The puck is in the net. As the defending goalie in this marathon team scrimmage, I have the dubious duty of sweeping the puck back out onto the ice. Even as it is still early in the Third Period of Life, the Duke Lifelong Scoreboard clearly shows the winner of this fabulous contest of "That's Hockey."
Give it up for my illustrious and distinguished freshman roommate, Blake Wilson, who is now an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Surgery at Duke. He is one of the leading experts in the fields of hearing research, remediation of hearing loss and neural prostheses.
All I can say is that all of his many honors are so richly deserved, and I hope that his international scientific research team can also win the Nobel Prize!
As for me, I am limping back to Carolina for the Third Period of Life, much relieved at having been traded back to the Tar Heels where I started out in my early years. I leave behind a shattered record as a Duke alum which is "checkered" at best, echoing the famous words of "the Checkers Speech" by Duke Law alumnus Richard M. Nixon, who after a frustrating loss in the 1962 California governor's race only two years after he lost the presidency to John F. Kennedy, offered this premature assessment to the press:
"You won't have Nixon to kick around any more."
Yes, this hockey game is all but done. When we started out in the fall of 1966, one real question about Duke's academic aspirations was: can the science, engineering and medical people at Duke gain equal footing and respect with the social sciences and humanities folks?
The answer, my friends, is that you won't have to lose any sleep about the priorities 21st century Duke University now places on science, medicine and engineering. It's STEM’s show until somebody else wins another Pulitzer in literature, history or journalism.
For our friends who have been supported at high levels by Duke University in these obviously critical fields of science, technology, engineering and medicine, I say: Congratulations, you deserve it, and this country needs the benefits of your research.
Since one must cite the styles of great ACC basketball players to communicate just what kind of scholar, writer or entrepreneur one aspires to be out along the sidelines of life, I will tip my hat to the Blue Devil legacies of Bob Verga, Jim Spanarkel, Mike Gminski, Brian Davis, Bob Hurley, Christian Laettner, Shane Battier and all the rest. Looking once again toward the Tar Heel side of the court, I am perfectly wiling to tell you the kind of "player" I hope to be from now on over there in the Southern Part of Heaven where my first collegiate basketball hero was Lennie Rosenbluth.
I will now celebrate being "back in character" rather than "out of character" once again, striving for the rambunctious, happy-go-lucky, exuberant, shoot-pass-or-drive, behind-the-back flip-out surprise or just crash-the-lane, dash-to-the-bucket, joi de vivre of Doug Moe, on the lookout for the soft-spoken, accurate, defense-minded, free-throw-savvy York Lareses of this neck of the woods. In other words, teammates I can dish it off to if I don't need to take it to the hoop myself.
But I'll never be anti-Duke because I wasn't anti-Duke when I was a Carolina enthusiast the first time. No, this is just the still-optimistic tale of an original "Big Four" fan who wanted to see all of North Carolina fare well in the campaigns of life while enjoying a sense of home at one particular turn in the road.
And that turn now leads me back to Franklin Street and UNC. But save me a spot at Devine's every now and then.
David Proctor McKnight is a member of the Trinity class of 1970. He spends three hours a week in Chapel Hill as part of the Triangle Folk Jam music association, which gathers every Monday night at The Church of The Advocate.
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