Duke's B-Ball Program

[Steve]

http://www.sportsgrid.com/media/jalen-rose-the-bottom-line-is-this-duke-recruits-a-certain-type-of-player/

 

There is a documentary on Michigan's famed 'Fab 5' basketball team of the early '90s and they spoke about their hatred of Duke.

 

On ESPN's Sports Center the members of that team talked about their hatred of Duke. It got controversial when they said Duke didn't recruit players like them (inner city, poor black kids) and recruited middle class black players. Jalen Rose made an even bigger issue when he said they seemed to recruit 'Uncle Tom' players.

 

Grant Hill, who is certainly no Uncle Tom took offense, as he should and responded.

 

I grew up hating Duke. The vast majority of blacks did from what I can tell and especially blacks like me who grew up more like Jalen Rose than Grant Hill. Fair or unfair it was how it was. The same for the Boston Celtics at the time and being from Philly where the 76ers were their sworn enemy it was hard coded in our DNAs. Same with the Yankees. I spent a few summers in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn as a kid so I heard nothing but scorn for the Yankees. The residents there also made mention that they (as well as the Red Sox) were amongst the last teams to have black players. So, I grew up with a bias againast those teams as well but I naturally hate successful teams and cheer the underdog so it was also easy to hate the Yanks.

 

Duke is a tough school academically but so is UCLA, Cal, Michigan, Indiana, Georgetown, N. Carolina, Texas A&M and a few other academically challengng schools that seem to have no problem recruiting inner city kids.

 

Rose was wrong in his statement about the blacks there being uncle Toms. Flat out. However, Duke does have the reputation of not recruiting black inner city players, many of whom are from single parent homes and in the lower socio-economic classes. I would never begrudge anyone, black or white, accepting a scholorship to Duke. Its an excellent school with an excellent basketball program.

 

I'm no fan of Duke. I hate them as well. Many people of all ethnicities and races and socioeconomic classes hate Duke, but I think Rose is right that the school is hated for much more personal reasons in the black community because of the type of players they seem to recruit. Coach K has recruited inner-city white players (Bobby Hurley from Jersey City) but by and large has stayed with black players outside the inner c

ity from 'stable' two parent homes and generally from middle class backgrounds. Its his right to do so and there is nothing racist about that. His program works, that is all that matters.

 

To be fair, John Thompson recruited pretty much all black players when he was at Georgetown and rumor has it even turned down recruiting Chris Mullins who was a big fan of the school. Thompson could be accused of doing the same at Georgetown but the difference his defenders would say was that he was using Georgetown to give underpriveleged inner city players, many of whom had checkered pasts (Allen Iverson) a chance. He used it to help these kids and he made sure they got an education with an admirable graduation rate. Remarkable given the standard of education most of the players came with and the difficulty of Georgetown where its pretty tough to 'hide' academically.

 

The inference from Duke and admittedly it may not be fair at all regards the coachability of inner city black kids. Proven wrong at many other schools but Duke's reputation and recruiting practices seems to support the stereotype.

 

 

 

 

[BadaBing]

those opinions from JR are totally out of line in my book. Coach K runs a very respectable program over there and i'm sure he has set his own standards as to who he wants to play/study at / represent the Duke University.

 

Rose , by declaring his own personal hatred for the program certainly gives him no grounds for using race as an agenda to express his feelings.

 

The season of the " Fab 5 " was a freak thing that you won't see happen again for a long long time. He should have just kept his mouth shut and found a different avenue to promote ( his ) the documentary.

 

Please note for the record i'm a staunch Michigan fan , they have enough problems with the football program there , and to have this nonsence associated with them from some " former " players is absurd.