Originally Posted by
1991 duke law
In the past 30 years I have closely followed Duke basketball (men and women) and football. In the past 5 years or so, men’s lacrosse. I take notice when the men’s or women’s team are succeeding (such as baseball last year and women’s soccer) but I am not particularly vested in these other sports.
Which leads to a question for Duke grads (and not for those who did not attend Duke) - do you really care that much if Duke does not win at many of these sports - such as men’s tennis, women’s field hockey, softball and volleyball. I have recently attended women’s softball, field hockey and volleyball games. The attendance is pretty inconsequential to the point that you can say that there is very limited interest. I have not attended Duke men’s baseball, soccer, swimming or track events - but I understand that their attendance is also very limited.
So my question is why should anyone be terribly concerned if Duke is not winning at soccer, track, softball, swimming etc? Personally, my perspective is that I would like Duke to win at everything but I do not care if they do not - and I have zero interest in devoting meaningful financial resources to these pursuits. Moreover I have little interest in having more qualified students rejected in order to accommodate student athletes who have inferior academic credentials. Now, to be clear - I believe that every applicant has to be viewed through a broader lens than just academics. So the student athlete often brings other valuable traits that may override a lower academic profile. But there is a limit to how far I would take this. I acknowledge an element of hypocrisy in allocating greater emphasis for ‘valued’ sports so that we can accept a huge academic discount for a basketball player but not for a swimmer. And arguably this may be part of the explanation why the tertiary sports do not succeed at the same level at Duke, because the school is not allocating as much of a academic discount in order to get the better athletes in those sports.
At the end of the day, my greatest pride regarding Duke University is its academic profile. While I love Zion Williamson and I am very pleased that he attended Duke University, he cannot hold a candle to Grant Hill who represented Duke both athletically and academically. Or even Taymon Domzolsky (apologies for any spelling error) (not a athletic success but a great academic success). When Wendell Carter was considering Harvard and Duke (I have no idea how serious he was about Harvard) I took pleasure in seeing a young man who looked at Duke not simply as a path to the NBA - but as an academic institution.
For me, Duke not having great success at these sports is not causing me any consternation. Would I like the women’s basketball team to win – yes I would (I have watched a boatload of their games). Would I be happy if the women’s soccer team won, sure. Would I prefer that the softball team win - of course. Would I like the men’s soccer, track and baseball teams to win - absolutely. But will I lose any sleep if they do not, none at all. But if Duke academic reputation significantly dropped, that would cause me some sleepless nights.