I'm going to Disney World.
That's right, Orlando, Fla. for a five-day weekend, with about 200 other Duke students and coaches, all expenses paid. What about all those missed classes? A dean's excuse will be provided, as will a laptop and free HBO. Oh yeah, could I get some sunscreen thrown in?
I guess I should explain that we did not win a contest, we are not researching manatees and our parents are not necessarily rich.
Excepting myself and two other members of The Chronicle Staff, the nearly 200 Duke students are all athletes participating in one of eight ACC championships, which means, technically, none of us are really on vacation.
Right.
To explain just exactly how we have pulled this off requires an inside look at the other Magic Kingdom also known as the Duke athletic department, an entity that has managed to build itself into a Bretton Woods-sized resort just on the edge of West Campus.
Access requires neither brains, personality nor morals. You get there if your parents gave you a field hockey stick when you were three, or if they flew you to golf tournaments in Scottsdale when you were 11. Anything learned in the inner-city or out in the farm country is pretty much useless here; so those of you who can wrestle, tackle or recognize a "can of corn" should head to one of those giant schools known by their initials.
Now, there are a couple things to note about these athletes and their teams. For the most part, interviewing them is a bit like talking to an Allen Building administrator: Getting a suitable response takes very careful questioning and involves probing a lot of other people.
This is because players and the media co-exist about as well as Caddyshack's Judge Smails and Al Czervik in the Bushwood pro shop. When the athletes do talk, their phrases tend to be so clichéd that you have to wonder if their term papers will start something like, "Eugene O'Neill took things one play at a time."
Also, just about every team has this issue with respect. Football and baseball believe their sports are seminal to college culture and deserve more appreciation, despite both having abysmal records. Women's squads in general feel undervalued, such as when Athletic Director Joe Alleva termed basketball standout Georgia Schweitzer as unworthy of jersey retirement.
This quest for respect infiltrates everyone except the men's basketball team, which is the pinnacle of privilege. And speaking of financial gluttony, take a look at Mike Krzyzewski's best-selling "Leading With the Heart."
Advice from page 19: "Sometimes a loss is as good as a win."
Gee, thanks Confucius, but can I have my $24.95 back? Doubtful: Krzyzewski showed up on Letterman last week and made a subtle quip about being underpaid.
The athletes and coaches are not the only ones with a sweet deal. In on the heist is this clan called Sports Information. It is hard to explain exactly what they do, but it essentially involves making sure the athletes' and coaches lives run as smoothly as possible.
They also are in charge of this thing called media relations. This simply means that when I want to talk to a coach after a match, I have to talk to the sports info rep. This SID then tells the coach that I want to talk to him or her, and this coach will finally approach me for a 45-second interview. This is very reasonable, though, since otherwise the sports info rep would be out of a job.
The final characters in the empire are the sportswriters, who get paid for sitting in the best seats, eating free food and cranking out a story that takes them about 30 minutes on average.
Reporters are pretty much exclusively male, and are often tremendously overweight. After all, they don't even have to play anything. The pay is not great, but when you see just how little stress this fraternity undergoes, it may make you rethink your future in consulting or I-banking. And anyway, "working" an evening game means they get to watch sports and avoid their wives without getting a guilt trip when they return home.
Sports info, the press, athletes and coaches will end up in Orlando this weekend, and all of them will get paid for it-except the athletes, who have the parting gift of a full-ride scholarship.
To my Canadian Studies professor from British Columbia, this all seems a little more than bizarre-but I'm not complaining, at least not this weekend.
Thomas Steinberger is a Trinity senior looking to get a job, a car, a girl with a lot of money and a decent haircut.
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