Blue Devils

A few days after criticizing Duke basketball, I visited my alma mater, UC Davis and a local museum.  Unbeknownst to me, the local high school's mascot are the Blue Devils.

One of the docents was kind enough to print me a history of the mascot's origin, which relates to a WWI French Allied military unit.

The most interesting memorabilia were WWI items, such as Liberty Bond advertisements.  From the Federal Reserve website: "World War I began in Europe in 1914, the same year the Federal Reserve System was established."   Yet, the Federal Reserve at that time disfavored money printing to fund wars.  The Secretary of the Treasury "opposed printing money because it would hide the costs of war rather than keeping the public engaged and committed. 'Any great war must necessarily be a popular movement.'"

I love UC Davis and going back made me wonder if I should have found some way to stay after graduation.  Unfortunately, the law school put me on its wait list, and I never heard from them after that.  If you have a chance to attend UC Davis, go for it.  It was a wonderful school when I attended, and it is still a wonderful place.

Bonus: more from Duke University HERE on the Blue Devils.

North Carolina State Basketball

From Seth Davis's Wooden: A Coach's Life (2015, paperback)

North Carolina State beat Duke this week in basketball.  Even more satisfying was Abu's non-flagrant foul against Grayson "Most Punchable Face in the World" Allen towards the end of the game.  As the lily-white audience cheered a failed comeback attempt, I wondered why anyone would support Duke when so many other Carolina basketball options exist.

First, it was UNC's Dean Smith who truly integrated Carolina basketball, not Duke, by accepting Charlie Scott on a varsity athletic scholarship.  It's true that Maryland's Bill Jones, in the 1965-66 season, was the ACC's first African-American scholarship player.  Of course, Maryland isn't North or South Carolina.

It is true that Wake Forest's Norwood Todman became the first black scholarship player on the Demon Deacons's freshman team, but that was non-varsity.

It is also true that C.B. Claiborne played Duke basketball in the 1965-66 season, but he was on an academic scholarship, not an athletic one; only eight African-American students preceded him in graduating in 1969; and he, like Norwood Todman, played freshman ball, not varsity.

That's not all.

Every sports fan knows about NCSU Jim Valvano's 1983 championship victory against a Houston team led by future NBA Hall of Famers Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.  Fewer people remember it was the NCSU Wolfpack that ended UCLA's streak of seven consecutive national titles when it beat Coach John Wooden's Bruins and Bill Walton 80-77 in double overtime in the NCAA's 1974 national semi-final game.

The year before, David Thompson led North Carolina State University to an undefeated season (27-0), then followed it up with a 30-1 season and the anti-climactic 1974 national championship.

Ok, ok, that was a long time ago.  "What about now?" you might ask. Fair enough.

The only major college I've personally seen play a basketball player wearing hearing aids was NCSU.  His participation was so under the radar, a Google search of "hearing aids North Carolina State basketball player" yields zero relevant results as of today.

Remember Deah Barakat? His favorite team was NCSU.

NC State's amazing 2015 March Madness run was heaven on earth for any basketball fan.  The only recent college basketball experience rivaling it would be UNI's Ali Farokhmanesh taking down #1 seed Kansas.

Finally, watching Abdul-Malik Abu this week, it's clear he'll make the NBA [someday] and provide basketball fans with even more excitement and hopefully a long career.

What else do you need to stop supporting Duke and switch over to NCSU?  A lynching?

(c) Matthew Rafat

Bonus: One redeeming aspect about Duke is that Bobby Knight is responsible for its success.  Coach Knight took Coach K under his wing by coaching him on the Army's basketball team, being his mentor, and helping him find employment as a coach.  No Bobby Knight, no Coach K, no Duke success.

Why do I like Bobby Knight so much?  He was perhaps the last honest "Power 5 conference" coach in the NCAA, now that even UNC has admitted academic violations.  Here's one of my favorite Coach Knight quotes: "We've gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking...we've got a coach at Kentucky who put two schools on probation, and he's still coaching. I really don't understand that."

Update: ESPN's 30 for 30 "The Last Days of Knight" documentary shattered Coach Knight's public image. From the director: "I was a fan of Bob Knight. I read the book A Season on the Brink in 1987 and loved it. I thought Bob Knight was a great coach, my kind of coach. Someone who doesn't cheat, is not politically correct and a man who does a great job of turning young boys into men. I had no idea that 13 years later I would be asked by my boss at CNN to find out why good players were leaving Knight's program. When I was assigned the story, I had no idea what I would uncover..." 

Update: on January 29, 2017, a few days after my post, it appears Duke's History department page no longer accepts my original link to "lynching," so search for "Duke noose tree 2015" if further links don't work.

Update: I checked again on January 30, 2017, and the original link works again, but I've kept the new link in the main article.