UnAthletic Duke

I am a varsity athlete. Were it not for athletics, I would not be at Duke. Of the schools that recruited me, I chose Duke because it had the best academics—a frequent deciding factor among student athletes. Although most of us respect Duke as an institution, some among us singularly or firstly identify as athletes. To this group, as most recognize, Duke exists only as an athletic stepping stone. The duality of institutional condemnation and encouragement baffles all. In the meantime, Duke Athletics gets away with everything it can. Admittedly, I benefit from the existence of Duke Athletics, at the moment typing away on a K-Center computer. Duke desperately needs the socioeconomic and pigment diversification brought by athletics. Personal, obvious and outlandish admissions aside, a central question has failed to surface from the justified hoopla and whining about the athletic subsidy—why exactly does Duke need institutional athletics?

I can hear it already: “Duke basketball put this school on the map.” No, Professors Fredric Jameson, Stanley Fish and an assortment of feisty Marxists put Duke on the map—irony, our noticeably nosey neighbor. Yes, improving ourselves by becoming a Division III athletic program, as many have suggested, would be better for Duke, but money would be lost rather than transferred, and therefore it will sadly never happen. I propose that Duke—and the rest of the American academy—get out of the sports business altogether. At the moment, our system hurts athletes, students and the academy.

When President Brodhead first took the reins, Coach K was predictably considering a run in the big leagues. Like a mob movie, the new mayor got the shakedown and—to form—folded. Immediately, Brodhead was confronted by the reality that he wasn’t in New Haven anymore—this is the ACC. Brilliantly, Coach K set the tone. From the beginning it was clear that athletics­—or at least that small percentage of sports that dictate decisions—would get what it wanted. Lately, with the infection of a SEC mindset (coupling the SEC’s anti-intellectualism and sport supremacism with a losing record on multiple fronts) on the gridiron, there seems to be another strongman vying for a piece of our already claimed pie. Among all the new stadium plans, psychotic turf guarding, single sport “multi-sport facilities” and hype about each new class’s athletic stars, the question of where Duke academics fit seems to have lost yardage like a.... Sorry, that’s too easy. Last year when a group of direct action-minded students tastefully spray-painted “Duke Academics” on the side of some C-1s to counter the obnoxious “Duke Athletics” bus, the new advertisements were never seen—these buses did not run with the paint. We have a good school, what are we ashamed of?

The NCAA functions like a cartel with institutional athletic departments as the oligopolists, the few allowed to sell. We athletes are nothing more than a reified product. Beyond all the abstract discourse—the fetishized athletic body, the game as a placating distraction or falsely fulfilling avatar and heterosexual/homophobic programming upon homosocial allowance—are us athletes, some like me, just running in circles. Most of us work year-round, seven days a week, well beyond “official practice restrictions.” In our free time we go to class tired and sometimes— or always—unprepared. I once thought I worked for the four letters on my jersey or that emblem tattooed on my skin, but that depends on which Duke we’re talking about—certainly not academic Duke that suffers budget cuts for athletics’ “grand strategy”.

Nike woos the two big sports on campus with excessive equipment allotments, while the rest of us attempt to stay within our budget—yes, some sports have one. Once I was reprimanded “from above” for wearing my trusted Asics long sleeve at practice due to a shortage of cold weather gear. For the remainder of the winter, the solution was simple: I covered the Asics emblem with a piece of tape on which I had drawn the famous swoosh between the words “I am a product” and “Conform.” Beyond the minor logistical issues of being cold and wet, I have a real problem with Nike’s labor, environment and facilities. Game theory, specifically prisoner’s dilemma, accurately predicts that a cartel—even a private, public merger dealing with a homogenous product—is inherently unstable (i.e. the scandals across the NCAA). How long until Duke is hit again? If not in one sudden blow, surely athletics’ constant financial and intellectual siphon will prompt action. While we wait, our ranking and reputation sink lower and lower and lower—all for a few more wins for that side of campus.

Josh Brewer is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Tuesday.