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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Bethesda, MD

    The Duke Law School team, circa 1980

    This weekend we are burying the ashes of my father Paul Carrington, a long-time Duke law professor and actually Dean of the school from 1978-1988. He was 90 years old when he died in August and had been quite infirm the past several years. He had a good innings and so his death is sad but definitely not a tragedy. I'm quite okay and, in fact, as perhaps others have found, the death of a superannuated parent has allowed me to reengage with the memory of who he used to be when I knew him best...and that's actually quite nice. All that's an aside, however, to a note we got from another Duke law professor:

    "Early in his tenure, (Paul) sought additional basketball tickets for the Dean’s Office to use when alumni were passing through Durham. The Athletic Director resisted to which Paul issued a challenge. Duke athletics would make available 4 Cameron seats if the law school team selected by Paul beat Duke’s starting five. Paul mentioned in making the challenged that two of the law school’s team members had a combined 14 years of NBA experience and the other three had garnered all conference recognitions before entering law school. The game was never played; the law school got the tickets."

    Question A: Who were the NBA players at the law school?
    Question B: Who were the all-conference honorees?

    I know the answer to A but not B. FWIW, beyond these two, there are at least two other Duke bball greats who went on to get a Duke law degree.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Steamboat Springs, CO
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    This weekend we are burying the ashes of my father Paul Carrington, a long-time Duke law professor and actually Dean of the school from 1978-1988. He was 90 years old when he died in August and had been quite infirm the past several years. He had a good innings and so his death is sad but definitely not a tragedy. I'm quite okay and, in fact, as perhaps others have found, the death of a superannuated parent has allowed me to reengage with the memory of who he used to be when I knew him best...and that's actually quite nice. All that's an aside, however, to a note we got from another Duke law professor:

    "Early in his tenure, (Paul) sought additional basketball tickets for the Dean’s Office to use when alumni were passing through Durham. The Athletic Director resisted to which Paul issued a challenge. Duke athletics would make available 4 Cameron seats if the law school team selected by Paul beat Duke’s starting five. Paul mentioned in making the challenged that two of the law school’s team members had a combined 14 years of NBA experience and the other three had garnered all conference recognitions before entering law school. The game was never played; the law school got the tickets."

    Question A: Who were the NBA players at the law school?
    Question B: Who were the all-conference honorees?

    I know the answer to A but not B. FWIW, beyond these two, there are at least two other Duke bball greats who went on to get a Duke law degree.
    Well, Jack Marin is one. The other Duke players who went to Duke Law include Quin Snyder and Bilas, but that would have been late 1980's, after the time you referenced.
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    This weekend we are burying the ashes of my father Paul Carrington, a long-time Duke law professor and actually Dean of the school from 1978-1988. He was 90 years old when he died in August and had been quite infirm the past several years. He had a good innings and so his death is sad but definitely not a tragedy. I'm quite okay and, in fact, as perhaps others have found, the death of a superannuated parent has allowed me to reengage with the memory of who he used to be when I knew him best...and that's actually quite nice. All that's an aside, however, to a note we got from another Duke law professor:

    "Early in his tenure, (Paul) sought additional basketball tickets for the Dean’s Office to use when alumni were passing through Durham. The Athletic Director resisted to which Paul issued a challenge. Duke athletics would make available 4 Cameron seats if the law school team selected by Paul beat Duke’s starting five. Paul mentioned in making the challenged that two of the law school’s team members had a combined 14 years of NBA experience and the other three had garnered all conference recognitions before entering law school. The game was never played; the law school got the tickets."

    Question A: Who were the NBA players at the law school?
    Question B: Who were the all-conference honorees?

    I know the answer to A but not B. FWIW, beyond these two, there are at least two other Duke bball greats who went on to get a Duke law degree.
    First of all, I'm sorry for your loss of your dad. He sounds like he was a wonderful man and a true Blue Devil.

    Question A: Jack Marin for sure. And I'd guess the other was maybe Gary Melchionni??

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    On the Road to Nowhere
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    This weekend we are burying the ashes of my father Paul Carrington, a long-time Duke law professor and actually Dean of the school from 1978-1988. He was 90 years old when he died in August and had been quite infirm the past several years. He had a good innings and so his death is sad but definitely not a tragedy. I'm quite okay and, in fact, as perhaps others have found, the death of a superannuated parent has allowed me to reengage with the memory of who he used to be when I knew him best...and that's actually quite nice. All that's an aside, however, to a note we got from another Duke law professor:

    "Early in his tenure, (Paul) sought additional basketball tickets for the Dean’s Office to use when alumni were passing through Durham. The Athletic Director resisted to which Paul issued a challenge. Duke athletics would make available 4 Cameron seats if the law school team selected by Paul beat Duke’s starting five. Paul mentioned in making the challenged that two of the law school’s team members had a combined 14 years of NBA experience and the other three had garnered all conference recognitions before entering law school. The game was never played; the law school got the tickets."

    Question A: Who were the NBA players at the law school?
    Question B: Who were the all-conference honorees?

    I know the answer to A but not B. FWIW, beyond these two, there are at least two other Duke bball greats who went on to get a Duke law degree.
    Sorry for your loss. Can't help with the questions, but if we're talking the nether years post-Gene and pre-Johnny, it's further proof Tom Butters was a smart man.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Winston’Salem
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    This weekend we are burying the ashes of my father Paul Carrington, a long-time Duke law professor and actually Dean of the school from 1978-1988. He was 90 years old when he died in August and had been quite infirm the past several years. He had a good innings and so his death is sad but definitely not a tragedy. I'm quite okay and, in fact, as perhaps others have found, the death of a superannuated parent has allowed me to reengage with the memory of who he used to be when I knew him best...and that's actually quite nice. All that's an aside, however, to a note we got from another Duke law professor:

    "Early in his tenure, (Paul) sought additional basketball tickets for the Dean’s Office to use when alumni were passing through Durham. The Athletic Director resisted to which Paul issued a challenge. Duke athletics would make available 4 Cameron seats if the law school team selected by Paul beat Duke’s starting five. Paul mentioned in making the challenged that two of the law school’s team members had a combined 14 years of NBA experience and the other three had garnered all conference recognitions before entering law school. The game was never played; the law school got the tickets."

    Question A: Who were the NBA players at the law school?
    Question B: Who were the all-conference honorees?

    I know the answer to A but not B. FWIW, beyond these two, there are at least two other Duke bball greats who went on to get a Duke law degree.
    Very, very sorry for your loss. I am Duke Law Class of '96, and your father was my 1L Civil Procedure professor in the Fall of 1993. He was great (!) at what he did.
    Last edited by Tripping William; 10-11-2021 at 02:54 PM.
    "Amazing what a minute can do."

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Bethesda, MD
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    Well, Jack Marin is one. The other Duke players who went to Duke Law include Quin Snyder and Bilas, but that would have been late 1980's, after the time you referenced.
    You are of course right about Jack Marin. And, now that you list Snyder (who I had forgotten), that makes three Duke standouts (including Snyder and Bilas) who went to DLS after Marin...the other of whom I am aware is Jim Spanarkel. FWIW, and I figure you're probably ahead of me on this, but Marin probably had the best NBA career of any Duke player up until Grant Hill (with the possible exception of Laettner), having made two all-star teams. He went to DLS directly from the NBA and, when he graduated in 1980, he was still only 35. His peak was significantly better than anyone on the 1979-80 Duke team, though of course he had presumably deteriorated a bit.
    Last edited by WillJ; 10-11-2021 at 02:57 PM.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Bethesda, MD
    Quote Originally Posted by tommy View Post
    Question A: Jack Marin for sure. And I'd guess the other was maybe Gary Melchionni??
    Gary Melchionni (Lee's dad) is in fact the second one, and I think that he was also in the DLS Class of 1980. He was nowhere near the player that Marin was, but he did play some NBA games...which I believe is more than anyone else on the 1979-1980 Duke team (besides Gminski) can say. He was only 29 years old when he graduated.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    North of Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    Gary Melchionni (Lee's dad) is in fact the second one, and I think that he was also in the DLS Class of 1980. He was nowhere near the player that Marin was, but he did play some NBA games...which I believe is more than anyone else on the 1979-1980 Duke team (besides Gminski) can say. He was only 29 years old when he graduated.
    Very sorry for your loss.

    Gene Banks was also on the Duke team at that time (Class of 1981) and he played in the NBA for a while.

    Also, I'm pretty sure Spanarkel doesn't have a law degree - I think he has worked in finance (which doesn't rule out a law degree) in addition to broadcasting.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Bethesda, MD
    Quote Originally Posted by Tripping William View Post
    Very, very sorry for your loss. I am Duke Law Class of '96, and your father was my 1L Civil Procedure professor in the Fall of 1993. He was great (!) at what he did.
    Thanks so much...he loved law schools, Duke's most of all. He always thought that what you were doing there - both the faculty and the students - was really important, and I suppose that showed up in his teaching. He got into some trouble for saying this to law professors who were more cynical than he was about the law, but it's hard to teach something effectively to others if you don't think it's valuable.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Bethesda, MD
    Quote Originally Posted by CrazyNotCrazie View Post
    Very sorry for your loss.

    Gene Banks was also on the Duke team at that time (Class of 1981) and he played in the NBA for a while.

    Also, I'm pretty sure Spanarkel doesn't have a law degree - I think he has worked in finance (which doesn't rule out a law degree) in addition to broadcasting.
    You're right about Spanarkel...I remember hearing about his admission to DLS, but he never attended.
    You're also right about Banks - looking him up just now, he had a better NBA career than I had remembered - 11 pts/game avg. over six years. In terms of NBA achievement, he and Gminski were way ahead of Melchionni but still a good step below Marin.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    You're right about Spanarkel...I remember hearing about his admission to DLS, but he never attended.
    You're also right about Banks - looking him up just now, he had a better NBA career than I had remembered - 11 pts/game avg. over six years. In terms of NBA achievement, he and Gminski were way ahead of Melchionni but still a good step below Marin.
    Jeff Mullins had the best NBA player of any pre-Krzyzewski Duke player.

  12. #12
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    Apr 2011
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    Winston’Salem
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    Thanks so much...he loved law schools, Duke's most of all. He always thought that what you were doing there - both the faculty and the students - was really important, and I suppose that showed up in his teaching. He got into some trouble for saying this to law professors who were more cynical than he was about the law, but it's hard to teach something effectively to others if you don't think it's valuable.
    This ends up as a bit of a stroll down memory lane for me, now 25 years removed from graduating.

    (1) Professor Carrington's CivPro was, literally (every bit in the jimsumner sense of the word), my first law school class, in that it was scheduled as the first morning course of my 1L year. Thankfully, he did not call on me that day; I would have been a wreck, as I totally had "The Paper Chase" construct of what law school was like sticking in my head.

    (2) Quin Snyder overlapped with me, and I *think* was a joint JD/MBA student. (Don't hold me to that.) I did not have any classes with him, but knew some who did.

    (3) I interviewed with Bilas when seeking employment. He was still actively with Moore & Van Allen at the time (unlike now, when he is just listed on the website and, as I understand it, does not actively practice with that firm).

    (4) Jack Marin participated in on-campus interviewing, but I did not interview with him. And, in addition to his basketball exploits, he was (probably still is) a helluva golfer.

    Thank you for indulging me.
    "Amazing what a minute can do."

  13. #13
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    Sep 2007
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    Bethesda, MD
    Quote Originally Posted by jimsumner View Post
    Jeff Mullins had the best NBA player of any pre-Krzyzewski Duke player.
    That does seem fair...but it's pretty close. Mullins scored 13,000 NBA points and made three all-star teams, while Marin scored 12,500 NBA points and made two all-star teams. They were both great players.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by jimsumner View Post
    Jeff Mullins had the best NBA player of any pre-Krzyzewski Duke player.
    You beat me to it, I was going to ask if Marin's career was better than Mullins'.

    Not quite a completely disconnected tangent: Marin's brother Chuck was my financial adviser while I lived in Durham (and not a bad golfer at all in his own right, just like Jack). I recall doing pretty well while he was shepherding my comparatively insignificant funds.

    Add: Now that I think about it, I remember Chuck telling me about caddying for Jack on some celebrity tournaments back then.
    Last edited by 75Crazie; 10-11-2021 at 03:39 PM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Tripping William View Post
    (3) I interviewed with Bilas when seeking employment. He was still actively with Moore & Van Allen at the time (unlike now, when he is just listed on the website and, as I understand it, does not actively practice with that firm).
    I sure hope he isn’t actively practicing law. He’s a smart guy and has had some varied experiences, so I could see him providing some consulting type value. But I want my lawyers to be full time lawyers, not moonlighters.
    Carolina delenda est

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    You are of course right about Jack Marin. And, now that you list Snyder (who I had forgotten), that makes three Duke standouts (including Snyder and Bilas) who went to DLS after Marin...the other of whom I am aware is Jim Spanarkel. FWIW, and I figure you're probably ahead of me on this, but Marin probably had the best NBA career of any Duke player up until Grant Hill (with the possible exception of Laettner), having made two all-star teams. He went to DLS directly from the NBA and, when he graduated in 1980, he was still only 35. His peak was significantly better than anyone on the 1979-80 Duke team, though of course he had presumably deteriorated a bit.
    I don't know anything about the web site "The Balance Careers" but here's what it says about Spanarkel's passing up law school for finance:

    Upon retiring [from the NBA], Jim Spanarkel applied to and was accepted by the Duke and Seton Hall Law Schools. He also interviewed for jobs at several financial services firms and accepted an offer from Merrill Lynch to become a financial advisor in their Paramus, NJ branch office. Forming a partnership with two other Merrill Lynch financial advisors in 1999, Spanarkel's new team would claim to manage over $1 billion of client assets by the year 2000. If accurate, this would suggest that each member of the team probably was earning at least $1 million annually at that time.

    In order to add extra value for clients, Jim Spanarkel also has become a certified financial planner (CFP). As of 2016, he remains the lead partner in a Merrill Lynch financial advisor team that still includes two other advisors, plus two registered senior client associates (that is, registered broker sales assistants). One of the latter also serves as an investment analyst.
    Sage Grouse

    ---------------------------------------
    'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Bethesda, MD
    With apologies for the bad formatting, I thought this list (from basketballreference.com )of top Duke NBA career scorers is interesting. Grant obviously #1, though not that much ahead of Elton Brand - both obviously would be higher without the injuries. It seems like Kyrie will become #1 if he can get this vaccine thing figured out. it's still a long way to go, but it seems likely that some combination of Tatum, Ingram, and Williamson will soon be at the head of the list. For reference, Lebron has 35,000.

    Player Points
    Grant Hill * 17,137
    Elton Brand 16,827
    Carlos Boozer 13,976
    Luol Deng 13,361
    Kyrie Irving 13,293
    Corey Maggette 13,198
    Jeff Mullins 13,017
    Jack Marin 12,541
    J.J. Redick 12,028
    Christian Laett 11,121
    Mike Dunleavy 11,048
    Mike Gminski 10,953
    Shane Battier 8,408
    Bob Verga 6,918
    Danny Ferry 6,439
    Gerald Henderson 5,987
    Johnny Dawkins 5,984
    Jayson Tatum 5,594
    Brandon Ingram 5,566
    Austin Rivers 5,338
    Gene Banks 5,305
    Mason Plumlee 5,007
    Randy Denton 4,749
    Rodney Hood 4,493
    Jabari Parker 4,327
    Mike Lewis 4,081
    Art Heyman 4,030

  18. #18
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    Feb 2007
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    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    That does seem fair...but it's pretty close. Mullins scored 13,000 NBA points and made three all-star teams, while Marin scored 12,500 NBA points and made two all-star teams. They were both great players.
    Mullins averaged 16.2 ppg, Marin 14.8. That's a bigger gap than the cumulative stats suggest.

    Mullins also had some great playoff runs with the Warriors, although no one knew it at the time because he was doing it on the west coast at a time when NBA coverage was pretty limited.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    I moved. Now 12 miles from Heaven, 13 from Hell
    Vince Taylor '82 played for two seasons with the Knicks. Didn't score as much as Melchionni, though. He's now an assistant to Johnny D. at UCF.

    Checking the alumni register, Scott Goetsch '79 JD '82 was in law school in 1980. Gminski's backup, so he would be familiar with his moves. If there were three all-conference players in addition to Marin and Melchionni, Goetsch wouldn't start, but would be a pretty decent sixth man.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by WillJ View Post
    This weekend we are burying the ashes of my father Paul Carrington, a long-time Duke law professor and actually Dean of the school from 1978-1988. He was 90 years old when he died in August and had been quite infirm the past several years. He had a good innings and so his death is sad but definitely not a tragedy. I'm quite okay and, in fact, as perhaps others have found, the death of a superannuated parent has allowed me to reengage with the memory of who he used to be when I knew him best...and that's actually quite nice. All that's an aside, however, to a note we got from another Duke law professor:

    "Early in his tenure, (Paul) sought additional basketball tickets for the Dean’s Office to use when alumni were passing through Durham. The Athletic Director resisted to which Paul issued a challenge. Duke athletics would make available 4 Cameron seats if the law school team selected by Paul beat Duke’s starting five. Paul mentioned in making the challenged that two of the law school’s team members had a combined 14 years of NBA experience and the other three had garnered all conference recognitions before entering law school. The game was never played; the law school got the tickets."

    Question A: Who were the NBA players at the law school?
    Question B: Who were the all-conference honorees?

    I know the answer to A but not B. FWIW, beyond these two, there are at least two other Duke bball greats who went on to get a Duke law degree.
    Sorry for your loss, WillJ.

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