Originally Posted by
johnb
Very, very few people have carped about the ribbons, and Roy has been quite gracious about Duke's handling of the tragedy.
I can imagine that the staff didn't wear ribbons for one of two reasons: a) they didn't pay attention to the ribbons (e.g., felt them relatively unimportant or were just so focused on the game that they didn't see that hundreds/thousands of people were wearing light blue to the Carolina game; there's no way that they couldn't have acquired a ribbon from someone if they'd been motivated--would you turn down Johnny Dawkins if he asked for your lapel ribbon?) or, b) they decided they'd honored the young woman's memory and didn't feel it necessary for the coaching staff to wear a representation of the opposing team on its lapel during the most important game, thus far, in the season. My hunch is that it's 'b,' but public figures like K recognize that explorations of ambiguity lead to sensationalism in the media.
As for K not catching any breaks from the media, puuhhhlleeze. Despite the fact that, over the past decade, he has made himself about as available as the Pope, Duke retains an image as the best basketball program in the country. Where do you think that image comes from? While it may feel like our rightful position, such images are created by the same media that sporadically goes after our coach and team.