Stick To Basketball, Dukies

Irony, thy name is Duke Basketball Report.

In a spittle-flying screed entitled “Cheap Shot From A Cheap Site,� the DBR fulminates over the Giant comparing the Atlantic Coast Conference to France (our alma mater), England, (UNC), and Germany (Duke) – the last of which I describe as the new strength arising under a malevolent leader.

“But, but, but… Coach K is the son of Polish immigrants,� sputter the outraged Dukies. And the awful Giant, they say, has compared Coach K to HITLER… “Just an incredibly thoughtless, ignorant, and uneducated thing to say.� It’s true, they say – if you can’t go to college, go to State.
Does SFN, they rave, have no sense of history?

Actually, yes we do, and somewhat more of one (by all appearances) than the nerdish jock-sniffers who populate the DBR. The Giant’s often pondered that the supposed “superior education� offered at Ivy League wannabes like Duke is somewhat dubious when the rubber hits the road. The DBR’s March 21 hack job on the Giant’s jocular little column certainly adds grist to that mill.

You see, as anyone who’s taken a reputable European history course can attest, the DBR’s talking through its hat with this rant. The classic European struggle for power between England, France, and Germany reached its essence between 1870 (the end of the Franco-Prussian War, when Germany was created) and 1914’s “Guns of August,� which signaled the start of what became World War One. During that period, a new and resurgent German Empire arose from a collection of fairly fragmented states into a military and political juggernaut that soon supplanted France as the powerhouse of continental Europe. Sort of the way, you know, Duke supplanted State basketball in the ACC.

And Germany enjoyed this rise under the malevolent (to those who, well, didn’t want to be German) leadership of – Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor,� a master geopolitical strategist, who incidentally never abused a Pole in his life. And it was Bismarck, not Hitler, to whom the Giant was comparing Coach K. Not the nicest guy to his enemies, Otto, but you have to give the man credit for genius – as the Giant was crediting Coach K.

“Mein Gott – Dukies Schiesskopfs Ist!”

I suggest remedial reading in the form of Robert K. Massie’s “Dreadnought,� which explains all of this – assuming mein Kameraden at the DBR can put down the latest recycled John Feinstein dreck long enough to learn some history.

http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/images/massie_cover.gif

Now, precisely who needs to go to college again?

General

109 Responses to Stick To Basketball, Dukies

  1. Jim 03/21/2006 at 12:25 PM #

    ^ Hard to believe. That’s why you hit such a nerve.

  2. Carlos 03/21/2006 at 12:27 PM #

    Giant – I think it’s great that you have such an appreciation for European history. But realistically, if you were to poll a large enough sample size and ask the question “Germany became a relatively new European power under the rule of which malevolent leader” do you really think the majority of people would answer Bismarck? Anytime you string “malevolent leader” and “Germany”, do you really expect the majority of your audience to assume anyone other than Hitler?

    Given the struggles of Germany’s post WWI Weimar Republic and the crushing economic impact of the war reparations, contrasted with general perception of the strength of Hitler’s Germany up to the early parts of WWII, your statements could as easily portray Hitler as they could Bismarck, even to someone who has, as you say, taken a reputable history course.

    So, perhaps you really were thinking of Bismarck in your original piece. Or perhaps it was Hitler and now Otto makes for a nice spin. However, if it’s the former, then the confusion and subsequent indignation is as much the result of your ambiguous writing as it is anyone’s lack of a sense of history.

    Plus, if you were talking about Bismarck and Germany as a metaphor for Krzyzewski and Duke, then you really blew the opportunity to use a Duke von Lauenburg reference in there.

  3. JamesP 03/21/2006 at 12:28 PM #

    As a Duke Alum an avid DBR reader (who really likes the perspective that JBJ bring), I think they just got this one wrong. Their post was a big overreaction to your original post (which was funny) and your retort here was an amusing touche. The protection of Coach K’s feelings is kind of silly in light of the actual K-hatred that exists out there. I think he’s a little more thick skinned than they’re giving him credit for. I mean, at Comcast he has to worry about being assaulted. I don’t think a strained historical metaphor is really going to bother him.

  4. Jim 03/21/2006 at 12:31 PM #

    I have to agree with Carlos.

    To paraphrase him and go further:

    Anytime you string “malevolent leader,� “Germany�, and Coach K (who obviously physically resembles Hitler a lot more than Bismark) do you really expect the majority of your audience to assume anyone other than Hitler?

  5. Cardiff Giant 03/21/2006 at 12:32 PM #

    ^ Thanks James. And that’s truly the ironic thing: Far from hating Coach K, I admire what he’s done at Duke.

    Carlos, some of your points are well taken. But even if that was the case – that the statement was sufficiently ambiguous to raise the question – would it not have been appropriate, prior to posting the screed they did and given that the column was an obvious joking reference to OUR situation, to seek clarification?

  6. Cardiff Giant 03/21/2006 at 12:33 PM #

    “do you really expect the majority of your audience to assume anyone other than Hitler?”

    I would expect my audience to know enough history to consider that I was discussing the one rather than the other, yes.

  7. ThePack 03/21/2006 at 12:38 PM #

    David,

    Name calling? How old are you? You are about as mature as a 10 year old child.

  8. VTPACKFAN 03/21/2006 at 12:39 PM #

    The saying when you “assume” you only make an “ass” out of “u and me” never fit so well.

  9. Cardiff Giant 03/21/2006 at 12:39 PM #

    ^ We just delete all of ol’Dave’s comments. As I said, it’s like scraping gum off of your shoe.

  10. Cardiff Giant 03/21/2006 at 12:40 PM #

    “The saying when you “assumeâ€? you only make an “assâ€? out of “u and meâ€? never fit so well.”

    I am not a smart man, but I know who Bismarck was?

  11. class of '74 03/21/2006 at 12:40 PM #

    I was born and raised in Durham. I grew up in a neighborhood full of Duke administrators and professors. Believe me when I say, the Duke fans not enrolled at Duke and living in the Bull City are for the most part knuckle dragging morons! And they just love the DBR.

  12. ThePack 03/21/2006 at 12:43 PM #

    David David David, I feel sorry for other Duke fans. I am sure they wish you were not part of the rank and file.

  13. Jim 03/21/2006 at 12:44 PM #

    ^ government shall not abridge

  14. Herb 03/21/2006 at 12:44 PM #

    ^Good point David! Duke fans have never complained about their football team and look where it’s gotten them!

    Giant, thanks for proving State alums can read as well as do math. Take solace in the fact that I, at least, understood your gist (even if I didn’t know the precise historical data).

    On another note, there are Duke fans in North Carolina? I thought my mom was the only one. (Isn’t there some sort of state law that prohibits that now that I’ve got a degree from State?)

  15. JamesP 03/21/2006 at 12:45 PM #

    We’re talking about basketball here, people. I think we’re losing sight of the big picture–this was meant to be funny. It’s not like comparing the Prime Minister of the UK or the President of the US to Hitler, people who wield actual power. We’re talking about the use of metaphor to describe one basketball program who’s winning a lot of games and another that’s not winning as many. For the love of all, I would think Wolfpack fans would be the ones offended at being called the French!

  16. Carlos 03/21/2006 at 12:47 PM #

    Giant – The problem is that I think the vast majority of people out there didn’t read your original piece and ask, “is that Bismarck or Hitler” but instead only thought of Hitler. Jim’s point above is a good extension of what I had originally stated and you can further compound that with the frequency in which fans of other schools will portray Coach K in the vilest of ways. That happens even in with throwaway lines in satirical pieces on other subjects.

    So clarification would have been the right thing to do, but only if that original ambiguity would have resulted in most people considering two options. Instead given the points raised above, I think that for the significant majority of the people who read the piece, the reference only pointed in one direction.

    Now, is that worthy of getting worked up over even if one did think it was a Krzyzewski-Hitler metaphor?

  17. mwp99 03/21/2006 at 12:52 PM #

    “It was alow blow at a program and a person who has repescted your school and your coaches. you should apologize for the ambiguity, rather than respond with your pompous ire.”

    CG should apologize because others ignorantly misinterpreted his statements? NUTS!

  18. ThePack 03/21/2006 at 12:52 PM #

    Why do fans of all of these teams think being an NCSU, Duke, UNC, or Wake fan is the end all be all? Can we not take any cristism any more?

  19. JamesP 03/21/2006 at 12:59 PM #

    Carlos-
    No it’s not. For the reason mentioned above. Calling a basketball coach Hitler in this context is like calling him the Devil, the Boogey-man, Darth Vader, or the like. Relax. It’s not clear that he was referring to Hitler and I’ll take the man at his word he was talking about Bismarck, but it really wouldn’t matter anyway. When Duke basketball is granted the authority by the University to detain opposing players, use them as forced labor or dispose of them without due process these types of comparisons would become very worrisome. That might seem a little far fetched to some. Until that time, we can all lighten up just a bit.

  20. class of '74 03/21/2006 at 1:00 PM #

    Bottom line it was a darn funny piece and if you don’t like it too bad. Go write something as creatively humorous with your own point of view.

  21. Carlos 03/21/2006 at 1:04 PM #

    James – actually I agree with you. My question was purely rhetorical. (Of course, to come full circle on the irony, I guess my question could be viewed as ambiguous as well, given your response.)

  22. JamesP 03/21/2006 at 1:05 PM #

    LOL! I hadn’t read the full thread.

  23. Sam '92 03/21/2006 at 1:19 PM #

    Cardiff, acknowledging that you meant the Kaiser, I submit that since you didn’t specify the Kaiser, and were referring to bad, aggressive germany, it’s not so far off the reservation for people to assume you meant hitler.

    your reference to “relatively new behemoth” favors the 19th century interpretation, but that could (less well) apply to germany recovering from WWI disarmament.

    what’s tickling me is that dookies are worked up about this at all

    over the last 60 years comparisons to hitler have been fertile ground for humorists in a multitude of contexts, and anyone could see that your piece was about *n.c. state*, not coach k. to make the piece work (which it did), somebody had to be germany, and all this whining shows an intent to misinterpret the piece — by people who are so wrapped up in their insecurities that they can’t allow for humor and feel so threatened that they have to carp and whine (and do so by throwing in their own perceived superiority)

  24. Sam '92 03/21/2006 at 1:39 PM #

    here’s some honesty: Duke is a fine university

    here’s some more: most of the kids who are there, are there because their parents have money.

    unfortunately it seems that whether dookies came from money or are the few who found a way to swing it without, they think that they are better because they went to duke.

    they forget that education is what you make of it, and that clinging to a pedigree is a telltale sign of deep-seated insecurity

    and, i might add, so is hanging around a blog that is for state fans when you’re only there to carp, whine and deliver insults

  25. ThePack 03/21/2006 at 1:40 PM #

    well said Sam

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