As I get older, there are three givens for every new year-I will get lazier, I will spend even more time at the local Wal-Mart, and the fact that I'm a Duke football season ticket holder will rocket even higher on the list of things I never mention.
Currently, it's somewhere between the fact that I know who the current holder of the warrior belt is on Battle Cage and my inexplicably large Bon Jovi album collection.
The bad news for Duke football-Bon Jovi is making a comeback.
And now that the football team is in a little 76-0 rut, those season tickets-which I'm proud to say my parents and sister still own-have plummeted faster than stock in L.A. Gear.
I don't want to rip on the football team, really. Head coach Carl Franks is about as good a guy as you'll ever meet in the sports world and if he gets to stay around at Duke for a couple years, he'll probably turn out to be a pretty good college coach. And the same is true for most of the players. So what if they score less than Psi Upsilon, they're decent enough athletes and decent enough guys.
And after years of watching Duke football, that's enough to bide my time until basketball season.
But Keith Jackson's in the booth and police stations all around the nation are getting their Seminole stamp ready for the blotter-it's officially college football season.
Whoop-de-frickin'-doo.
Welcome to college football season at a basketball school, where everybody gets about as excited as they do for the arrival of Labor Day-in Palau.
Every year, it's just like Christmas at your grandmother's. Sure, it's real exciting for a couple hours leading up to it, but when you walk out that night with another ragged pair of underwear and a piece of plastic molded to your butt from sitting at the kiddy table, it's all suddenly about as thrilling as the five bucks off at Foot Locker I won from a Mountain Dew cap.
I guess I've just grown used to it.
Even after a humiliating defeat to ECU, a school which is amazingly on the receiving end of jokes from N.C. State, I've only got one real beef with Duke football, and it's got nothing to do with the team.
It's the damn sign.
If there's one thing about Duke football that really sets my biscuits burning, it's the sign behind the Duke bench-Duke football: The tradition of traditions.
Come on, really.
That's like saying Canada: The country of countries, or Spam: The luncheon meat of luncheon meats. Sure, the Canadians have done some good things for us and Lord knows where we'd be without great Canadian stuff like, well, Zambonis, and sure we all enjoy a little Spam from time to time, but when was the last time you ever heard of those intimidating Canadians or turned down a little spiced luncheon loaf?
Just offhand, I can think of a team or 200 that has a better tradition than Duke football. Just at Duke, the men's basketball here has a little tradition and hell, even our drunken club rugby team has at least beaten Carolina.
Calling Duke football the tradition of traditions with the history of the men's basketball team is kind of like Pepsi talking about the rousing success of Clear Pepsi.
But there you have it, right behind the Duke bench, indisputable proof that somebody has the world's most creative mind or the world's most uninsultable intelligence.
Sure, Duke football used to have tradition. And believe me, I'm really frickin' glad that we won all those frickin' championships in 1920 and I'm sure it'll frickin' impress the hell out of all my flapper friends and maybe afterwards we can all do the frickin' hully-gully and hope that Lucky Lindy makes it back over The Pond. Just a thought.
The fact is that Duke has as many ACC titles since the end of the Johnson administration as Flock of Sea Gulls had hit albums-one. And in that span, it's got just a few more losses. If you've got one of those "e" buttons on your calculator, feel free to add them up. Hmm. Tradition.
But believe it or not, it could be worse.
If you just arrived, you might think that Duke football just started a triple gainer down the toilet, but as a longtime football fan, I can guarantee you that's not true-it started sucking a long time ago.
There was a time very recently when Duke football meant something. Problem is, it lasted about as long as Corey Maggette's collegiate career. Or exactly as long as Corey Maggette's collegiate career to be precise-one season, 1994.
After Steve Spurrier left in 1989, Duke was saddled with Barry Wilson, a man with all the personality of a pickle and half the coaching savvy. Four undistinguished years later came Fred Goldsmith.
There should've been warning signs right away when he was hyped up as the man who turned Rice into a bowl "contender." Considering you can now play in the prestigious Weedeater Bowl, and since the George Foreman Super Gas Grill Bowl can't be far away, being a bowl "contender" is a little akin to being a "contender" to get into community college.
Goldsmith brought one great season to Durham. That team won seven straight games before hosting FSU. (Before Duke started selling home games on ebay, we actually hosted the 'Noles). But after that, it went downhill faster than a greased up Roseanne Barr on a super sled in December.
The only positive thing I can say about Fred Goldsmith is that once, after a tough defeat at N.C. State, he accidentally spit a large chunk of chicken onto the face of a reporter from Greensboro. Fred had about the same grasp on his food he had on football.
Which brings us to the latest installment of the Duke football "tradition," continuing strong and winless into a new millennium.
But just remember, as bad as it seems, projectile chicken is always worse.
I've got to go, homework awaits in Soc. 10: The class of classes.
Upon Further Review is a weekly sports column. It appears every Wednesday.
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