Could it be just a dream?
(02/02/16 3:59pm)
There's schadenfreude across the land. Duke is out of the college basketball rankings for the first time since 2007. To those grinning and gleeful, it is the comeuppance long overdue. But for all of you now at Duke who are down and discouraged, know that it is not the first time. In the very early 1980s, when Coach K—and my friends and I—had just arrived in Durham, decline was what everyone saw then too, not only of the Duke basketball team but of the country as well. The Carter Administration had just ended. Americans had been held hostage and humiliated by Iran, economic uncertainty was everywhere and there was what President Carter called a malaise across the land. Here's how Ronald Reagan put it on the eve of his election back then.