Letter: Women's basketball needs support from students

For those of us who admittedly are obsessed with Duke women's basketball, there have been certain moments etched in our memory that highlight our rise to national preeminence: Georgia Schweitzer leading Duke over Tennessee to reach our first Final Four in 1999, Alana Beard showing game after game that there is nothing she cannot do on a basketball court, the melding of chemistry and talent leading eight stellar basketball players to a second Duke Final Four appearance in 2002. On Nov. 13, 2002, another memorable moment occurred when the Connecticut's women's basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, reacting in anger at the loss of stellar recruit Brittany Hunter to Duke, made a number of disparaging remarks clearly indicating that Duke and Coach Gale Goestenkors are getting under his skin. Program heads love when their major competitors are bothered by their success and the Duke coaches can now note that Auriemma is incredibly worried that he will lose more future recruits to a school with an equally stellar basketball program and far better academic reputation.

Nevertheless, Auriemma did address our major vulnerability at Duke when he noted that Connecticut gets more fans at their Blue/White scrimmage than Duke does to our biggest games.

I encourage the Duke student population to understand that the women's basketball program will soon be national champions and will contend for the title every year thereafter.

To provide a trivial level of support for a team this talented and to give our most important competitors Connecticut and Tennessee this ammunition to use in recruiting is wrong.