Duke lacrosse made a successful return on Saturday, defeating Dartmouth, 17-11, before a supportive, near-basketball-sized crowd of 6,485.The atmosphere was highly supportive, with even the pep band makin an appearance, a first for lacrosse. Many people wore T-shirts and bracelets in support of Reide Seligmann, Dave Evans, and Colin Finnerty, the three teammates who were charged in the alleged crimes at last spring's lacrosse party.
The team wore helmet stickers to honor Army Sgt. James John Regan, the former lax player who was recently killed in Iraq, and wore the jersey numbers of the three indicted players on their warmup jerseys, their socks, and wrists.
Economics professor Roy Weintraub, one of the few faculty members to publicly admit the lacrosse team had been treated horribly by agents of Durham and by many members of the Duke faculty, told the Post that the faculty had been "fractured" by the case.
Evidently, though, given the level of support at Koskinen Field (by which we mean the presence of the band, the t-shirt sales, and other signs of the team being officially sanctioned and therefore welcomed back), the official stance of Duke seems to be vastly different from what many on the faculty, who had some very harsh things to say about the team, might prefer.
Also, the more we learn about John Danowski, the more we like him. He seems to be a smart, thoughtful guy, who has managed to deal with his players compassionately, and to deal with his peers (meaning the other parents - his son is on the team) very effectively. He may turn out to be exactly the right guy for the job, even if his musical taste is a bit questionable. C'mon, coach - Tom Petty? Give us a call. We'll get you the playlist you need!
But in all seriousness, while there are serious issues to deal with and the possibility of a trial still looms, it seems a lot of good things happened Saturday. We have no doubt that these guys learned some harsh lessons recently. It's a terrible way to learn some cold, hard truths, but the only thing more terrible will be if they don't apply them.