique impact on pro football. I would be lying if I said that I never criticized Davis. Just a few months ago, I included him on my list of the 15 Worst Owners in Sports. However, as I said in that piece, that criticism was reserved for the Al Davis of the past 20 years or so.
For those of you under 30, you may not believe there was a time when Al Davis wasn't a batshit crazy Cryptkeeper look-alike and the Raiders were not the laughing stock of the NFL. In an 18-year span during the 70′s and 80′s, the Raiders won 13 division championships, made 15 playoff appearances, and took home three Lombardi trophies. This is the era when the Raiders were the winningest team in all of professional sports, and love him or hate him, Davis was a respected and visionary leader who helped build the AFL into a league so successful the NFL couldn't beat it so they joined with it.
That paragraph only scratches the surface as to what Al Davis meant to the world of professional football. Davis literally climbed the football ladder, going from college assistant coach to an NFL assistant coach, to head coach, to owner to AFL commissioner, to Super Bowl champion, and ultimately to the Hall of Fame.
Perhaps his single greatest honor is having made a record nine presentations of inductees to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Al Davis made presentation speeches for Lance Alworth, Jim Otto, George Blanda, Willie Brown, Gene Upshaw, Fred Biletnikoff, Art Shell, Ted Hendricks, and John Madden. Davis himself was enshrined in Canton in 1992.
Davis changed the game of football through sheer personality; a personality which was a collection of contradictions. At once, he was was loyal and rebellious; cantankerous and vindictive, yet sentimental. Yet through all that, Davis' name must be included amongst the founding fathers of the NFL; a name that must be mentioned with same reverence in NFL circles as that of George Halas.
His contributions to the league as a whole notwithstanding, there the matter of his success with the Raiders. His trademark slogans weren't just some words on a banner, it was a philosophy that propelled the three-time World Champion Raiders to the very top of the professional sports world. In the 48 year marriage between Davis and the Raiders, they had 28 winning seasons, including 16 in a row from 1965 through the 1980 World Championship season.
Davis died earlier this year died at age 82 and it's hard to dispute the Hall of Famer's place among the most influential of the sport's history-makers. Davis was controversial. He was a contrarian. But he was also a gift to the game.
8 ) The Ever-Deepening Cesspool That Is The NCAA
This is only layer one of what is wrong with the NCAA. The truly disgusting stuff comes later down this list. This entry is all about the corruption and the hypocrisy of the organization which is supposed to keep these factors out of college sports.
It all starts back in January when the NCAA first found violations at Ohio State, but let the players who committed the violations play in their bowl game. The theme here is the NCAA clearly values money over integrity. Keep this in mind as you read.
In August, the Miami situation broke, when it was reported that Nevin Shapiro was pumping thousands of dollars in illegal benefits to past and present Hurricanes players over the past decade. The tale told by Shapiro from his prison cell (he's currently parking his ass in a federal cell for his role in a $930 million Ponzi scheme) includes prostitutes, cars, cash, and paid vacations, much of which he alleges were known of by Miami staff and coaches. Shaprio dimed out the names of 73 current and former players.
Go back to the Ohio State situation. At first, this was just about tattoos. Then it mushroomed into costing head football coach Jim Tressel and starting quarterback Terrelle Pryor their jobs. In this case, it wasn't so much the crime, but it was the cover-up which killed everybody. But the fact the NCAA dicked around for months only underscores the fact they are not really than interested in enforcement.
Then there's the completely laughable finding that Auburn "committed no infractions" in the Cam Newton affair when there were admissions about cash payments totaling $180,000.
The best part is this isn't just teams who are mired in unethical activity. The Fiesta Bowl committee was exposed in a 276-page report which detailed allegations of Fiesta Bowl employees being reimbursed for donations to state and local politicians (which happens to be a felony), $1,241 spent at a Phoenix strip club was illegally charged to an expense account, and the misappropriation of $33,188 bill for Fiesta Bowl's president and CEO Junker's 50th birthday party. Junker has since been fired, but more stories like this will emerge until the swamp that is the NCAA is drained.
7) The Conviction of Barry Bonds
Another story indicative of what a depressing year in sports this really has been. Again, instead of talking about accomplishments on the field, we are dealing with matters decided in a courtroom.
In April, Bonds became the first player from a "major" sport to be convicted for an issue stemming from the latest round of scandal about performance-enhancing drugs. While he was acquitted of the more serious charges, just this past Friday U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued a 20-page order refusing to overturn the obstruction of justice conviction handed down by the the jury in her courtroom nearly eight months ago.
6) The Continuing Tectonic Shift in College football
Texas A&M is headed to the SEC. So is Missouri. Syracuse and Pittsburgh are bolting from the Big East to join the ACC. West Virginia is trying to ditch the Big East for the supposedly greener pastures of the Big 12; the same greener pastures TCU left the Big East at the altar for. In return, the Big East extended invitations to at least six teams, and the madness isn't over yet.
5) The Phenomenon Known as Tim Tebow
I've been watching football for nearly 40 years, and I've never…repeat NEVER…seen anything like the Tim Tebow story. He's either loved or hated; he's either the future of the Denver Broncos or an impostor. Everybody has a strong opinion, and everybody is convinced they are right.
Frankly, I have no idea what to make of the guy, so I'm going to stick with the facts.
- Whether or not the Broncos complete this miraculous run to the playoffs, there is no denying this team was on life-support when they handed Tebow the keys, and that team responded to him.
- The Tebow story is one of the few uplifting stories in a year in sports filled with so many negatives.
- Like it or not, Tebow is the biggest star in the NFL right now. Doubt that? Tell me another NFL player that had an hour-long special dedicated to him exclusively.
4) The Night of the Dueling Collapses
In the last story, I said I have been watching football for nearly 40 years. I can say the same for baseball, and again, I can say I never saw anything like the last night of the regular season. In what was inarguably the wildest night in baseball I've ever seen, the Red Sox and the Rays, and the Braves and the Cardinals entered the last game competing for the American League and National League wild-card berths respectively.
This set the stage for six hours of baseball that will be talked about for at least as many decades.
In the National League, the Braves blew a ninth inning lead, eventually losing in the 13th inning 4-3 to the Phillies. This loss opened the door for the Cardinals to capture the wild card by cruising past the Astros 8-0 to complete their amazing late season run; one that found them trailing Atlanta by 10.5 games on August 25th but prevaiiling in the end by winning 23 of their final 31 games.
Believe it or not, the collapse in the American League was even more epic. The Boston Red Sox led Tampa Bay Rays by nine games on September 4th, which seemed to be an insurmountable lead. It wasn't, as the Sox found themselves in need of a win on the last night of the season to keep their playoff hopes alive. The stars seems to be aligning Boston's way; they seemed on the verge of staving off a historic choke-job, taking an early 3-2 lead over the Orioles while the Rays fell behind the Yankees 7-0. But then somebody messed with the lenses of the Sox telescope; Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon surrendered consecutive hits to Chris Davis, Nolan Reimold, and Robert Andino to earn a season-ending 4-3 loss. Meanwhile, the Rays regrouped and mounted a comeback on the shoulders of a pair of dramatic homers from Evan Longoria, including a 12th-inning walkoff game winner.
3) The Fiasco of the Los Angeles Dodgers
We may never know how sordid the details of Frank McCourt's mismanagement of the Los Angeles Dodgers really are; what we do know is that after the Dodgers began showing signs of financial trouble in 2010, Commissioner Bud Selig made the decision to give the league control over the club's day-to-day operations starting in April 2011.
Since then, we've been treated to McCourt attempting to overturn Selig's take-over via the courts, then threatening to engage in more legal maneuvering over a proposed television deal with Fox Sports was rejected by Selig. Then since the Dodgers struggled to meet payroll deadlines, the club filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, all during which McCourt was embroiled in what may have been the nastiest divorce in the history of the state of California.
Thankfully, Major League Baseball and McCourt reached an agreement in October under which he will sell the team and the media rights by April 30, 2012.
2) The NFL Lockout
Really, all this lockout proved is that the NFL owners and players really don't understand the problems they have. They think this new collective bargaining agreement solves all the acrimony we all lived through, but that's an illusion made of money. Realistically, the NFL and the NBA share some common problems, namely that they have franchises in places they shouldn't, and those franchises are draining the league's resources. The difference is the NFL is the country's most popular sports league, it is literally floating on money, so it can pave over it's issues with revenue-sharing. When the NFL finally hits the point where it has priced itself out of the market (wait until you see what the new TV deal is going to do to your cable bill), all of a sudden the illusion made of money will disappear. Mark my words, the next NFL lockout (and there will be one) will look and sound just like the NBA lockout we just lived through.
1) The Penn State and Syracuse Sex Abuse Scandals
This is the one story here that transcends sports. We have all heard the allegations, we have all read ad nauseum about all the sickening details; there's really no need to rehash them here. What matters most is that these stories should serve as a wake-up call to all of us. We all must take a stand in stopping this sort of abuse of our children, and we must do it now. There is no excuse for any other course of action.
To that end, this should serve as the moment of truth for the NCAA. It's time to find out how many more Jerry Sanduskys and Bernie Fines there are out there, and it's time to ensure they are stopped. If the NCAA can't do that, then the NCAA needs to be dismantled.
Despite Mike Krzyzewski's Accomplishment, I Still Don't Have Any Respect For Him
Last night, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski became college basketball's all-time winningest coach, notching his 903rd career victory. This is a accomplishment worthy of note, and Coach K deserves the accolades being heaped upon him today.
But before you think I am one of those willing to put him on a pedestal, you might want to consider that my view of what Krzyzewski has created at Duke has changed immeasurably five years ago. For all his success on the court, Krzyzewski has been guilty of a major failure; one that has many similarities with scandal currently embroiling Penn State.
The scandal that enveloped the Duke lacrosse team a few years back served as a very nice "preview of coming attractions" for what's happeing at Penn State today.
Walk through the following steps if you don't belieive that.
Mike Krzyzewski himself. I get that he is a disciple of Bobby Knight, but there is a major difference. It is one thing to be an asshole; it is an entirely other thing to spend thirty years hiding you are an asshole. Naturally, resident ESPN analyst and personal Krzyzewski fellatrix Dick Vitale just can't understand why there is all this Duke hatred out there. Let's see if I can clear this up for Dicky V.
Raise your hand if you are tired of watching Coach K scream unrepentantly at officials until every call goes Duke's way. Raise your hand if you wonder why the media has never exposed Krzyzewski for being every bit the abusive tyrant his mentor Bobby Knight was. Raise your hand if you don't get why nobody has ever noticed the Paterno-like ring of sycophants willing to lay down their lives for Coach K. Raise your hand if you wonder when Coach K and Dick Vitale are going to pick out a china pattern together?
Crushing Hypocrisy. How easy is it to dislike someone who exemplifies the most human characteristics of a rat all while being a two-faced elitist scumbag? This is Krzyzewski's major contribution to Duke; he is the titular head of the Hypocritical Douchebag Committee. At once, the Duke athletic culture (led by Krzyzewski) has developed a drum-beat, party-line rhetoric about creating scholar-athletes at a private university, which Krzyzewski seems to believe is the sacred ground for all that is holy in college athletics. This becomes more important later.
Complete Elitism. Duke pretends it is a great place to send your sheltered, privileged kids all while it is located in an exceptionally dangerous neighborhood. The aforementioned hypocrisy not only feeds this faux elitism, but allows it to grow into the worst possible kind of elitism, the kind that has no ability for introspection and no proclivity for perspective.
What Duke and Krzyzewski simply don't get is that they have created a culture which mirrors all of the false idolatry which has gotten so many other people into trouble, yet stick their collective heads in the sand clinging to the "can't happen here" mentality with the false belief that Duke's ivory towers have some sort of shielding capability.
Krzyzewski created a culture of false idolatry and denies he did it. Duke and Krzyzewski in many respects have built each other. The Duke campus is rife with things named for Krzyzewski, there's a tightly knit culture in the program funded by wealthy donors and protected by an unwritten code about "keeping family business in the family."
Now for the punch in the gut for you Dukies…re-read the previous paragraph and replace the word "Krzyzewski" with "Paterno," and replace the word "Duke" with "Penn State."
Now before you take pen to paper and write some sort of bile-spewing invective to which you Dukies are prone telling me how the Penn State and Duke athletic departments have nothing in common, consider the following points:
Krzyzewski said it himself. In his 2007 book To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever, Will Blythe quotes Coach K as saying "Let's say at Ohio State that we did what we have done at Duke. There would be statues. There would never be anybody looking for anything wrong with what you did."
In retrospect, that's a chilling statement. While he uses Ohio State as his example of a large, public university with a brobdingnagian athletic department where a "Penn State" style problem can exist, there's no denying that Penn State completely fits the description he offers. Even worse are the suppositions hidden in that statement. Krzyzewski believes himself, and wants you to believe that such idolatry can only happen in a big, public-school setting, and that it is only because of private-school envy that people begrudge him in his success.
It gets even worse when you stop to consider the timing of these comments. These comments were made in the wake of Duke's own scandal surrounding the men's LaCrosse team. Granted, those allegations turned out to be false, but nobody knew that at the time these comments were made, and regardless of the veracity of the allegations, all kinds of Duke dirty laundry got publicly aired, and lots of people's lives were ruined.
In other words, Dukies and Krzyzewski got lucky their accuser was lying. Despite that, nobody at Duke took this for the warning sign that it was. Nobody in Durham seems to want to remember the first few weeks of the lacrosse scandal played out pretty much like the current situation at Penn State. For months, you couldn't pick up a newspaper without seeing a new sordid detail in Durham, and State College will be no different.
Duke ignored it's warning sign, and Penn State ignored its warning sign as well. This isn't Penn State's first go-round with a sexually charged scandal. Back in 2005, the Nittany Lions athletic department fell under scrutiny when a women's basketball player accused longtime Lady Lions coach Rene Portland of sexual discrimination by running the player off the team for being perceived as a lesbian.
Naturally, an internal investigation followed, and in 2006 the university found against against Portland. The university issued a written reprimand, a $10,000 fine and a warning to cease a pattern of sexual discriminatory behavior or risk being fired. But on the same day the university announced its actions, Portland responded to the results of the investigation at her own press conference, calling the university findings "flawed," and that she would return the next season.
Incredulously, the university let her get away with that, and she held on to her job before resigning following the next season. It shouldn't really surprise anybody that despite the announced resignation in 2007, rumors abounded that Athletic Director Tim Curley and President Graham Spanier had actually forced Portland out. So, not only did Penn State bungle the handling of that situation, they replicated it again a few years later, the irony being the same people willing to throw an anti-lesbian under the bus had no problem protecting a pedophile.
To see the similarities with Duke, all you have to do is look at the culture. University presidents, athletic directors, and players come and go, but when you get facilites and statues named after you, there's no denying that you control the culture of the athletic department. Paterno built a culture that allowed the protection of a child-raping monster, and Krzyzewski built one that closed ranks in a similar fashion given a similar scandal.
Denying the vibe that allowed the Penn State situation to happen is present in the Duke athletic department is pure denial. Not only have we already seen it in action with the lacrosse situation, its just plain to see if you are looking for it. Check out the irony in this comment I made about Krzyzewski in an article I wrote a year ago about programs I suspected of being dirty.
"I don't care how much hate mail I get for this, but I'm convinced Mike Krzyzewski is like the church minister who secretly likes little boys. He's got all the respect of the people who could out him, but none of them do because, after all, he is the minister. Besides, he's also that hypocritical asshole who preaches about character and discipline, then stomps around on the sideline like the biggest petulant shithead out there."
In all honesty, this is the part that tipped me off to the whole connection. I can't deny I'm a Penn Stater, but in light of recent events I refuse to be one of those who is a blind apologist for Joe Paterno. I see in retrospect the warning signs I glossed over, and there's no way I'm not going to point out these things when I see them.
Paterno used to stomp around on the sidelines in the same way Coach K does, and he never once got called out for it because he had been elevated to an immune status. That immunity allowed him to create and control a culture which eventually digested itself, and the same culture exists in Durham.
Krzyzewski and the "Cameron Crazies" enable each other, just like Paterno and the Penn State fan base did. On the surface, this may be the most obvious reason America hates Duke. Frankly, it always seemed so self-evident. It doesn't require Jim Rockford or NASA supercomputer to figure out why. All you have to do is watch Duke play, watch Coach Krzyzewski on the sidelines, and watch their fans. They are all obnoxious in their own way.
This leaves us with the upscale rabble known as the "Cameron Crazies." Somehow, they've become the gold standard in fandom over the years, and it's the most annoying Duke myth of them all. Duke fans are the worst kind; they are impossibly loud, they disappear if the team isn't winning, and most importantly, what they actually know about basketball you could squeeze into their ass and have plenty of room left for their brains. You know the type; the people who love sports just because it's an excuse to get dressed up and yell, but don't actually understand the game (think Minnesota Viking fans and you get the picture).
Rather than being basketball fans, Duke supporters tend to be pompous elitists who love to roll in the delight of their own feces and are hopelessly ultimate superiority. All one has to do is quote the following Duke fan confronting Elton Brand about his decision to leave Duke after his sophomore year, the first underclassmen to leave early during Krzyzewski's tenure at Duke.
From: Taylor, Jennifer
Sent: Friday, April 16, 1999 2:55 PM
To: Brand, Elton
Subject: Leaving Duke
I graduated from Duke last May and just wanted to express my disgust for your decision to leave the Duke program after only two years. As an alum, not only do I hold the school in high regard, but the basketball program as well, especially since both have deservedly garnered such a great deal of respect for their accomplishments.
As part of our basketball program, you represent Duke as a whole. We are first and foremost an academic school, you clearly did not belong at Duke in the first place if this was the extent of your commitment to Duke and a college education in general. You have not only insulted the current students who are putting in four years at a school they love, but also the thousands of alumni who have realized the value of a Duke education and what an honor and privilege it was to be there for four years.
If you do not realize the opportunity you have in front of you to play for Coach K and at the same time attain a Duke diploma, then that is certainly your loss. I just wish that you has spared us the notion that you were continuing in the tradition of being a Duke student-athlete, in emphasizing excellence in both academics and athletics. You will not be considered part of the Duke family, in my mind as well as many others. You have by no means proved yourself worthy of that title.
Jennifer Taylor
Now, never mind that Elton Brand was the best player to come through Duke University since Grant Hill. Forget that he was selected first overall in that year's NBA Draft. It isn't even important that it took a lifetime of dedication and hard work for Brand to get to that point. What matters is the attitude of this snotty little bitch who is all pissed off because he left her school. To Duke fans, it's never about great players like Brand; it's the system that made them successful.
Now compare that to this quote from an anonymous letter I received from a Penn State fan who doesn't believe I should be criticizing his beloved Coach Paterno.
"You are probably to stupid to realize this, but you are the reason a great university lost a great football coach. You call yourself a Penn Stater, yet you are amongst the ones who forgot about loyalty to the Penn State family. It is at a time like this that families stand together and protect each other. Instead, you chose to take the coward's route and point fingers at your own kind."
The rest of that letter becomes both profane and deranged, and ultimately ends with a death threat. But that quote speaks volumes to the mindset of the respective fan bases. Everything is about protecting what is "mine" and how the situation in question affects "me." Both have such a complete inability to see a larger picture that both need to be summarily dismissed. In other words, the people who are willing to remain blind always add to the damage caused strictly to protect the idolatry in which they feel personally invested.
Two weeks ago, I was one of those people. I thought Paterno was above reproach, and I was wrong. But there is no amount of loyalty to a sport that will make me obviate right and wrong. Paterno was an unquestioned ruler, and when the court became corrupt, it was incumbent on him to do something about it, and he did not.
Krzyzewski is also an unquestioned ruler, and we've already seen that Duke is not immune to scandal. While it is too soon to see what Penn State will learn from this, it is clear that Duke did not heed the wake up call they recieved five years ago. As the lord of the athletic department manor, it was up to Krzyzewski to show the leadership needed to change the culture he created, and he did not. Much like Paterno, no amount of wins can change that.
According to the NCAA, Everybody's Dirty – Even Arch-Criminal Joe Paterno
First there was Pete Carroll and USC. Then, there was Cheatypants McSweatervest and Ohio State. Lord knows what will come out of the whole Auburn/Cam Newton fiasco. Now, the web of trechery and deceit has ensnared the dean of college football, Joe Paterno.
You read that right, the esteemed elder statesman, who's literally been coaching since the leather helmet era, has run afoul of the NCAA.
The 84-year-old coach acknowledged Monday that he inadvertently broke an NCAA rule while walking through his own campus at Penn State. He said he stopped to watch several football players during their voluntary workout — he didn't speak to anyone — and then reported back to his other coaches that one player in particular looked good. One of the assistant coaches then told Paterno that he had committed an NCAA violation. Of course, it's a minor violation, but one that Penn State has already acknowledged it's reporting to the NCAA.
Of course, upon notification, Paterno was immediately arrested, charged with the violation, which according to NCAA by-laws allowed him to be named as a co-conspirator in the Lindbergh kidnapping, indicted in the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, and the Warren Commission was re-convened at which point they edited the Zapruder film to clearly show Coach Paterno on the grassy knoll with a Mannlicher-Carcona 6.5mm bolt-action rifle.
"Our compliance office is aware and will relay the circumstances to determine if there was a secondary violation," Penn State spokesman Jeff Nelson told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Let's be clear here…I get why the NCAA has some of the rules that it does, but we are talking about an old man taking a walk as a violation. What's next, outlawing feeding the ducks in the park?
Paterno actually spilled the beans during a taping of "Difference Makers: Life Lessons with Paterno and Krzyzewski," which chronicles the careers of the Penn State coach and Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Paterno was responding to a question about the current state of NCAA athletics and both he and Krzyzewski said the rules needed to be updated to keep up with modern times.
For once, I agree with Krzyzewski; largely because he agrees with Paterno. The NCAA is like a labor union; an organization that started with a noble purpose, then became corrupt while outliving its usefulness. There are people who have blatantly exploited the system for great personal profit (Cam Newton, Jim Tressel, etc…), meanwhile the NCAA has people reporting themselves for taking a walk.
This is just another example of how ridiculous the NCAA has become. Don't get me wrong, there does need to be some sort of governance to keep college football becoming the "Wild West." The trouble is now it doesn't have one; instead it has a dysfunctional group of hypocrites who exist solely to make college sports a big business, protect anybody who helps make it so, and pretend to be a guardian of virtue by enforcing a bunch of ridiculous rules that don't make a damn bit of difference.
I'd have a better ending for this rant, except the story is breaking that a Denny's in State College allowed Joe Paterno to order the "EarlyBird Special," despite the fact that it was 3:54 P.M., when the menu clearly states it is only available after 4. As a repeat offender, this may cost Penn State some scholarships…
News as it develops on Joe Paterno, the Arch-Criminal of the Millenium.
If You Didn't Understand Before Why Everybody Hates Duke, You Will Now
The other day, Duke uber-stud Kyrie Irving announced that he is leaving the hallowed halls in Durham for the Franklin-green pastures of the NBA. Of course, this led some Coach-K-turd-swallowing dickface at The Chronicle (Dukes' campus newspaper) to pen what has to be the purest, most uncut essence of what every self-respecting person in America knows about Duke. In short, Duke is merely a repository for the prototypical pompous, pain-in-the-ass, over-privileged white kid whose parents' money has kept him insulated from reality to such a point that he has no idea how much real people hate him.
For those of you who don't yet know what an asshole factory Duke really is, we here at Dubsism will breakdown this open letter from The Chronicle so that you can understand that which the rest of us already know.
Dear Kyrie,
Go pro.
Seriously. Declare for the NBA draft, hire an agent, pick out a nice suit and start practicing to look surprised when your name is one of the first to be called by Commissioner David Stern in June.
I mean, what's there to lose?
Sure, some of the Cameron Crazies will implore you to consider your legacy as a Blue Devil, to remember the history of the great Duke players before you who went on to successful NBA careers. They'll probably name drop the likes of Carlos Boozer, Grant Hill and Shane Battier, all guys who won NCAA titles before noteworthy careers in the pros (in spite of playing three seasons or more under one of basketball's greatest coaches). Don't follow in the footsteps of William Avery, you'll be warned; he made the wise decision to leave Duke after his sophomore year, and use the NBA as a stepping stone to an illustrious career in Europe. Don't let those comparisons get you down, though, even if Avery did get the privilege of watching from the sidelines as his former college teammates celebrated a national championship.
Plus, sticking around and winning a fifth national title for the Blue Devils is just selfish, even if you haven't ever won one yourself. Think about it: Cameron is already full of national championship banners, and adding one of your own would ruin the symmetry in the rafters. Sure, you'll give up your chance to be remembered as one of Duke's all-time greatest basketball players, but I bet if you asked Christian Laettner, he would tell you that fans don't remember collegiate legacies anyway. Well, at least until he tries to visit Kentucky, where his likeness is still routinely burned in effigy on the anniversary of "The Shot."
If you haven't already figured out what a miserable little shitbag the author is, let me show you the dead-giveaways. First of all, he doesn't even wait three sentences before he invokes the most-bile-spewing thing about Dukies, that so-called bullshit "legacy as a Blue Devil." Sure, he cherry-picks William Avery because he left Duke early, and because he was considered to be a "draft bust." I say he cherry-picks because he doesn't mention other Dukies who split town ahead of schedule. Where's the hate for Luol Deng? Where's the hate for Avery's teammates like Elton Brand and Corey Maggette? Oh, that's right, leaving Duke clearly wasn't a mistake for those guys.
As long as we are talking about "the Blue Devil legacy," what about the guys who stayed for all four years and it didn't help them. How about Avery's teammate Trajan Langdon? What good did Duke do him? If you go with this author's logic, Avery would not have ended up hooping in Europe had he stayed at Duke. Langdon did, and where is he now? Playing for CSKA Moscow.
Then, there's the whole Laettner thing. See that picture above? Know how I found about that picture. I was listening to the Dan Patrick Show a few weeks ago and Laettner himself pointed out the existence of these shirts in Kentucky. I understand you were aiming for satire in that "Laettner doesn't think collegiate legacies matter" quip, but getting quality satire out of a Chronicle writer is like getting great NBA talent out of a Dukie…we'll come back to that point in a bit.
And if you're still not convinced, remember that if you go pro, you might not even have to play next year! Who really wants to play, anyway? Sure, you won't get paid any of that major contract that you'd sign as a top draft pick, but at least you won't have to endure the grind of professional sports. Some of those same haters from before will probably call it a wasted season, as Europe will probably be the only place to play in the interim, but that won't affect your NBA salary. As long as the rookie salary structure stays the same, that is.
Plus, just think of the NBA franchises you could possibly play for! While the NBA Draft lottery hasn't happened yet, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the frontrunners after enduring an NBA-record 26-game losing streak this season. With the Cavs, your most talented teammate would be center Anderson Varejao, the real-life equivalent of Sideshow Bob, whose curly locks will be a comedic distraction from his lack of on-court ability. Trust me, you'll need to actively search for reasons to smile playing on the perimeter with an overweight Baron Davis, who was shipped out of Los Angeles because he was so out of shape that his owner started heckling him.
Usually, there's a fine line between satire and being a douche-nozzle, but this guy blew right through it. If I'm a guy extolling the virtues of being a Dukie, the last thing I want to get into is picking on guys who aren't great NBA players, since nobody has produced more big-name, small-game players than Duke has. Doubt that? Check out this list of mediocrity:
- Grant Hill
- Luol Deng
- Elton Brand
- Shane Battier
- Carlos Boozer
- Chris Duhon
- Mike Dunleavy
- Dahntay Jones
- Corey Maggette
- Shavlik Randolph
- JJ Redick
- Shelden Williams
- Alaa Abdelnaby
- Mark Alarie
- William Avery
- Gene Banks
- Chris Carrawell
- Johnny Dawkins
- Brian Davis
- Kenny Dennard
- Daniel Ewing
- Danny Ferry
- Mike Gminski
- Dave Henderson
- Nick Horvath
- Bobby Hurley
- Nate James
- Christian Laettner
- Antonio Lang
- Trajan Langdon
- Roshown Mcleod
- Lee Melchionni
- Tony Moore
- Martin Nessley
- Greg Newton
- Cherokee Parks
- Ricky Price
- Casey Sanders
- Vince Taylor
- Jay Williams
It would be easier to mention the guys on that list that didn't suck in the NBA, because there's about six of them at the most.
Or you could end up in Toronto, affectionately dubbed years ago The City Where Basketball was Single-Handedly Killed by Vince Carter. In fact, the Raptors' website is already looking forward to your debut season, advertising the "lowest season seat prices ever" in 2011-12. Playing for the Sacramento Kings is another option, though I hear the franchise is still preoccupied with getting their Tim Donaghy-scandalized 2003 Western Conference title back from the Lakers.
You're really going to tell me that being in some working-class, southern shit-hole like Durham is better than pretty much anywhere in the NBA? Granted, the NBA plays in some pretty rotten cities like Chicago, Detroit, and (for now) New Orleans, but even those places have more to offer than Skeeter's Bait Hut and the Annual Lacrosse Rape-o-Rama. Durham is know as the "Medicine City," largely because if you were a physician intending to give the state of North Carolina an enema, Durham is where you would place the nozzle.
That's all there is to consider. Rest assured, you'll never regret leaving Duke after just one year, never wonder what might have been if you stuck around to play with the nation's No. 2-ranked recruiting class, which by the way includes your longtime friend and teammate Austin Rivers. It's really a no-brainer.
I look forward to your announcement, even if you ignore my advice and stay in school, er, I mean, go pro.
Chris Cusack
I almost don't know where to start with a response to that last bit. There's so much stupidity in those last few sentences reading them was like cutting into an onion of stupidity and the stupid fumes burnt out my eyes. It's almost as if you don't understand that guys who play professional basketball, even if only in Europe GET PAID. It's bad enough you expect these guys to be grateful for being in an unflushed toilet like Durham, it's bad enough to subject real basketball talent to a career-destroyer like Mike Krzyzewski (seriously, where are the hoardes of Hall-of-Famers that were coached by "one of basketball's greatest coaches?"), and it's bad enough that they have to live through all this shit under the auspices of a bunch of completely self-absorbed, sniveling little ass-wipes like you, Mr. Cusack. To top it all off, you then spew this kind of shit when they decide it is time to head for greener pastures.
I'm guessing that you are at Duke preparing for a career as some sort of journalist. If I'm correct, eventually you will have learned what you can at Duke, and set off to ply your trade out in the non-Duke world. So, why is it such a big problem for you that some basketball player does the same thing? Is it because a) you are a self-centered hypocrite for whom other people only exist to serve your whims b) you believe basketball players exist solely for your entertainment and they should be grateful for even being allowed into your Dukie ivory tower c) you view athletes as intellectually inferior and you are pissed off because a guy like Irving will make more money on one signature than you ever will in your entire life or d) all of the above.
Now for the really stupid part. Irving isn't the first guy to leave early and get this kind of bullshit out the Dukies; he won't be the last. But if you folks at Duke don't understand that this attitude is part of the reason why players leave, eventually they will simply not come to Duke in the first place. Your sainted Coach K is in his mid-60's; whether you want to admit it or not, his best days are likely behind him. This means your incredibly petulant attitude which is currently just really fucking annoying will sooner than you think become a serious detriment to recruiting. Even now, a Duke diploma is only useful if you intend to go to law school; fora basketball player it might as well be printed on a roll.
The beauty is even a dullard like you, Mr. Cusack, figured out right away you had stepped in it big time, judging by this follow-up posted on The Chronicle's website mere hours later.
I'd like to respond personally to some of the claims made about my column today.
"Because I thought it was totally cool when my inbox had 600 e-mails in it instead of the normal 2, until I realized that all 600 of them threatened to break all my fingers."
First, I sincerely apologize to everyone who was offended by its content; it was my intention to be satirical, not hateful. My original intent was simply to show that there are valid reasons to stay in college in an admittedly less-than-original format, through the caricatured mind of a Duke fan, not to imply that Kyrie Irving 'owes' Duke students another year, or anything of the sort.
I've already made mention of the fact that Cusack simply isn't a talented enough writer to pull of satire. He should probably stick to things like Hallmark cards and DMV manuals, because even his attempt at an apology is horrible. First, he tries to lay the blame for his bullshit on the "less-than-original" format, then he tells all his readers he was mocking THEM! In a really fucked up way it makes sense, because the only people who are dumb enough to believe he doesn't think Kyrie Irving owes something to dumb Duke fans are dumb Duke fans.
Second, I regret deeply that this column was interpreted as having racial undertones. That was, of course, not my intention: I would have written this article about any potential one-and-done player, especially one as talented as Irving.
I have to be fair here, the only people who saw anything racist in this are the people who believe saying anything about a black person is racist. Frankly, there was about as much racism in this piece as there was satire.
Third, there is nothing I would enjoy more than to see Irving achieve success wherever he plays. I did not mean to imply that he should put off a huge NBA contract to satisfy Duke students and fans, nor insinuate that in leaving for the pros he would forfeit what he has already accomplished in Durham. I simply intended to highlight some of the reasons for staying, with a little bit of humor thrown in. His decision should be based only on what is best for him and his family, not the opinion of this writer.
Read that last paragraph and say it back to yourself, except in the complete opposite, and you will get a hefty dose of the truth. He would love to see Irving snap a femur in his first NBA game and never recover. He firmly believes Irving's place is at Duke providing entertainment to him and the rest of the Cameron Cuntfaces.
At the end of the day, some idiot took it upon himself to speak for the attitude that runs just under the surface at Duke, and then when he got called on it, he made up some bullshit excuses to hide behind. He says his intention was to show "there are valid reasons to stay in college…through the caricatured mind of a Duke fan." It is really important to note that Cusack never denies these attitudes exist amongst the Dukies, in fact you can tell he wrote that piece fulling intending to stroll the campus getting a never-ending series of "high-fives" for reminding that basketball player where his place is.
In other words, he showed us all what an astonishing lack of character it takes to be a Duke fan, therefore reminding us all why hating Duke should be an American birthright. For that, Mr. Cusack, we all owe you a tip of our collective caps.
The Dubsism Top Fifteen Sports Events of 2010
Let's just cut to the chase here…everybody else does some sort of "Year End" list, here's our obligatory ramble on what we consider to be the 15 most significant sporting occurrances in 2010.
Honorable mention: The Vuvuzela
What began as a seemingly harmless noisemaker instead became a symbol of what happens when you hold a world-class sporting event in some third-world toilet. I don't care if it isn't "politically correct" to say it, but the fact is South Africa is a crime-ridden shithole and holding the Wold Cup there was a complete disaster. Not only is the country a blight by even "poor nation" standards, but it is a ten-hour flight away from the nearest civilized place. Lets' be even more honest; the reason why South Africa sucks is because it is inhabited by a bunch of low-rent trashballs ; its like every other country on earth rounded up their "Cousin Eddies" and dropped them in South Africa. This is why they had no problem at all ruining every World Cup telecast with the Vuvuzela, a two-dollar plastic horn which when pressed to the lips of a South African emits a droning cacophony similar to a cat stuffed in a bagpipe caught in a washing machine. It speaks volumes about a country that can make one of the world's great sporting events almost completely unwatchable.
15) All The (Vi)King's Men Couldn't Put The HumptyDome Together Again
What else can you say? Combine a stadium built on the cheap, go even cheaper on the maintenance, and add three decades of Minnesota winters, and who could be surprised when this happens? Just be prepared to see this collapse as a precursor to your new Los Angeles Vikings.
14) Connecticut Almost Convinces Us Women's Basketball Is A Real Sport
But only almost…thankfully, that winning streak finally ended at 90 games last night. Granted, winning that many games in a row in anything is impressive, even if the sport isn't particularly so. Think anybody cares about women's basketball? Then tell me how you did in your women's basketball bracket at the office last year?
13) The World Shuns America At Its Own Expense
It seems nobody wants to play here, given the failure of US World Cup and Olympic Bids. Honestly, I get the Olympic failure since Obama made himself the face of the Chicago bid, and since nobody internationally has nay respect for him and since Chicago is America's answer to that third-world shithole known as South Africa. But putting the World Cup in Qatar? Seriously?
So, we'd rather have matches played in an atmosphere of possible sudden-death political instability and 200-degree temperatures rather than to be in a country that would pony up top-dollar for this event? I understand there is some sort of Euro-Chic in hating on Uncle Sam now, but before you get to involved in such behavior, you may want to stop to check how many of those hated American dollars flow into such events, then imagine what those events might look like without any American investment.
12) The So-Called Demise of Tiger Woods
I really have a hard time with calling what happened to Tiger Woods a "demise," which places me in direct contrast with "mainstream sports media." I understand the guy went through a huge personal drama, and likely got majorly skinned in his divorce, but calling his drop from the #1 golfer in the world to #2 a "demise" is ludicrous. From Merriam-Webster:
Demise: intransitive verb2: to pass by descent or bequest <the property has demised to the king's heirs>
So, Tiger Woods didn't win a tournament this year. Boo-fucking-hoo. Phil Mickelson has made a career out of not winning tournaments. How do I become so "dead" that I still earn $1.3 million dollars? How do I become so "dead" that I likely will be the top golfer in the world again within 1 year?
11) Brett Favre Pisses Away His Legacy
How appropriate is it that the last image of King Brett I as a football player we will have is him splayed out on the deck, knocked cold slap 0ut? As sports fans, we may not have seen such a mythic figure bow out so disgracefully since Muhammad Ali…except "The Greatest of All-Time" didn't sully his reputation with allegations of texting pictures of his weiner to some bimbo. However, in terms of a great athlete just not knowing when to go away, Favre's huge career, his folk status, and a big chunk of his legacy with a purple arm and pictures of his "purple-headed warrior" all gets flushed simply because he couldn't realize when the party was over.
10) A Figure Skater Saves the Olympics for Canada
Sure the Canadian hockey team won Gold; if they hadn't, all of the Great White North may have collectively taken their final luge run. Face it, you really couldn't have a much worse start to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Hours before the Opening Ceremonies, Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili died after crashing during a training run. The lack of padding and protection on the dangerously fast Whistler sliding track was just the most consequential of problems plaguing these games; a mechanical torch malfunctioned during the opening ceremonies, an ice-resurfacing machine broke down at the speedskating venue, and snow had to flown in for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events.
But once the media stopped fixating on what some dubbed the "Glitch Games," there was some real drama. Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette used her long program to clinch a bronze medal. What could be more dramatic than rallying from behind to save the dignity of a nation? Rallying from behind to save the dignity of a nation AND have a freshly-dead mother. ?Two days before the start of the short program, Rochette's immediate female antecedent suffered a fatal heart attack. Rochette decided to compete anyway, uttering the nearly-standard dead-parent cliche "I know what it's what my (insert parental reference here) would have wanted me to do." After skating through her visible grief in the short program, the Canadian fans gave her a rousing ovation.
Why does such syrupy, cliche, quasi-bullshit make the list of such a hard-edged blog like Dubsism? Because after the emotional competition, Rochette pumped 21 words worth of pure truth into the moment when she endearingly eulogized her mother with the quip "even though she is not here any more, I'm not afraid to say sometimes she was a pain in the ass."
9) Graeme McDowell Defines "Clutch"
America's chances for a repeat win in the Ryder Cup looked slimmer than an Ethiopian on P90X, as the Yanks trailed by by three points going into the last day of this year's prestigious team golf event. But during the singles matches, the Americans mounted a furious comeback against the Europeans. Even Tiger Woods, who was awful iafter his "demise," throttled his Euro-pponent. The U.S. tied the tournament at 13 ½, with only American Hunter Mahan and Graeme McDowell left on the course. On the 16th hole McDowell was up 1 hole on Mahan. McDowell only needed to cup a 15-foot birdie putt to prevent an epic European collapse. He drained it, and Mahan blew the next hole, which forced him to concede the match.
8 ) The New Orleans Saints Win
Let's not lie about anything here, if you wanted to define "shitty" in the history of a sports franchise, the New Orleans Saints would be in that conversation. However, they took a step away from that legacy last February's Super Bowl XLIV. Funny to think how one gamble could payoff so big for a city that really doesn't deserve it.
At the start of the second half, the New Orleans Saints trailed the Indianapolis Colts 10-6, and the Colts were set to receive the ball to begin the 2nd half. were set to kick-off. But the Saints pulled off an on-side kick; a maneuver that had it back-fired would have given the Colts excellent field position and a chance to put the game out of reach. However, the gamble paid off, the Saints recovered the kick, and the game's momentum shifted in an instant. New Orleans marched 58 yards downfield for a touchdown, and went on to win the game 31-17.
"Four years ago who ever thought this would be happening when 85 percent of the city was under water from (Hurricane) Katrina," said New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, the game's MVP, who completed 32 of 39 passes, for 289 yards, and threw two touchdown passes for a team that had been a perennial loser for most of its 43 seasons in the league. "Most people not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back or if the organization and the team would come back. … This is the culmination of that belief and that faith."
Fuck all that Katrina shit. Fuck it with a nuclear-powered, reciprocating fuck stick. I'm so tired of hearing about what a tragedy Katrina was. The real tragedy of Katrina was that there was anything left of that absolute shithole afterward. New Orleans is the rectum of North America, and anybody who says they love that city should be forced to live there. When I was a kid, my dad's job got transferred to the "Big Shitty" and it took no time at all for him to want to get out of that sleaze pit. The average mope who shows up to get drunk in the French Quarter for a weekend would recoil in horror of their surrounding if they had to get their mail there; most of them would be gone within six months.
If you doubt that, ask yourself a question. Look at all the sports franchises that have relocated in the past 40 years and ask yourself why nobody except for the NBA went to New Orleans. Granted, the NFL was already there. But baseball never went to New Orleans; baseball never even considered the "Big Shitty." When hockey teams flooded the south, nobody went to New Orleans. Even the aforementioned NBA deserted the city in 1979 when the Jazz decided five years was enough, and the current Hornets franchise has taken seven years to end up being owned by the league and destined to relocate. Not to mention the Saints had to be given a deal to keep from leaving until 2025, although that deal is rumored to be chock full of escape clauses which make it entirely possible they depart for another city in the next five years.
The most memorable moment of the World Cup tournament came from the Uruguay/Ghana match. Near the end of extra time in their quarterfinal match with the game tied 1-1, the safe bet was the teams were headed for penalty kicks. Yet Ghana had one last chance to score, on a free kick, and the set piece was a beauty. The ball was delivered towards the goal box, then headed across four Uruguay defenders before the Uruguay keeper batted it down. On the rebound, a Ghanian had a clear shot at the goal, but Uruguay forward Luis Suarez positioned himself perfectly in front of the net to knock this flick off his leg. This rebound floated to the head of Ghana's Dominic Adiyiah, who quickly batted it back towards the net. This time, Suarez had no defense but his hand. This intentional foul gave Ghana a penalty kick, and what looked like an improbable win. A World Cup's worth of suspense and improbability unfolded over these ten seconds in South Africa.
Then things got even more unreal. Ghana's best player, Asamoah Gyan, shanked the penalty kick that would have sent an African nation to its first World Cup semifinal, breaking a continent's heart. Uruguay eventually won on penalty kicks, turning Gyan into the World Cup equivalent of Scott Norwood.
6) The Perfect Game That Wasn't
The only, and I mean only reason this gets on this list is timing. Blown calls happen all the time, but this one happened to be out #27 of what should have been a perfect game. When Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga crossed first base with the ball in his glove in the top of the ninth against the Cleveland Indians on June 2 everyone knew he had just completed a perfect game. Everyone, that is, except the umpire.
To the amazement of everyone watching, Jim Joyce ruled that Cleveland's Jason Donald had actually just beaten Galarraga to the bag after hitting a grounder to the right of Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera. You didn't need the replay except as validation, it was simply a blown call made at the end of a game. How many perfect games got snuffed by a bad call in the third inning? Nobody knows because nobody pays attention to such an event until the seventh.
5) Cinderella Almost Busts Everybodys Balls
Rarely has a half-court heave carried the vanquished hopes of so many underdogs. With 3.6 seconds left in the men's college basketball championship between perennial power and heavy favorite Duke, and small-school underdog Butler playing in front of hometown fans in Indianapolis — it was a script straight out of the movie Hoosiers — Duke clung to a two-point lead. On a second free throw, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski ordered Brian Zoubek to miss , since Butler had no timeouts left, and thus wouldn't be able to set up a last second-play.
Coach K is a bonafide Hall of Famer, but that strategy was atrocious. The intentional miss gave Butler a chance to win, and the Bulldogs took full advantage. Butler's Gordon Hayward pulled down the rebound, and dribbled toward half-court: teammate Matt Howard delivered a brutal screen on Duke's Kyle Singler, giving Hayward a clean look at the hoop. Hayward's running half-court shot seemed to hang in the air forever. When it finally came down, right on line, many a fan's gut feeling had it going in. But it bounced off the backboard, and jetted past the rim, and Kryzyzewski won his fourth national title on one of the worst decision is his career.
This is an issue that defines the term "double-edged sword." On one side, you have a definite need to protect players in an era where we are discovering the long-term physical and mental damage caused by football violence. On the other, you have a sports that actively markets such violence. Rather than continue to walk the tightrope, the NFL acted aggressively, telling players that the league would increase fines and issue suspensions for those who violated safety rules which have actually been in place for several years. The problem is that in the process, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell showed himself to be both a hypocrite and an authoritarian, autocratic leader. This change was brought about by complete executive fiat; there was no warning, there was no consideration of the impact, there was just "do it or else." This led to a lot of cry-babyism from defensive players, however the larger issue is this has proven to be a wedge issue between the players and the league at a time when the league finds itself perilously close to a work stoppage. Making the matter even worse is that these punishments are being levied in the name of player safety, a claim that rings hollow with players as the league threateend to eliminate health coverage for player as part of the new collective bargaining agreement.
3) The Most Awesome Piece Of Sports History Americans Won't Understand
Certain sports milestones seem simply unreachable; Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, or Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game. In cricket, it's the one-day double-hundred; no man had ever produced 200 runs for his team during a one-day international match. However, in February, India's Sachin Tendulkar hit the magic milestone against a powerful South African squad. Tendulkar smacked three "sixes" — the cricket equivalent of a home run — during his epic performance. When he reached 199, the home crowd in Gwalior waved Indian flags, and roared, knowing they were about to witness history. The diminutive Tendulkar, dubbed "The Little Master," slapped a single past the South African fielders. The world's 1.5 billion cricket fans had a moment they'd never forget. Tendulkar removed his helmet and raised his arms toward the sky. "Take a bow, master," said television commentator Ravi Shastri, himself a former cricket star for India. "Aw, you little champion," his partner, former New Zealand cricketeer Danny Morrison chimed in. "If there was ever one deserving to break this milestone, this Everest, it is certainly Sachin Tendulkar."
You'll never a tennis score like it again: 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68. At Wimbledon this June, American John Isner and Nicholas Mahut of France played a fifth set headed for infinity, thanks to Wimbledon's shunning of fifth-set tiebreakers. In all, their historic first-round match lasted a record 11 hours and five minutes, and had to be played over the course of three days. It was the longest match in tennis history, and during the 138th game of the fifth set, Isner stroked a backhand winner down the line to finally break Mahut's serve, ending the match.
It says something about Americans' priorities that one evening in July, some 10 million people tuned into ESPN, dying to know what color uniform a guy would wear next year. As absurd as the spectacle seemed, it was simply the culmination of a year in which the NBA buzzed loudest off the court, as the summer free-agent frenzy sparked endless speculation about where stars like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Amar'e Stoudemire would land. The homegrown Cleveland Cavalier superstar chose to announce his intention to join buddies Wade and Bosh in Miami on a nationally-televised ESPN special, pompously dubbed "The Decision." James said he was doing the cable special for charity, donating the show's advertising revenue to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
But after James dumped the Cavs on national television in front of an in-studio audience of kids from the Greenwich, CT Boys and Girls Club, with the now-infamous words "I'm going to take my talents to South Beach," his popularity took a hefty hit. The backlash was quite stunning, especially since James had made few, if any, public relations errors in his wildly successful career. He did, however, win some sympathy when Cleveland owner Dan Gilbert, within hours of James' announcement that he was signing with the Heat, released an invective-filled letter to Cavs fans (some of whom were burning LeBron jerseys in the streets), in which he called James "narcissistic" and accused him of "cowardly betrayal."
For a guy looking to win a championship or two, bailing on the Cavs was probably smart. But LeBron's "Decision" was a public-relations disaster.
Hating Mike Krzyzewski Postponed Due to Baseball
Why do they always put the NCAA basketball Championship game on baseball's Opening Day? This forces many sports fans to into a choice as to which great sporting they will watch; the beginning of the best sports seasons in America or the culmination of one of its biggest events. In any event, the fact that I stuck with Opening Day means I'm a bit late to some needed hating on Mike Krzyzewski.
Naturally, resident ESPN analyst and personal Krzyzewski fellatrix Dick Vitale just can't understand why there is all this Duke hatred out there. Let's see if I can clear this up for Dicky V.
Fark Rule #1: Duke still sucks. Regardless of the day or its events, I could never miss that. Of course, this also means the Mike Krzyzewski is still one of the most dislikeable people in all of sport. He runs a program that loves to be elitist; the arrogance of Duke knows no bounds. For example, now that Duke has won its fourth national title under Coach Krybaby, Dukies are mistakenly calling him the greatest basketball coach of all time.
Granted, this accomplishment ties Coach K with Kentucky legend Adolph Rupp, but in terms of titles doesn't even get him halfway to the Wizard of Westwood, John Wooden. UCLA's 10 NCAA championships under Wooden represents one the most unlikely marks in sports to ever be equaled. As far as professional coaches go, the comparison can't be made as Coach K has never coached in the NBA. Even if he does take the New Jersey Nets up on the offer to lead that sorry franchise, Coach Krybaby is never to going to come anywhere near the greatness that is Phil Jackson.
But Jackson need not worry as that's only one reason why Krzyzewski isn't going to leave Duke. The most obvious reason is power. Let's be honest, in Durham Coach Krybaby has all the trappings of an unquestioned ruler. College basketball is a coaches' game and coaches can dictate like they could burn the Reichstag anytime they wanted to, which is the exact opposite in the NBA. In the professional ranks, the players' salaries lap those of coaches, the players have a union, and coaches with an authoritarian style don't last long.
It really is a bit sad that Krzyzewski won't go to the NBA. I rarely watch the NBA which means I likely would never have to see that stupid "four more years to Gene Keady" combover on top of Coach K's face, which always has a look on it like he just sniffed a used jockstrap. But I would make it a point to tune in to see the Coach Krybaby press conference as he is getting grilled by the New York media as to why his team sucks, if for no other reason than to see Krzyzewski deal with tough questions rather than the usual idolatry to which he is accustomed.
But the saddest part is we may never get to see Krzyzewski on the receiving end of something he really deserves…succumbing to his inevitable fate, pulling one of his usual screaming tirades and getting P.J. Carlesimo-ed.
Why You Shouldn't Cheer For: The Duke Blue Devils
As we are moments from the tip of Duke-West Virginia, it is time for another quick reminder why Duke should never get the support of right-thinking people anywhere. Today's reason: Mike Krzyzewski is a humorless crybaby.
The following ran in the Indianapolis Star on Friday:
No, that's not some post-production work done by a North Carolina fan; that's how that baby looked when it hit the streets of the Circle City. Of course, Coach Krybaby had a tantrum and the Indy Star knuckled under.
As ESPN was more than happy to tell you, Coach Krybaby was "not amused."
"First thing, I thought, you know, 'That can't be,'" Krzyzewski said. "How could a newspaper do that? I thought somebody doodled. Actually, I thought I looked better. But it was kind of juvenile. Not kind of, it was just juvenile. You know, my seven grandkids didn't enjoy looking at it. That's not Papi.
"You know, it is what it is," Coach K said. "It's very juvenile. We have great kids who go to school, they graduate. If we're going to be despised or hated by anybody because we go to school and we want to win, you know what, that's your problem. If you don't like it, keep drawing pictures. Try to do them a little bit better than that, though."
Seriously? Does Krzyzewski really expect me to believe this bothers his grandkids? Does he really expect me to believe that much worse things haven't been said about him in his 25-year plus tenure at Duke? Does he really expect me to believe there will be a mass suicide at the Krzyzewski compound over some blue ink?
Does he realize getting upset over this only proves what most Duke haters have been saying for years: Coach K is so seriously humor-impaired that the stick up his butt has a stick up its butt.
Why You Shouldn't Cheer For: The Duke Blue Devils
So, here we are with Duke back in the Final Four. If you are like me, it matters little who they are facing. Regardless of what happens, I'll be rooting against Duke. It's not like I'm alone in this, America hates Duke. Some people simply won't face up to this; many are out there thinking this is finally the Duke team worthy of support.
Fat fucking chance. Have we forgotten so soon why all Americans should hate Duke? Frankly, it always seemed so self-evident. Granted, since this is their first Final Four since 2004, perhaps some have forgotten the sheer assholery that oozes from the Blue Devils. Actually, it is the fact that they haven't seen the last weekend of the tournament in six years that clearly illustrate the holes in the mythology that is Duke. It doesn't require Jim Rockford or NASA supercomputer to figure out why. All you have to do is watch Duke play, watch Coach Krzyzewski on the sidelines, and watch their fans. They are all obnoxious in their own way.
It doesn't help that the assloafs at ESPN, led by Dick Vitale, not only ignore the obvious, but continue some sort of sick love-fest with Coach K, his over-rated players, and the "best fans in basketball."
First of all. let's just start with Mike Krzyzewski. Raise your hand if you are tired of watching Coach K scream unrepentantly at officials until every call goes Duke's way. Raise your hand if you wonder why the media has never exposed Krzyzewski for being every bit the abusive tyrant his mentor Bobby Knight was. Raise your hand if you wonder when Coach K and Dick Vitale are going to pick out a china pattern together.
Then there are the players. Remember all those great Duke players that went on to storied NBA careers? Get ready for the laundry list of mediocrity…Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, Cherokee Parks, J.J. Reddick, Sheldon Williams, Shane Battier…There are plenty to choose from, add to the list as you see fit.
This leaves us with the upscale rabble known as the "Cameron Crazies." Somehow, they've become the gold standard in fandom over the years, and it's the most annoying Duke myth of them all. Duke fans are the worst kind; they are impossibly loud, they dissappear if the team isn't winning, and most importantly, what they actually know about basketball you could squeeze into their ass and have plenty of room left fot their brains. You know the type; the people who love sports just because it's an excuse to get dressed up and yell, but don't actually understand the game (think Minnesota Viking fans and you get the picture).
Rather than being basketball fans, Duke supporters tend to be pompous elitists who love to roll in the delight of their own feces and are hopelessly ultimate superiority. All one has to do is quote the following Duke fan confronting Elton Brand about his decision to leave Duke after his sophomore year, the first underclassmen to leave early during Krzyzewski's tenure at Duke.
From: Taylor, Jennifer
Sent: Friday, April 16, 1999 2:55 PM
To: Brand, Elton
Subject: Leaving Duke
I graduated from Duke last May and just wanted to express my disgust for your decision to leave the Duke program after only two years. As an alum, not only do I hold the school in high regard, but the basketball program as well, especially since both have deservedly garnered such a great deal of respect for their accomplishments.
As part of our basketball program, you represent Duke as a whole. We are first and foremost an academic school, you clearly did not belong at Duke in the first place if this was the extent of your commitment to Duke and a college education in general. You have not only insulted the current students who are putting in four years at a school they love, but also the thousands of alumni who have realized the value of a Duke education and what an honor and privilege it was to be there for four years.
If you do not realize the opportunity you have in front of you to play for Coach K and at the same time attain a Duke diploma, then that is certainly your loss. I just wish that you has spared us the notion that you were continuing in the tradition of being a Duke student-athlete, in emphasizing excellence in both academics and athletics. You will not be considered part of the Duke family, in my mind as well as many others. You have by no means proved yourself worthy of that title.
Jennifer Taylor
Now, never mind that Elton Brand was the best player to come through Duke University since Grant Hill. Forget that he was selected first overall in that year's NBA Draft. It isn't even important that it took a lifetime of dedication and hard work for Brand to get to that point. What matters is the attitude of this snotty little bitch who is all pissed off because he left her school. To Duke fans, it's never about great players like Brand; it's the system that made them successful.
Of course, this just leads us to the best takedown of Duke fans in history, from one of the best Duke players ever:
Thank you very much, for reminding me of the reason why I left Duke. People like you can not and will not ever understand my situation. I'm sure daddy worked very hard to send your rich self to college. While real people struggle. I would also like to extend an invitation for you not to waste your or my time ever agin. Never being considered a part of your posh group of yuppies really hurts me to the heart. Yeah, right. Because I don't care about you or your alumni.
Sincerely, Elton Brand #42 NBA
The lesson learned: if you ever feel Duke isn't worthy of bile-spewing hatred, just ask Elton Brand. He'll set you straight.


text:
serangga bebisa
Image Info/EXIF
- Unique Views28
- MakeNikon
- CameraNIKON D7000
- Focal Length85.0 mm
- Shutter Speed1/125 sec
- ApertureF40
- ISO/Film500
- Original Size2969 X 1914
- Date TakenDec 4, 2012
- SubmittedDec 17, 2012
serangga bebisa
|38 Wins, 38 Losses
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subset: commoncrawl