Why It's So Easy to Hate Duke

Facebook.com has made me a very happy man.

It has given me the CBSSports.com Official Tournament Brackets, and with it a ranking of which school have the most fans and most enemies. 

It has given support to one of my favorite arguments about college hoops:

Everyone hates Duke. Kind of.

As of 6:55 on Wednesday night, here are Facebook's CBS Standings for the Favorite and Most Despised teams:

Favorite:
1.) Duke Blue Devils, 1,445 Fans
2.) UNC Tar Heels, 1,420 Fans
3.) Kansas Jayhawks, 800 Fans
4.) Indiana Hoosiers, 599 Fans
5.) Kentucky Wildcats, 574 Fans

Despised:
1.) Duke Blue Devils, 3,357 Haters
2.) UNC Tar Heels, 1,522 Haters
3.) Florida Gators, 535 Haters
4.) Indiana Hoosiers, 389 Haters
5.) Ohio State Buckeyes, 371 Haters

Over 3,500 people say, "The team I hate most is Duke."

Do I hate Duke?  No, I can't say I do. That spot is safely reserved in the depths of my soul for Georgetown and UConn. 

I even support Duke upon occasion, because their junior point guard, Greg Paulus, played his high school ball for Christian Brothers Academy in Syracuse. I support Section 3 (NYSPHSAA Central New York Region) guys all I can. 

But let me say this: if I grew up in ACC Country, I would certainly understand the feeling. Here's why:

Duke, a small school in North Carolina, used to be known as Brown School, then Union Institute, then Normal College, then Trinity College back when it was founded by the Quakers and Methodists of the area. They moved from Trinity to Durham in 1892, and changed the name of the schools to Duke University in 1924 in honor of an endowment given by tobacco colossus James B. Duke in the name of his father, Washington Duke.

(Thanks, Wikipedia, for the details. Call me out if you need to, I trust it enough for government work.)

So where is the harm here? To the uninformed majority, it's the pretension.

"What school could possibly have the audacity to call themselves Duke University" is not an uncommon sentiment. 

Another could be its history as a program. Few know that Duke sported a relatively weak basketball team until the 1970s. 

Don't believe me?  Look up a book called Forever's Team, by master sportswriter John Feinstein.  The name "Spanarkel" will instantly leave you with memories of a matured Jimmy Chitwood.

But here's the point: America knew relatively little about Duke until the (arguably) greatest sportswriter in America wrote about them. 

Granted, it's an excellent book, but let's be real—if he had written a book about the exploits of a school like San Diego State or Marist College, the world may have been a different place.

Next: Mike Krzyzewski. He's a Chicago guy who played his college ball at Army under Bobby Knight and writes inspirational books about the philosophy of his coaching. He is a poster boy.

Just like everyone else who is the best at what they do, no one else can stand it.  He's a good looking guy, a family man, an excellent recruiter, and a role model.

America cannot stand that crap.

Why? 

Because we need Kobe Bryant in court in Colorado and Mark McGwire lying to congress and Ray Lewis being an all-out criminal. We feast on that.

Duke of old didn't claim to be the "UCLA of the East", as Lefty Driesell at Maryland tried to do (you can determine that accuracy of that statement for yourself). They constantly recruit hard-working, smart, players that almost always graduate. They don't cheat.

Where is the fun in that?

It's funny how Duke, who seems to try as hard as possible to win games and be the best, is constantly America's antagonist. The Blue Devils are easy to hate, like the Yankees in the 1990s, or the Patriots right now.

I remember a few years back when, during NCAA games, Coach K had a 30-second commercial talking about how great a school Duke is, and how he teaches students to be thinkers, leaders, and champions.

Everyone I ever watched a game with would say, "What a bogus commercial! I can't believe CBS would give him a recruiting advantage like that!"

This is a statement I fully agree with. It sickens me still. 

But here's the catch: He's right.

We all seek perfection, as is human nature. In running a basketball program, Krzyzewski has come very close to finding it.

And it drives the rest of us crazy.