Hey, ESPN – Enough Is Enough
When Duke began to rise under Coach K in the early 80s, they were very lucky that their rise coincided with the rise of ESPN. This guaranteed the school a huge amount of publicity and attention.As we’ve learned in recent years, though, the attention became something of a boomerang, as the term Duke Hating entered the vocabulary of college basketball. And in recent times, ESPN itself has at times been willing to indulge the phenomenon, as they did not too long ago with a poll asking which Duke player do you hate the most? Before that, there was a Between The Lines episode which suggested that many Duke players – brace yourselves – picked “easier” majors than did the rest of the student body. There was never a mention of the overall difficulty of the curriculum, or of the classes which are required of all students. No one ever mentions, say, Georgia Tech, another academically demanding institution where the overwhelming majority of basketball players eschew the technical majors for management. Just the effort to hang something on the Devils.
And in the last year or two, some of the announcers have said some astonishingly biased things.
All of this adds up. And the latest bit of drivel from Bristol really makes you wonder: has ESPN decided that Duke Hating is good for ratings? Is it official business for the dominant player in sports media to bash one school in particular?
We’re referring to an article by Jon Pessah in ESPN the Magazine. The article starts off inside of Mickie Krzyzewski’s thoughts (who let him in?) and gets worse from there.
First is the suggestion that Coach K should have spoken out about the lacrosse hoax earlier, that “by staying silent he lost some credibility, and maybe some of his soul.”
Perhaps there is a simpler explanation though, and one that didn’t cost anyone his soul. Fairly early in the hoax, Duke sent out a message to everyone who works for the school asking that the university speak with a single voice and that all comments come from a single source and further, that all requests from the media be referred to the same university representative.
Like everyone else at Duke, in other words, Coach K was asked early on to not comment publicly on the situation. Any reporter who bothered to ask questions, or understands how institutions handle these sorts of situations, would have understood. It’s not complicated or unusual; it’s S.O.P. for media circuses. You’d think a member of the media would grok that. We’re not sure when the embargo was lifted, but it was sent to all Duke faculty.
Pessah says this:
His players have always been his top salesmen, which both pleases and amuses them, given the mixture of respect, love and loathing many feel for their old coach. At a charity roast a few years back, ESPN analyst and former Dukie Jay Bilas told the audience of Blue Devils players, coaches and supporters, “Coach has a new book out: The 10 Greatest Men in History— and What I Think of the Other Nine.”
He says loathing, without mentioning a single person who expresses that sentiment, and uses Jay Bilas’s line as proof. But it was given at a roast. The whole idea of a roast is to insult the guest of honor. It’s easy to say that no one will speak on the record, but if they won’t, then why refer to them? If you’re going to support your argument, you ought to at least get someone to back it up, rather than saying, well, they all say it but only off the record. That’s crap, frankly. It’s bush league. He attempts to paint Krzyzewski in dark colors, but can’t substantiate it.
The rest of the story deals with the “decline” of Duke basketball. There is some truth to that, if you take Final Fours as the measure, but not as much as you might think.
College basketball has changed enormously in the last decade or so. At Duke, it hit home in 1999, when Elton Brand, Will Avery, and Corey Maggette left for the NBA. Duke has dealt with the changes as well as anyone has. If two things had happened differently, no one would be talking about this: our understanding is that Luol Deng wanted to stay longer, but his family urged him to come out. And in the case of Shaun Livingston, had he come to Duke, even for just two years, things would have been very different (the idea you’ll remember was that Greg Paulus would be his understudy for at least a while). And then there’s Kris Humphries, whose desire to jump to the NBA led him to some foolish decisions (Humphries is with the Raptors now, averaging 3.5 ppg going into his contract year).
But look around. UNC collapsed before Roy Williams returned. UConn didn’t even make the NIT last year. Kansas has continued to win, but they haven’t made the Final Four in a while. Rick Pitino hasn’t clawed his way back to the top yet. UCLA has won with Ben Howland, but do you think he’s planning long-term around Kevin Love?
Facts are facts, though. Over the last five years, Duke has averaged 27.6 wins per season. Toss out last year and it’s 29. This in spite of the problems the NBA has presented, despite the massive changes in the game, despite everything.
The Final Fours are a magnificent part of Krzyzewski’s accomplishments, but to maintain a consistent level of success in the face of great change, defections, and injuries, is just as remarkable.
One more point: Pessah talks about Krzyzewski’s pride in being able to adapt, but then talks about Duke’s striking out on Patrick Patterson and Greg Monroe, and obviously either player would have helped. But Duke has won with a 6-5 post player (Robert Brickey), a 6-7 post player (John Smith), a 6-8 post player (Jay Bilas) and with 6-6 Chris Carrawell taking on guys like Tim Duncan. Given the fact that guys like Monroe and Patterson aren’t likely to be long-term players, and that Duke has managed to do it on their own terms for almost three decades, given Krzyzewski’s notable success in altering the way the Olympic team is managed, among other accomplishments, one would assume he can find a way to succeed in a college game largely devoid of experienced big men.
But the distortions, the insinuations, the whispers that Pessah works into a story, really, they’re secondary, because they’re part of a pattern by ESPN. Given the way they approach Duke now, on their website, on the air, and now in the magazine, it’s hard to think that they’re interested in objectivity or any standard of honest journalism. It would seem that they’ve done their research, and they’ve come to a conclusion: Duke Hating sells. And that’s where Duke fans should part company with ESPN.
The TV branch is unaviodable if you want to see Duke play on television. But here’s a suggestion: turn the sound down. Put on some jazz instead. Ignore the commentators completely.
And drop ESPN a line and tell them that enough is enough. Tell them you’ll never buy the magazine again. You can e-mail the author (but don’t take our word for it, read the article yourself before you do anything).
Duke isn’t perfect – not by a long shot. But there’s no reason why Duke should be ESPN’s whipping boy, either. The school – and the coach – are not above criticism and should be criticized. But when it’s coverage gets so far off base, so should ESPN. They have real power, and when they use it to market untruths, they need to be called on it. They need to hear from you.
ESPN Magazine
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