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Corey's Corner: All Is Well In Durham
8/17/2006 12:00:00 AM | Athletics
Mike Corey is a columnist for GoDuke.com. A 2005 graduate of Duke, he is the former sports editor of The Chronicle and Towerview. In 2005, he won the Rolling Stone magazine College Journalism Award for Essays and Criticism.
DURHAM, N.C. - It is the worst of times for the college athlete, the idyllic whipping boy for America's sports commentators - professional and amateur alike. The official appellation, "student-athlete," is wielded by politicians, pundits and fans alike in order to flagellate, rather than praise. They are considered to be inferior intellectual members of a society of higher learners, present merely because of corporeal gifts, which are supposedly in indirect relation to their cerebral ones.
Such castigations - accuracy be damned - are usually reserved for young men and women representing universities that possess something less than a sterling academic reputation. The flames of such critical fury are often fanned by criminal allegations, by scandal involving sex or drugs, by reports of students failing out of school, and so forth. And assumptions are quickly made based on a quick appraisal of the sports briefs, and such assumptions are broadly painted across the spectrum of a program, of a school, of a sport and of a system.
Undoubtedly, some schools have hosted a higher number of scandals in this information age, leading to more quickly-read-attention-grabbing headlines reporting on muck and mishap rather than might and motivation. Such is the nature of media. Good news just isn't newsworthy. So it goes.
A handful of schools that partake in Division I athletics have been able to avoid the breach, however. And Duke was among the few, the proud, the marinated in purity and perfection.
As with any glimmering persona, skepticism developed to counter the perception that Duke was Utopian. It was largely rooted in muckraking news reports: Chris Duhon's mother had been boosted by Duke basketball supporters to land a job in Durham; Carlos Boozer had landed a fancy new car; a bevy of athletes shared the same major of sociology. The stories all lacked evidence, of course, but have remained alive and well due to Google and the assailable myths that are borne out of presumption rather than reason, out of fiction rather than fact.
This phenomenon of schadenfreude - or in this instance, taking pleasure in someone else's perceived misfortune - is a universal one, and is not unique to the treatment of Duke University, nor to the world of sports. The proverbial fall from grace is a common storyline on front pages, be it the collapse of companies, countries or individuals. It is seized upon and embraced by the self-conscious, assuring mortality's fate upon those that were otherwise considered immortal.
Duke was such an institution, in every respect - academically, athletically and socially, people around the country would confidently nod to Durham as an example of an institution that could safely and accurately describe itself as leading its peers in every direction, in every field. Such beliefs were rooted in a tradition of excellence that had been carved out over 75 years of achievement and effort, but perhaps more realistically in describing the public sentiment, in U.S. News Rankings and the croons of basketball commentators.
And what was praiseworthy? The success of the basketball program notwithstanding, Duke is a trustworthy brand. Its students matriculate with high SAT scores and overwhelming credentials; its professors write books and take sabbaticals to work for presidents; its alumni run corporations and countries alike. But what of its athletes?
As of a few years ago, many would have contended that Duke's athletes are best representative of the balance that the University strives to instill in its graduates--healthy mind, healthy body, healthy spirit, the specifics of which are intentionally undefined to allow for personal interpretation and implementation. Such a rigorous balance was largely assumed to be in place for the Duke athletic program, until bad news began to trickle out, until pontificating pundits on cable news beleaguered the term “Blue Devil scholar-athlete” as a punch line rather than an affirmation of praise.
The grocery list of offenses ranged from the infamous lacrosse imbroglio to allegations of steroid use in the baseball program to the most recent suspension of the starting quarterback for plagiarism. In the world of headlines, it would have appeared as if the Duke Athletic Department had irreversibly scarred the reputation of the University with a banner year for bad news in Durham.
To come to such a conclusion, however, would be a tremendous mistake.
Certainly, the news listed above is not indicative of where Duke wants to go as an athletic department, but it is also not indicative of where Duke is as an athletic department. To take the incidents and extrapolate that Duke has somehow lost its way would simply be a mischaracterization of the facts based on insufficient evidence.
One would go so far as to argue that the state of Duke athletics - and the states of its individual athletes, teams and coaches - has never been better.
Perhaps it appears difficult to make this assertion considering the spring of discontent that continues to follow the Blue Devils, but it is an easily defensible one nonetheless. Tribulation and tumult come to every University's doorstep, both inside and outside its teams. But as James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
So rather than running from its problems, Duke has invited them in, researched them meticulously, acknowledged its shortcomings, and is in the process of striding toward a healthier department--not for the sake of its reputation, but for the sake of the students it serves.
One consequence of this is the athletic department's drafting of a new code of ethical standards, which is borne out of the work of various studies that were conducted in the wake of the lacrosse imbroglio, and which will be finalized sometime this fall.
"When you get right down to it, our 600-some-odd kids have really been good," Associated Athletic Director Chris Kennedy told The Chronicle in July. "I didn't want to produce something that suggests that we have a huge problem. I've wanted to affirm what they've accomplished--we never want to stop trying to get better."
It is this philosophical embracement of the athletic department as another conduit of instruction and development of Duke University that makes the Blue Devils unique, and that allows me the confidence to assert unswervingly that all will be well in Durham, that all is well in Durham, because the mark of success is in the ability to learn from one's faults, and to make concerted efforts to remedy any problems in an expeditious manner.
The necessary introspection notwithstanding, Duke athletics represented the University and its Alumni well as it usually does--by performing with class and a high caliber in the classroom and on the field. For the 18th straight year, Duke's student-athletes proved that the title is a befitting one as they led the ACC in the number of Academic Honor Roll honorees. The department's graduation rate has remained about 40 percentage points higher than the national average, hovering between 87 and 94 percent. The NCSA Power Rankings that combine the U.S. News and World Report's list of top schools, the Director's Cup athletic rankings, and a school's graduation rate placed Duke first among all Division I schools. Excellence on the field has been equally impressive, with a national championship, a bevy of ACC titles, a handful of Final Four appearances and a considerable number of All-Americans in the last year alone.
But such results are not even the best barometers of success with regards to the student-athletes. That which ought to be considered, in fact, are the outcomes - what are Duke's former scholar-athletes doing post-University life, away from the public eye, away from their professors and peers, away from their coaches and athletic accolades?
For a snapshot, let us consider my former classmates from the class of 2005, and let us consider a single program: women's soccer. The class was comprised of four individuals - one from Illinois, one from Virginia, one from California and one from North Carolina. Kate Straka spent a year teaching in Honduras, and has returned to Illinois to instruct 9th and 11th graders in World History and U.S. History, respectively, beginning this fall; Casey McCluskey, one of the all-time great women's soccer players in Duke history, matriculates at Richmond Law School this fall; Carly O'Connor returned West where she is thriving in the executive training program for Gap, Inc.; and Lauren Simel, after spending a year conducting research, recently began her professional studies at Duke Medical School.
Such are extraordinary individuals that serve as mere examples of the tremendous work that Duke's student-athletes partake in after leaving Duke's campus, and serve as exhibit number one in the refutation of the catcalls bemoaning the supposed fall from grace for Duke's standards for its varsity athletes, for while the continuing success of the four women listed above may be extraordinary, their experience is anything but anomalous.
Continuous improvement remains the ideal, however, for striving for perfection will lead to continuously greater results for the individuals who are there to learn and grow. Fortunately for the University, and fortunately for the students who inhabit its halls, Duke is a leader in seeking the balance of success in athletics and academics. There are pitfalls as there are everywhere else, but they are seized as opportunities at Duke rather than impassable chasms, and as a result the University can confidently carry on progressively toward its ultimate goal of turning young men and women into the responsible citizens who may pursue their dreams as they see fit, as the next generation of America's leaders.
These outcomes - and this assessment - do not parallel the doomsday scenarios and cynicism usually incorporated with student-athletes in this country, but Duke has never been one to follow, but rather, one to lead.
The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of Duke University or the Duke University Department of Athletics.
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