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.
Now, precisely who needs to go to college again?
