Editor's Note: Rising from the Ashes

It's only Year One, A.L. (After Lacrosse, duh), and it's already getting hard to remember what we thought about Duke in those ancient B.L. years.

Our perceptions of this school and ourselves have changed immeasurably, whether we're aware of it or not. The lacrosse case opened a Pandora's Box of issues-racial and gender privilege, town-gown politics, Duke's treatment of its students, the list goes on. Frankly, it's become hard to talk about anything Duke-related without at least mentioning the fallout from last spring.

One thing that has certainly changed, maybe forever, is the way this campus views athletics. A year ago today, Blue Devil Basketball-and by extension, all of Duke's Division-I sports-was a campus institution. You could sooner imagine West Campus without the Chapel than Duke without Division-I sports.

After the lacrosse scandal went down, we started to question the role athletics played on our campus more actively. Of couse, the academics-athletics debate has been going on forever. But in Year One, A.L., some have suggested that Blue Devil athletics should move down to Division III-and no one laughed at them.

This month, Towerview takes on Duke Athletics. In "The Last Dynasty," we look back at-and catch up with-Blue Devil Basketball's back-to-back champions from 1991 and 1992. Fifteen years after they cut down their second set of nets, several of them have achieved rich lives outside of basketball. They say their ability to pursue outside interests in the Duke community-to bridge the athletics-academics divide in a sense-helped them both on the court and later in life.

Also, we profile Joe Alleva-Duke's athletic director and a lightening rod for criticism last spring. For Alleva, Blue Devil athletics are a family-and loyalty is prized above all else. Of the 13 coaches Alleva has hired since he was named A.D. in 1998, seven of them had prior ties to the University. But in our post-lacrosse world, some have criticized him for allowing his "boys" too much leeway.

You've got to make up your own mind.

But by thinking about what we value and what we'd like to change, we can make the A.L. years that much better.