Hoops spring eternal

Like many Americans, I love March Madness. In fact, it might be the most wonderful time of the year. Why so? There are many reasons that make people love the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, but today I’ll focus on the underdogs.

We love to cheer them on: George Mason, Princeton, Davidson and (as I am writing this) 16-seed UNC-Asheville. They have stories that we love to tell and repeat. The season of March brings with it a powerful motivating force that can let a tiny, underfunded school like Butler almost beat an arrogant dynasty like Duke. Sports columnist Bill Simmons calls it the “Nobody Believed in Us Theory”—the disrespect bred by the hubris of favored schools helps motivate the underdogs to fight harder and win in the end.

Never mind that Butler was one of the top 20 teams in the tournament, with a first-round draft pick in its front court. Our culture celebrates the conquest of larger-than-life challenges in every realm and likes to follow that simplistic dichotomy of little hopeless versus big hubris. Duke was a huge underdog to UNLV in ’91 (despite going to the Final Four three consecutive times beforehand); Jesse Owens was supposed to be crushed by Hitler’s elite Aryan athletes (never mind that he was the greatest collegiate track athlete of all time); Master Chief would never be able to beat the Covenant (all he had was unlimited save-game reloads); David’s newfangled slingshot thingy wasn’t going to put a dent into Goliath (the power of God notwithstanding), and on and on.

The problem is that by holding such a black-and-white perspective, we disrespect what the “underdogs” have done and what they continue to do. And the underdog, everyone-is-against-us narrative is seductive and powerful. It teaches us to love the underdogs that win and dismiss the ones that don’t; at the same time, it teaches us to undercut what both groups have accomplished.

I came into Duke having been rejected by Harvard, Yale and Princeton; To say that I came in with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder would be like saying Big East teams play a little bit chippy. And I took that attitude to everything I did. I was going to be a doctor, not because I wanted to be a doctor, but to prove those smug argyle-wearing hipsters wrong! I had nothing, but I was going to finish with everything! I was going to pull myself up through hustle and hard work! Nobody believed in me!

Of course, to say that I was some kind of Horatio Alger/’85 Villanova hybrid was to do a disservice to my prior achievements, as well as the extraordinary community around me that enabled me to matriculate at one of the world’s top universities. And it came around to bite me in the end. I ended up dropping out of pre-med, and boy, did that sting. There was no triumph of my will over academia, and I wasn’t the plucky outcast who managed to defy the odds of surviving pre-med. It took me a long time to accept that what I was doing instead was still worthwhile and that, underdog or not, I was proud of who I was and what I had become.

It’s an ongoing struggle for me to accept my own accomplishments for what they are, and not for whether they were “clutch,” or if I’ve “overcome” anything. Self-esteem is tough; it’s much easier to cast yourself as an underdog. Every day I see Duke students going through the same struggle, in the classroom (“I have like, four midterms next week; I’m going to DIE!”) and on the hardwood (“everyone hates Duke and plays their best against us, so we’re ALWAYS fighting an uphill battle.”).

While it may feel good to cast ourselves as oppressed by the weight of public opinion, doing so is almost counterproductive. A more moderate attitude is healthier. Take Duke, for example. In my mind, I want to say the NCAA tournament is like the Death Star, and Nolan Smith is our Luke Skywalker (with Kyrie Irving setting a ball screen and yelling, “You’re all clear, kid, now dunk this thing so we can go home!”). But if they don’t win a championship this year (knock on wood), I’m still going to remember them fondly, as a team that crossed the 30-win mark with masterful play and solid teamwork. And remember: No matter what, there’s always next year.