Yuck...I am angry at myself for reading that article. As mentioned in previous posts, he made no clear or persuasive points what-so-ever! Larry Bird is only iconic in Boston and Indiana... really? nevermind I give up......
Hate, Hate, Hate
I think Bird is popular in "France" too.
(Hick from French Lick)
But seriously, the second I read that I immediately thought about sitting down at my old Apple computer circa 1986 and playing one on one with Dr. J vs. Larry Bird. They actually sold a game with just TWO individuals playing one on one. That was the WHOLE game!!!
Reading this piece makes me wonder if the ignorance about Duke's relationship with race lies not with the outsider perception, but with the students who actually attend the university in question. There are some fundamentally wrong things with the piece.
Kyrie Irving is BLACK???? Well, that changes everything!
Poor kid, life must suck for someone who cannot even enjoy signing a top recruit without looking for some deep dark, diabolical meaning.
The writing style reminds me of the "Johnny Rockets" story written by Steve Blake.
http://web.archive.org/web/200212131.../project1.html
It is disturbing that a student with the supposed intelligence required to get into Duke could be so ignorant (and write so poorly!).
It is unfathomable that the editors of the Chronicle would let such garbage get published!
The only point with a even a modicum of pertinence is that Duke's image will benefit from the addition of a high profile black player, particularly at point guard which will gain more attention, because of the perception we predominantly have white players. Why this point was even worth mentioning in the Chronicle is highly debatable.
The article is so laced with prejudice, and so poorly written that it is an embarrassment to the university and to its current and former students.
I lived in Durham for over forty years. I'm not denying there are problems with violence. What I was referring to is ignorance of anything else about Durham.
My impression is that coach K is totally color blind and recruits the best players avaailable who can meet the academic standards. I believe all the recruits for next year are black so it seems quite a raandom occurence to me. My impression of the kids who come to Duke is that they are intelligent, good kids from good families and who are very good basketball players.
Keep up the good work coach K!
FWIW, the first two things Duke haters bring up is that the university is located in Durham and that the majority of the basketball players are white.
I have read on several sites that Duke won't be good because there are too many unathletic white players on the team (when in reality, the only two white guys who are unathletic are Zoubek and perhaps Kelly). Olek might not be a great player, but he is clearly a great athlete, and even suggesting that the Plumlees are not athletic makes me laugh, but then again Duke haters aren't always the most logical group.
While there are many points that are at best debatable, I agree with the writer of the column that Duke's national image will improve with a black star like Kyrie Irving. When Brand, McLeod, Langdon, and Avery were the stars at Duke, they didn't get nearly the same amount of hate as the Paulus/Redick teams. The lacrosse case also did point out just how much certain people in the larger Durham community genuinely resent Duke, but the way that the columnist equated that with Durham-based employees at Duke was tactless.
A learning moment for the writer of the article, hopefully.
People too often argue from the gut rather than from the head. This is clearly one of those instances, and his gut appears to need some filling with facts and figures.
As a person born and raised in Durham, then college in Greensboro, I can honestly say that I didn't know what REAL violence was until I moved to Houston, TX a week after graduation. The news had a TOTALLY different tone...