Tuesday, April 6, 2010

You Either Love Them or Hate Them

Duke won its fourth national championship last night. That definitely stirred feelings in most serious college basketball fans and probably several non serious fans as well.

Duke does that to people. You either have strong feelings for the Blue Devils or you have strong feelings against them. No sitting on the fence with this one, unlike say if Boston College won the tournament.

Duke basketball is similar to John Wooden's successful run at UCLA. UCLA won so many national titles in a row that people wanted someone else, anyone else to win one. Duke has been pretty successful, but not that successful. Still, I think The Blue Devils are the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Lakers of their sport.

Sadly, I think it's human nature to root in sports against a consistent winning team. People want their team to win and when someone else grabs the victories often, they don't approve of it. It provides the person a reason to always cheer for the team playing against the so called hated team.

Duke is like any other college basketball team in the country. The Blue Devils play to win. And to the delight of their fans (and maybe a few others) they win often.

I venture to guess there were many fans that cheered for Butler last night in hopes that Duke would not become national champion. Yes, they probably enjoyed Butler's story, but hey, there were also playing Duke.

I know this house was favoring Butler.

What are your thoughts about Duke? Are you for or against them?

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