Sports Commentary
A lot of basketball coaches, notably those who have to compete with him regularly in the Atlantic Coast Conference, have frequently complained in recent years about the string of TV commercials Mike Krzyzewski has appeared in as a pitchman for various corporations. "Unfair recruiting advantage," they huff, sick and tired of the pristine image of Duke and, as one coach eloquently puts it, "the sainted f----- Coach K."
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Well, the boys needn't worry about Duke's pristine image anymore. It has been shattered, not by Krzyzewski or his high-profile basketball team, but by the school's lacrosse team, a group known before the last six weeks only by friends, family and those who follow the niche sport (albeit a growing one) that is lacrosse.
Now, the entire world knows Duke has a lacrosse team. Specifically, the world knows it has a lacrosse team that has been guilty of immature, idiotic, out-of-control behavior for years. A prosecutor in Durham says at least two members of the team are guilty of rape. His case, at least based on the evidence presented thus far, appears to be shaky at best; politically motivated at worst. To the accuser; to the two players under indictment and their families and to those close to Duke lacrosse, the outcome of that case is hugely significant.
But let's put it aside for the moment, not because it lacks importance, but because we all lack facts. It is, sadly, a he-said; she-said case (especially in light of the current lack of DNA evidence) and has become a racially-charged issue because the accuser is African-American and the accused are not only white, but rich, privileged, lawyered-up and white. The legal case will eventually take care of itself one way or the other. In the meantime, Duke finds itself faced with a series of questions that have very little to do with whether a rape took place on that ill-fated March night at a party that got out of control.
Let's first deal with the "boys-will-be-boys," excuse that has come up and will continue to come up - again the question of rape aside because even Duke's see-no-evil administrators know that goes well beyond any boys-will-be-boys defense. The notion that because drinking is an epidemic on college campuses (it is) and that because athletes all around the country throw wild parties and hire strippers (they do) that the Duke lacrosse players should not be punished for their behavior, is ill-conceived, navie and, frankly, stupid.
For one thing, two wrongs or ten or 100 or 1,000, don't make a right. What's more, according to a report released on May 2 by seven members of the Duke faculty, there was a written report two years ago sent to top Duke administrators telling them that there was a serious problem with the behavior of the lacrosse team. What this tells us is that this party was far from being an isolated incident, it was part of a pattern that the school chose to ignore.
It also tells us - definitively - that Tallman Trask, the school vice president who received the report and Joe Alleva, the athletic director who Trask mentioned the report to (without every giving it to him or being asked for it) should both be fired. Not reprimanded, not told to do better, fired. They had a written report from someone who worked at the school - not a member of the "out of control," media as Duke apologists have taken to referring to as a cop-out for this debacle - but someone who worked for the school who had done research on specific incidents and found a pattern that concerned him enough to put those concerns in writing.
Trask did nothing.
Alleva did nothing.
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The Duke board of trustees will be in Durham this week. If, when those meetings are over, President Richard Brodhead doesn't announce that Trask and Alleva are gone, he should be fired. And the trustees should all be asked to resign for not demanding the exits of Trask and Alleva.
A few words of disclaimer here: I am a graduate of Duke. In 1998, after Tom Butters retired as athletic director, I was one of a number of Duke graduates who had connections to the sports world who pushed then-President Nan Keohane and Trask to hire Tom Mickle as his successor. Not only was Mickle a Duke graduate who had worked at Duke and as the No. 2 man in the Atlantic Coast Conference, he was one of the brightest and most innovative people in college sports. When he met with Keohane, he brought with him comprehensive plans on how to try to fix Duke football and how to fund non-revenue programs that were un-funded at the time.
Keohane chose Alleva because she didn't want someone who was bright and innovative. She had worked previously at Wellesley and had made it clear to people around her that Krzyzewski's importance to Duke bothered her. After all basketball was a sport; it wasn't an academic pursuit. This isn't the place for a debate on why successful sports teams - managed properly - can be good for any college at any level. Keohane wanted someone who wouldn't rock the good-ship Duke athletics which was kept afloat by the money brought in by Krzyzewski's basketball team. That was plenty as far as she was concerned. She hired Alleva and then she and Trask and their mouthpiece John Burness went around claiming Alleva was the best choice. The fact that no one who knew anything about athletics supported Alleva was irrelevant.
They knew Alleva wasn't the best choice, he was the easy choice. When I publicly blasted Keohane for the Alleva hiring, Burness told some local writers I was just upset because my friend Mickle hadn't gotten the job.
Sure. And Gene Corrigan (former ACC commissioner); Carl James ( then commissioner of The Big 12); Mike McGee (South Carolina AD); Bill Brill (Duke athletics Hall of Fame member who has covered college athletics for 50 years) all of them Duke grads who told Keohane she should hire Mickle, all did so because Mickle was their friend. It couldn't possibly be because Mickle was the best person for Duke could it? Nah, why would they want what was best for Duke?
Alleva's performance before the lacrosse debacle, has been undistinguished to put it politely. Duke football, terrible when he took over, is now worse. (Brilliant move turning down Bobby Ross, who has only won a national title and coached in the Super Bowl to hire the immortal Ted Roof). Alleva also hired a crony of his to coach baseball and kept him around through one losing season after another until accusations by ex-players that the coach had encouraged them to used steriods finally forced his hand.
When the lacrosse story first broke, Alleva's initial public reaction was, "this is an unfortunate incident."
Huh? Unfortunate? Losing to LSU in the Sweet Sixteen was an unfortunate incident for Duke. This goes well beyond that. Alleva has basically been told since then to shut up and not say anything publicly because he can't be trusted to keep his foot out of his mouth. Someone should have told Trask the same thing. Two weeks ago he was quoted in the Duke student newspaper, The Chronicle, as saying that he was aware there were behavioral problems with the lacrosse team (he did not mention that he had seen a written report on the subject) but felt as if the school had a handle on those problems.
Apparently not.
Duke's handling of this disaster has been disastrous. When the women's basketball team went to the Final Four in Boston, members of the media were instructed not to ask the players questions about the lacrosse situation. In other words, the school - Alleva? Burness? Trask? Brodhead? - had decided that these fine young student-athletes, weren't capable of saying something like, "gee, we don't know much about this, but we're all saddened by it for everyone involved." Or, "you never want to see something like this happen at your school or to your school." No, the smart move, according to the bosses, was to publicly stonewall, make sure everyone noticed that a cover-up was in progress.
In some ways, there is nothing Duke can do to put this incident completely behind it. The words, "Duke lacrosse," will be a catch-phrase for jock misbehavior for years to come, regardless of the outcome of the rape case. But Duke can begin moving forward when the trustees meet next week if Trask, Alleva and Burness are told to find new jobs. Tragically, Burness can't spin this to make the ridiculous claim that I'm pushing Tom Mickle for the AD's job because Mickle died on April 17th.
Here's some spin for Keohane, Trask and Burness: this never would have gotten to this point had Mickle been AD. He was a pro-active administrator, not a reactive one. You can bet if he'd been told there was a written report on lacrosse misbehavior in 2004, he would have taken aggressive steps to correct the problem - immediately.
It's really too bad Duke can't retroactivally fire Keohane. Those she left behind need to go. Then, Broadhead needs to form a search committee of athletic people - start with Corrigan, McGee, Brill, Krzyzewski and women's basketball coach Gail Goestenkors - to find a new athletic director.
Once he/she is hired, a new task force should be put in place to report to the AD on what went wrong with Duke athletics; what is still wrong and what should be done to make it better. Because here's a fact: if a Duke athlete, any Duke athlete, is standing on a street corner and his/her bookbag accidentally hits someone in the arm, there will be headlines across the country that will say: "Duke Athlete Involved in Brawl on Street."
Fair? No. Fact of life? Yes.
Whether Duke plays lacrosse next year really doesn't matter. The damage is done. The only way for repair work to begin is for the people in charge to admit their mistakes; fire those who oversaw all of this and try to begin anew. One thing about life is fairly simple: you can't fix something until you admit it is broken.
Your move, President Brodhead.