Seemingly every day in sports news, there are new allegations of recruiting violations at major colleges. Athletes are continually getting into trouble, be it for sexual assault, drugs, alcohol, or even murder. More and more, we wonder where all the coaches that do things the right way went to. We wonder where the athletes that we feel comfortable for our children to look up to are. We wonder if major college sports schools care about their athlete's education more than to just pay it lip service. Turns out that there is still such a place - Duke University.
Since arriving at Duke in 1980, coach Mike Krzyzewski has built a program based on getting solid athletes that are actually good citizens. Duke will not have the thugs, the trouble makers, or the players that refuse to realize that it is about team. The Army, where he played college basketball, has an award named in his honor - the "Coach K Teaching Character Through Sports" award - given each spring to cadets and coaches who display superior ethics and character through sports. For the most part, his athletes finish their educations. He brings back former players as coaches, helping them out to find jobs.
Yet, Coach K and the Duke basketball program are almost universally despised. Why is this? Is it due to the continual run of NCAA tournament appearances, missing the tournament once since the 1983-84 season? Is it due to the perception that Krzyzewski is a smug, arrogant individual? Is it because they seem to produce the exact same players year in and year out? Shouldn't the fact that they manage to win while upholding ethics and getting actually good citizens matter?
Duke is everything we want a program to be. So why the hatred for this program?
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