I try to be a good father, to teach my kids about kindness and generosity, being ready to apologize and ready to forgive, treating others the way they would like to be treated, and like any decent person, cultivating a healthy hatred of the Duke University men’s basketball team.
What’s so bad about Duke? Jay Williams. Chris Duhon. JJ Redick. Shane Battier. Mike Dunleavy Jr. Carlos Boozer. Austin Rivers. Jon Scheyer. Grayson Allen. The list goes on, but I’ve got a word count to stick to.
Plus, I grew up a Gary Williams-era Terps fan, archrival to those devils from Durham. My heroes were Juan Dixon, Steve Blake, Lonny Baxter, Steve Francis, Terence Morris, Chris Wilcox, Drew Nicholas, and whoever wrung out Williams’s sweat-soaked wool suits.
But there’s been a concerning development in recent years: My hatred of the Dukies has mellowed out. It could be because I’ve grown older and wiser, that as a father of two children, with twins on the way, I’ve matured, mellowed, reset my priorities. Know what’s important in life and how to let go of the rest.
Nah. It’s definitely the transfer portal.
I’m not here to weigh the philosophical arguments, legal foundations or financial implications of the transfer portal (TP), which allows athletes to easily jump from one school’s team to another; and its partner-in-crime, Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), which permits those students athletes to effectively become professionals with million-dollar endorsement deals. That would require research, nuance and a firm grasp of the issues.
I’m here to complain.
Because NIL-TP is stripping the pageantry and prestige from the college game before our very eyes. The game used to be inspiring, tribal, emotional. But under NIL-TP, even the most august jerseys and arenas have been reduced to nothing more than short-term rentals — AirBnB for elite student-athlete mercenaries. They just don’t mean what they used to.
As if enough money wasn’t already sloshing around college sports, the NCAA’s recent landmark legal settlement paves the way for individual universities to pay student-athletes directly from a $20 million pot. What could go wrong? It’ll be $20 million for the prized quarterback recruit, jelly-of-the-month club for everyone else.
In a commercial that played during this past season’s March Madness, Coach K (whom I dislike) talks about the meaning behind a uniform. He intones: “There’s a sense of pride. You’re not just wearing your last name. You’re representing everything that got you here. Your family. Where you’re from. Wearing that uniform makes a statement that you belong to something bigger.”
I sincerely believe that’s how Coach K feels. That that’s how the Dukies of old felt, too. This new crew? Not so much. Within days of its opening, seven Dukies bolted for the transfer portal. So much for Duke’s “Brotherhood.”
Give credit where credit is due — those Dukies of old stuck around. Gave you a chance to get to know them, to grow with them over the course of three or four years, so that your hatred was grounded in and fueled by familiarity. It was basic human decency.
I still dislike Duke. Always will — a commitment’s a commitment. But it’s no longer the rabid, vitriolic, non-sensical hatred that it should be. With NIL-TP, there’s a little less hate in the world. But when it comes to the passion and pageantry of college sports, that’s not a good thing.
Zach Przystup (zprzystup@gmail.com) works for the Fulbright Program at the U.S. Department of State.
