J.J. Redick couldn't help himself from breaking into a grin.
The sophomore guard had just led his team to a hard-fought victory at rival Maryland, pouring in a game-high 26 points despite playing in a hostile arena that loves to hate Duke.
Redick had almost single-handedly spoiled the Terrapins' upset bid, and when he stepped to the free throw line to ice the game in its waning seconds, he bore the brunt of the Maryland students' frustration. As he calmly sank his free throws, jeers rained down from the student section.
Though hard to discern at first, the loud chant soon became unmistakably clear: "F*** you, J.J.," the students yelled.
"I could obviously hear what they were saying," Redick said with a smile following the game. "It's the heat of the battle [in] one of the best rivalries in college basketball. They hate us, [and] I'm sure they hate me."
Though Redick was willing to shrug off the incident, at least publicly, others were far less tolerant, and rightfully so. From fans who commonly wear "F*** Duke" T-shirts and who once threw a bottle at Carlos Boozer's mother's head, the obscene chants directed at Redick were yet another demonstration of a glaring lack of class and accountability.
Washington Post sportswriters Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discussed the incident the day after the game on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," and concluded that the University should take measures to censor its students in order to prevent such vulgarity. As disgusted as I am with the cheers, the First Amendment guarantees free speech in this country, "F Duke" and "F you, J.J." included. If the students want to chant such obscenities, they have every right to do so without being disciplined by the public university.
But even if Maryland fans are free to chant obscenities at Redick, that doesn't make it right. I'm not going to get into a discussion of semantics here--for some reason, our culture has defined certain words and phrases as insulting and taboo.
While the Cameron Crazies and college students throughout the country try to make life as inhospitable for opposing teams as possible, no one crosses this intangible line as often as Maryland students.
Who's to be held accountable for Maryland's students' actions? At Duke, any cheer that Coach K doesn't like gets nixed--fast. Doesn't Maryland head coach Gary Williams have the same power? While Williams does all the mandatory lip service to stopping the vulgarity--including public address announcements and open letters to the community--he usually does so only after specific incidents have put Maryland's fans in the spotlight. You have to wonder to what degree he really wants the students to stop. Such was the case Sunday, when he less-than-firmly addressed the student body prior to the N.C. State game, asking them to remove vulgarity from their cheers.
Chanting "F*** you" at a guy who just dominated your team is as childish as the little kid who tosses over the board game when he's losing. Can you say sore loser?
Scott Van Pelt, a former Maryland student and current Sports Center anchor who was sitting courtside at the game, was infuriated by what he witnessed.
"Are you kidding? 'F*** you, [J.J.]?' The guy comes in here and abuses us, and that's your response?" Van Pelt told the Maryland Diamondback. "Do you go back to your dorm room and get a hard-on thinking, 'Man, I really gave it to Redick tonight'? No...he gave it to you, dude. He torched you for 26 and he left. I'm embarrassed to say that this is what it's come to."
The root of the problem, and the reason Maryland students are so inclined to vulgarity when it comes to Duke, is that the school is infused with a massive inferiority complex that defines its identity.
Duke: rich, snobby, prestigious private school.
Maryland: gigantic, impersonal, pretty good public school.
Basketball has been the focal point of this complex for the past decade.
Maryland has been a very good program over that span, but Duke has been likely the most dominant program in the nation. My great hope was that Maryland would lose its inferiority complex and gain some self-esteem after conquering its Duke demons and winning the National Championship in 2002, but that didn't happen. Apparently, Maryland doesn't want to see itself as the big guy; it wants to be the little guy who knocks off the big guy.
The solution for Maryland, then, is not censoring the students; it's having Gary Williams distinguish emphatically between what's right and what's not, and it's addressing the root of the problem, the school's inferiority complex. The moment Maryland students gain some pride in their school is the moment "F Duke" t-shirts and "F you, J.J." chants lose their appeal.
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