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Lord Ash
12-12-2010, 10:05 AM
So far, so good! A very interesting piece.

I have to say, I have always been so proud that Coach K is our representative on such a big stage.

And I have always adored his wicked, biting humor... I know that sometimes folks who hate Duke sometimes don't "get it," but I've always loved that mean humor edge he has... and these quotes, "I'm the 'Black Mamba of Beach Bocce!'" and "Basketball-wise, I don't like to live in the past. But family-wise, when you do something that's decent, you do want to bring it up. Over and over and over again," made me laugh quite hard:) The game discussion was funny too.

I also find it very interesting the way they compare "basketball being something that keeps you away from your family" and "basketball being a family thing." Very smart way to handle it, especially in regards to the most important duties a person can have; their family duties.

Very interesting article, so far, about a very interesting man!

moonpie23
12-12-2010, 10:15 AM
link?

Bob Green
12-12-2010, 10:16 AM
Here is a link to the article:

http://www.fayobserver.com/special/2010/12/coachk/coachkpart1.aspx

davekay1971
12-12-2010, 11:17 AM
Nice article, very interesting. Can't wait to read the next two parts. Thanks for the link.

delfrio
12-12-2010, 12:39 PM
Black Mamba of Beach Bocce or some variation seems like a necessary sign (esp as K is moving up the most wins list).

DukeUsul
12-12-2010, 01:02 PM
Could they not find a better photo of him? One that doesn't make him look like a zombie?

Festus
12-15-2010, 09:33 AM
Not sure how to make this work but here is the address for the second installment.
http://www.fayobserver.com/special/2010/12/coachk/coachkpart2.aspx

roywhite
12-15-2010, 09:37 AM
It's an interesting series.

Wish the writer could have gone without quoting, or even mentioning, Gregg Doyel.

dball
12-15-2010, 12:16 PM
It's an interesting series.

Wish the writer could have gone without quoting, or even mentioning, Gregg Doyel.

...or Bomani Jones

Devil07
12-16-2010, 12:03 AM
I'm with those that could have done without quoting Bomani Jones or Doyel. I'll be interested to see the 3rd piece. I enjoyed the first part, but felt that the second left something to be desired. To me, it felt like there was a lot of buildup to why people hate Duke, but very little delivery on his seemingly rhetorical push backs on each point. I'm wondering if the 3rd part will address more of why Coach K is not all the things that he's alleged to be (as the 2nd part plainly laid out). I like that Wiederer is trying to be objective and now fawn over Coach K, but the second part seemed to just list reasons to dislike him with little effort made to actually assessing the validity of those claims. I did enjoy the anecdote though about Coach K asking Vitale to tone down his Duke-love in non-Duke games, as I hadn't heard that before.

Zeb
12-16-2010, 11:04 AM
To me, it felt like there was a lot of buildup to why people hate Duke, but very little delivery on his seemingly rhetorical push backs on each point.

I thought the second piece did a great job of laying out how people seem to take extreme positions on K--either love him or hate him--when in reality the guy is human with great qualities as well as flaws. His run-ins with Chronicle reporters and his handling of the Gerald Henderson stuff were good examples where K gave people inclined to dislike him more ammunition. K is one of my heroes, but I appreciated this second installment because it reminded me that even heroes make mistakes and not everything they do should be emulated.

I'm curious how K felt about this article. The first one on K's family life was touted by Mike Cragg to his email list, but there's been no mention of the second part.

I'm really looking forward to the third and final piece.

Neals384
12-17-2010, 05:50 AM
I thought the author could have used facts to blow some of the Duke critics out of the water. For example, "Duke gets all the calls" wasn't true in 2010, as discussed here (http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?20233-So-who-got-all-the-calls-in-the-ACC-this-year&highlight=calls).

Also, the author focuses only on Coach K as a reason for Duke-hatred. It seems to me there are reasons that have more to do with the school than the coach. For example, class-envy of Duke as an expensive private school.

Neal

(posted at 3 am PST, what else do you do in the middle of the night with insomnia?)

camion
12-17-2010, 06:53 AM
I thought the author could have used facts to blow some of the Duke critics out of the water. For example, "Duke gets all the calls" wasn't true in 2010, as discussed here (http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?20233-So-who-got-all-the-calls-in-the-ACC-this-year&highlight=calls).

Also, the author focuses only on Coach K as a reason for Duke-hatred. It seems to me there are reasons that have more to do with the school than the coach. For example, class-envy of Duke as an expensive private school.

Neal

(posted at 3 am PST, what else do you do in the middle of the night with insomnia?)

I think the primary reason for Duke hatred is that Duke beats people. Duke has dashed a lot of dreams and broken a lot of basketball hearts. Last year's final game against Butler is an example as is the UK game with The Shot.

uh_no
12-17-2010, 07:03 AM
It seems to me there are reasons that have more to do with the school than the coach. For example, class-envy of Duke as an expensive private school.

Great comment. I think that is spot on. Obviously people could talk forever about what makes people hate duke. But I think the idea of such a prominent private school of such a high caliber sitting in the middle of the south is a huge detriment. most of the southern schools in the south are state schools, and duke tends to draw a lot of people who aren't stereotypical 'southerners'. This was just the seed though. The seed was planted by coach K, we have this polish guy (irrelevent now, but people were ticked at the time) come into the the odd school out in the south and begin to clean up on the college basketball scene. I can completely understand how people can hate duke when you look at the stands and you see mostly students who have everything. Then on top of that, they get to watch their team win. I appreciate the resentment that people can feel against this, much like the resentment against CEO bonuses.....they have everything why do they get a bonus?

Coach K spoke a couple years ago to the students about needing to control the picture that duke basketball portrays to the world. This was (in my opinion) his saying that he hates that people hate on duke for doing things the right way (and mentions that he understands being in enemy territory right down the road from UNC). This, he said, led to the creation of duke blue planet, where duke could portray duke basketball outside of how ESPN portrays duke basketball. I take all this to imply that K is doing everything in his power to break down the 'hate,' and I think he is well on his way. We're obviously in a Duke love cycle in the media, and I'm sure the USA bball thing has helped, but at some point people realize how good of a coach K really is. Then they can begin to appreciate the greatness that they're watching, much like people scramble to watch tiger woods.

This is obviously all just my opinion, but....

sagegrouse
12-17-2010, 09:12 AM
Great comment. I think that is spot on. Obviously people could talk forever about what makes people hate duke. But I think the idea of such a prominent private school of such a high caliber sitting in the middle of the south is a huge detriment. most of the southern schools in the south are state schools, and duke tends to draw a lot of people who aren't stereotypical 'southerners'. This was just the seed though. The seed was planted by coach K, we have this polish guy (irrelevent now, but people were ticked at the time) come into the the odd school out in the south and begin to clean up on the college basketball scene. I can completely understand how people can hate duke when you look at the stands and you see mostly students who have everything. Then on top of that, they get to watch their team win. I appreciate the resentment that people can feel against this, much like the resentment against CEO bonuses.....they have everything why do they get a bonus?

Coach K spoke a couple years ago to the students about needing to control the picture that duke basketball portrays to the world. This was (in my opinion) his saying that he hates that people hate on duke for doing things the right way (and mentions that he understands being in enemy territory right down the road from UNC). This, he said, led to the creation of duke blue planet, where duke could portray duke basketball outside of how ESPN portrays duke basketball. I take all this to imply that K is doing everything in his power to break down the 'hate,' and I think he is well on his way. We're obviously in a Duke love cycle in the media, and I'm sure the USA bball thing has helped, but at some point people realize how good of a coach K really is. Then they can begin to appreciate the greatness that they're watching, much like people scramble to watch tiger woods.

This is obviously all just my opinion, but....

I agree with what you said, but I would add my view that Duke fans are too sensitive. Fact is, everyone has an opinion about Duke basketball. The Duke Blue Devils live in a glass house (my big one is 60" diagonal), so it is not surprising that there are lots of opinions, positive and negative. At my elevation (7,000') a lot of the casual fans really like Duke, and even the UNC grads here are pretty nice people [gasp!]. In other neighborhoods the negative and positive are more in balance, and for whatever reason, the haters are noisier than the supporters.

Here is an analogy. Have you seen the annual restaurant surveys published in the glossy mags in various cities? The same restaurant is frequently judged the "Best Restaurant" and the "Most Overrated." Fact is, as I said above, everyone has an opinion.

The fear and loathing that gets expressed is a form of respect. If Duke were lousy, no one would care one way or the other.

Now I sense the tide is turning, although I may be looking at the world through Ozzie's glasses. A big part is K as the honcho of USA Basketball. Talk about turning an embarrassment into a triumph! Plus, the fact the best players in the world love playing for him doesn't hurt one bit. Another factor is that the 2010 championship was sort of a nostalgia tour, like when the Stones came through Duke 3-4 years ago.

Again, good post, uh oh.

sagegrouse

Zeb
12-17-2010, 02:53 PM
I thought the author could have used facts to blow some of the Duke critics out of the water... Also, the author focuses only on Coach K as a reason for Duke-hatred. It seems to me there are reasons that have more to do with the school than the coach.

This is a profile of Coach K as a person, not Duke hatred in general. The author asks a great question--why do some people dismiss K's accomplishments and call him Ratface, while others think he can do no wrong? That's not just because he's the coach of Duke. The author highlights personal actions by K that contribute to K drawing criticism (deserved or not). I would appreciate even greater discussion of other controversial K behavior (how K treated Gaudet, how K chastises reporters when they ask his players questions he doesn't like). Why shift the focus of this thread into another navel-gazing discussion on "why does everyone hate Duke--is it because we're the best school or the best team?"

dcdevil2009
12-17-2010, 03:57 PM
Also, the author focuses only on Coach K as a reason for Duke-hatred. It seems to me there are reasons that have more to do with the school than the coach. For example, class-envy of Duke as an expensive private school.

I'm glad the author didn't focus on it in a piece about Coach K, but race is another thing that plays a big role Duke basketball being so polarizing. When Duke-haters and even a lot of Duke supporters describe the stereotypical Duke player, it's usually a shorter (under 6-6) white guy who isn't flashy, but always plays hard, is fundamentally sound, and not that "athletic" (in the Gottleib sense of the word). If you ask them to describe the stereotypical black Duke basketball player, they're probably going to give you a different answer than they would for a lot of other schools in the country. I'm basing a lot of this off growing up in eastern NC, where political correctness isn't really the norm, so it might be different in other parts of the country, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear it's similar.

Festus
12-19-2010, 09:21 AM
Link to Part III
http://www.fayobserver.com/special/2010/12/coachk/coachkpart3.aspx