It was a perfect Saturday. Sunny and bright, hot and humid-the kind of day that was made for college football. About nine beers deep, I entered the stadium just before kickoff, having spent the last three hours immersing myself in tailgate. Greeting me were 92,000 screaming fans anxiously awaiting the battle between two perennial football powerhouses. I was in heaven.
Relaxing in a sports bar after the game and celebrating the win, I caught a glimpse of the Duke-Alabama score-we were winning 14-10 at half-and started cheering. Then I realized how pathetic a sight that must have been, and quickly sat down.
At times I feel that Duke is shielded by its secluded position in the Gothic Wonderland. The recent debate over our institutional priorities concerning athletics and academics has proven just that: We really have no idea of how it works on the outside. We are thus in dire need of some perspective. I intend to provide it.
Duke is NOT an athletic school. There is no controversy about which the administration or the Board of Trustees favors more. Simply put, there is just no argument: We are on the map for academics. And basketball, but only since the Coach K era.
We are, by comparison, somewhat pathetic. Our student body turns out in very small numbers for football games. The somewhat larger group of students who tailgate are there almost exclusively to party, and while tailgate was great two years ago, it is not exactly as well attended or exciting as it once was. Homefield advantage, furthermore, tends to disappear when the opponent's fans outnumber those rooting for Duke every week.
Truthfully, except for basketball and games against UNC, attendance is even worse at virtually every other sport. For the most part, students are just too busy to go or just don't care. Either way, athletics is by and large a low priority.
At other big schools, sports is everything. Compare Duke to schools like Texas, Michigan and Florida, where the student body attends tons of games in large numbers and most, if not all, of their teams are of incredible national caliber.
Their tailgates encompass the entire campus and are all about the football; the crowds number upwards of 70 or 80,000; and many fans travel from hundreds of miles away to see their team. It is simply at a level that Duke could never hope to reach. I mean, you can't even see the mosquito bite that is Wallace Wade Stadium from campus, and there is certainly no arguing that our alumni bother to come back.
Ultimately there is a fundamental difference between us and them: paradigms. The mentality at sports schools is all about sports-the students can't help but be caught up in it. It also doesn't hurt that their course loads are easier than ours. At Duke, however, the collective mindset is first and foremost on academic success, so the students naturally choose work or studying over attending sports events.
I love sports and couldn't imagine college without them. But I'm just trying to make the picture clear that Duke has nothing to worry about: We're not becoming overrun with some kind of athletic mania that will sweep academia under the rug. We just aren't that kind of school.
But at the same time, Professors Richard Hain and Fred Nijhout are right that Duke is an academic school that also has sports teams. So if we're going to have some mechanism of institutional communication between the athletic and academic departments, it needs to be approached in the spirit of cooperation and not in the hope of righting some perceived gap in priority.
We're also not the only school that has to wrestle with this question. Stanford won its 12th consecutive Directors' Cup last year, yet they are ahead of Duke in U.S. News & World Report's collegiate rankings this year. So clearly striking a balance is possible. and probably easy. It's just not that big of a deal.
I'm reminded of this favorite quip one of my good friends uses all the time. I never really agreed with it, until now: "quitcherbitchin."
Jon Detzel is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Thursday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.