Views from Lacrosse Parents

Duke University is a huge source of pride in our family. I went to Duke and have a son who graduated in 2004 and a daughter, a past member of the women's lacrosse team, who graduated in 2005. I have had the privilege of serving on the executive board of the Annual Fund for the past six years and chaired our thirtieth reunion last year.

We were thrilled when our third child was recruited by Mike Pressler to come to Duke to study and play lacrosse. He was well aware that he was undertaking a difficult commitment to academic and athletic excellence, and he looked forward to the challenge with healthy trepidation. I will always remember Coach Pressler's words to the freshmen at their lacrosse orientation: "Boys, remember you have one chance in life to ruin your reputation. Every step you take represents you, your family, and Duke University. Don't blow it."

I have to admit that this team blew it by briefly letting two strangers into their lives. This decision damaged this group, Duke, and Durham and resurrected emotions and fears that were considered, if not buried, at the least, dormant. Issues of race, class, and gender collided and thrust this team and Duke into the national limelight.

In "A Spring of Sorrows," Robert Bliwise uses "the lacrosse episode" as a spring-board to focus on "issues that have been of concern on this campus and this town for some time." But the lacrosse team is not a microcosm of these problems, and its behavior and culture did not expose issues of race, class, and gender.

These issues were thrust to the forefront because of a black woman's false allegations against white men.

I was not aware that the hiring of strippers is a popular occurrence at college parties, and I am positive that the Duke lacrosse players did not hire these strippers because of any lack of respect for women or race.

The Coleman Report commissioned by President [Richard H.] Brodhead to study the culture and behavior of Duke lacrosse teams refutes the generalizations of journalists and faculty members in the article. Alcohol violations among the lacrosse team are comparable to other groups on campus. There are more general citations attributed to this Duke team because lacrosse players are the only athletic group that lives in two of the houses off East where neighbors are bothered by Duke students.

The report found no incidents of racism among this team: "The current as well as former African-American members of the men's team have been extremely positive about the support the team provided them." There are no incidents involving lacrosse players that show disrespect for women.

They are not arrogant, swaggering, privileged, surly, violent hooligans, and "jocks out of control," to quote the journalists. "By all accounts, the lacrosse players are a cohesive, hard-working, disciplined, and respectful athletic team," the report said. Duke personnel describe the members of the team as the best or among the best group of athletes they served in their long tenures with Duke athletics.

The lacrosse team had no intentions of malice and no idea of the "perfect storm" that would envelop them and their university. This group of boys is changed forever, and, though I'm sorry for my son's loss of faith and trust, his newly found maturity and disillusionment will ultimately serve him and his teammates well as they proceed through life. I know truth will prevail, and this team will play again, will represent Duke with honor and pride, and will serve as an example of excellence for all teams in the country.

I know that the insecurities and realities stirred up that evening will continue to prompt a continuous, internal investigation and that Duke will change and adapt in its constant mission to be the best it can be. I would not expect any less of this team and our university.

Sally Johnson Fogarty '75
Chevy Chase, Maryland

My wife and I graduated from Trinity in 1980. When my second son arrives as a freshman in the fall, he will be the eighteenth member of my family to attend Duke. However, the most defining point in my connection to Duke may be that my oldest son is a rising junior and a member of the men's lacrosse team.

The Duke lacrosse team gave his life discipline and led him to academic success. I continue to be proud of my son's hard work, dedication, and connection to Duke lacrosse.

The months since the evening of March 13th have been painful. "A Spring of Sorrows" [May-June 2006] did little to ease that pain because it didn't tell the full story of the young men on the team. That night in March, these young men ignited a debate in the Duke and Durham communities the basis of which was laid by many generations before them.

The story of young, rich, white men raping a young poor black mother was an easier sell than the complex truth. Unfortunately, the entire team was vilified by the press and many in the Duke community.

Some people used this event as a platform for their causes. Rush Limbaugh, Jesse Jackson, and English professor Houston Baker weighed in. Baker joined eighty-eight professors who bought a full-page ad in The Chronicle, to discuss the "Social Disaster." Still, much of this dialogue was important. The pain peaked when an extremist group stated that they would "interview the players individually" to ensure that the "prosecution" was carried out. As a parent, this terrified me. It puzzled me that no one at Duke called to let the lacrosse parents know what was being done to protect their sons.

Your article was another example of the whole story not being told. While these young men displayed behavior unbecoming to a member of the Duke community, they were also good students, athletes, and volunteers, working tireless hours each day at their sport. Duke Magazine omitted this aspect. The Coleman Committee report stated that "the lacrosse team's academic performance generally is one of the best among all Duke athletic teams.... Between 2001 and 2005, 146 members of the lacrosse team made the Academic Honor Roll, twice as many as the next ACC lacrosse team." However, these are young men growing up, and they are not perfect.

My son has learned important lessons. Jay said, "Never again, regardless of the information presented, will I pass judgment on any other person or group, before I know the facts." In one class, my son and others were subjected to a professor's proclaiming the team's guilt. In another class, a different professor led a more balanced discussion of the racial issues surrounding the news. My son learned much from both professors that day.

I hope that the caricatures of the team, painted in the press, are realized by all to be untrue. David Brooks, in a May 28 New York Times [column], said, "maybe the saddest part of the whole reaction is not the rush to judgment at the start, but the unwillingness by so many to face the truth now that the more complicated reality has emerged."

Some poignant moments come to mind from the last few months. One was when I had to define rape for my eleven-year-old daughter. That same day, my wife and I discussed with our five daughters that sexual assault was wrong in any form, but that false accusation was as well. Watching my children find ways to support their oldest brother has been touching. One wore a Duke Lacrosse hat to school, another talked proudly about her brother, and one prayed for the team in youth group at church.

With time the pain will subside, and, while this may shock you, I believe my son and family will be better off. I hope the Duke community will be as well. In the meantime, I pray for the three young men who have been indicted. While my son looks forward to the school year and season ahead, these young men fight for their reputations at the hands of false accusers. All the attention needs to be focused on them and their families.

George K. Jennison, '80
Richmond, Virginia

Editor's note: These two letters have been edited for length. The original, longer versions may be viewed at: www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/issues/050606/lacrosse1.html

Lacrosse Lessons

I thought the article on the lacrosse-team incident was a shameful exercise in politically correct mea culpa. The honored maxim "innocent until proven guilty" was inverted, in tone at least, to "guilty whether innocent or not." There was no censure of, or even reference to, Professor Houston Baker's flagrantly injudicious, rush-to-judgment demand that coaches and players be dismissed because of "abhorrent sexual assault ... and drunken white male privilege...." There was not even a suggestion that the alleged victim might have been lying and the possibly precedential Tawana Brawley case was never mentioned. The unfairness of publishing the names and pictures of the accused, but not the accuser; the allegations' impact on the players' futures; and the financial consequences of indictment were seemingly unworthy of comment.

Universities should respect and sustain their community members. The article might have stated, "We will believe, support, and stand by our students unless and until the case is legally decided against them." It did not. Instead, the main point seemed to be, "Poor Duke. We are guilty of racial and gender discrimination, elitism, and alcohol abuse, but so are other universities. We're just unlucky this incident has singled us out. Poor Duke has been traumatized, embarrassed, stigmatized, and stereotyped."

The wheels of justice are turning and when, as seems increasingly likely, the lacrosse players are exonerated, the university will truly be able to consider itself, "poor Duke." Poor because of the institution's cowardly, self-pitying, politically correct apologia. Intellectual courage, integrity, solidarity, and fairness are qualities a university should exemplify and attempt to instill in its students—qualities as, or more important than, academic excellence. To the extent the lacrosse article reflects the administration, faculty, and student-body response to what may well prove to be unfounded charges, politically correct expediency has supplanted honor as Duke's preeminent virtue.

S. Boyd Eaton '60
Atlanta, Georgia

Amidst the sound and fury of the past few months, the head of the North Carolina NAACP stands as one of the rare voices of reason. He is quoted in Duke Magazine as telling President [Richard H.] Brodhead, "If you ever want someone to come and stand by you and talk about the damage that can be done by PREJUDGING (emphasis added), by judging people because of a group they belong to and some theory you have of that group rather than ACTUAL EVIDENCE (emphasis added), you come to me." Would that President Brodhead and so many others of the Duke "family" were as judicious in their comments and actions.

Alan D. Davis M.D. '75
Dallas, Texas

Aside from the outcome of the criminal trial of the lacrosse players, I find it disheartening that the crass, sexist, arrogant Duke student behavior chronicled in the mass media is defining the reputation of our very fine university.

We must all be part of the solution to find ways for Duke students to treat others with respect and dignity.

My suggestion: Duke's core curriculum needs to add an ethics requirement. In New York City, my children attend the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Ethics, as an integral component of the curriculum beginning in the earliest years, adds SO much to the way the children treat each other. Current events, comparative religion, mock courtroom cases, and community service are elements of the program.

Surely Duke has the raw materials to develop such a program. It could become a foundation for a whole new way of being a Duke student.

Andrea Kanon Frey Bass '74
New York, New York

For more information on the lacrosse incident, including committee reports: www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/features/lacrosse_incident/

Prank Unfurled

I enjoyed the glory of remembering the "Go to Hell Carolina" shot that appears in the May-June Retrospective; I was sitting in Wallace Wade that day for my 1979 graduation!

However, look at the size of the letters. A plane couldn't be flying that low safely to display such a sign (or flying that high with such big letters)!

Some background: During the 1978-79 basketball season, two undergraduates stretched fish line across Cameron Indoor at the very top of the arena during basketball games. (No one called us Cameron Crazies back then, but students were still very creative.) At an appropriate time, these two guys would release the tension of the fish line and a sign would unfurl. I remember that every time Virginia coach Terry Holland stood up from his seat, a sign would unfurl saying, "sit down." When he did, the line would be pulled taut, and the sign would curl up and disappear. And I believe every time Maryland coach Lefty Driesell '54 would stand up, the sign would unfurl saying, "Dunce." Somehow these guys also infiltrated Cole Field House in Maryland at the away game in 1979 and demonstrated the same stunt!

At graduation, the line was strung from the top of the stands, over the fifty-yard line of Wallace Wade Stadium and back to the other side, behind President Terry Sanford and the commencement stage attendees. While Sanford was giving the commencement address, these two guys began moving the line, clothesline style, which moved the banner from the west side of the field to the middle. The fish line was not noticeable in the sunlight.

Right in the middle of his speech, "Uncle Terry" became flustered as the 1,500 graduates, in unison, began the obligatory cheer, "Go to Hell Carolina," without, he thought, any prompting. What he didn't know until he turned around was that this banner seeming to float in mid-air had prompted the interruption of his speech.

I encourage the two members of the Class of '79 who pulled this stunt off to write in and be recognized by posterity for this well-done deed. On the other hand, maybe these two guys—one, I've heard, a prestigious doctor and the other a successful engineer—prefer their careers to stay that way and will choose to remain anonymous!

Mark Steinman '79,
M.B.A. '97
Charlotte, North Carolina

Tim Pyatt '81, University Archivist, responds: I greatly appreciate your correction (and now have it well documented in the archives) that it was fishing line and not a plane that made the 1979 commencement prank possible. Thanks for setting the record straight!

Gardening Tip

I believe there are at least two Dawn Redwood trees (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens [By the Numbers, May-June 2006]. A second can be found in the rock garden on the rise behind the fishpond at the bottom of the Terraces. Although not part of the original distribution of seedlings and without buttressed roots, it is a lovely specimen.

I was inspired to join the volunteer team by Annie Nashold '76, who is a Duke alumna, although the story on planning for the children's discovery garden did not note this fact.

Elizabeth S. Sanders
Duke Gardens Advisory Board member
Rome, Italy

Editor's note: The gardens' records indicate that there are five Metasequoias planted on the grounds, but plantings are ongoing. The fall 1982 issue of Flora, the Gardens' official newsletter, tells the story of the gardens' oldest and largest Metasequoia, which now stands seventy-nine feet tall. Until the 1940s, the Metasequoia was thought to be extinct. Then Chinese botanists discovered specimens in a remote part of Szechuan Province and sent seeds to Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum. The seeds were germinated by chief propagator Richard Fillmore, who later served as director of Duke Gardens, and distributed to gardens across the country. Duke's specimen, part of this original distribution, was planted in 1949.

Anything Goes?

I don't get it. I was required to take religion courses at Duke, presumably to make me a better person. Today I read the May-June issue "Quad Quotes" by [Nick Hornby,] the author of Nipple Jesus, who said, "It [the abridged version of his book] has quite a bit of profanity, some blasphemy, some pornography—so it's pretty good. I left out a good bit so you still have to buy it."

Well, I won't buy it, and I don't buy what Duke is doing in the name of intellectual freedom. Let's swallow hard and assume that Nick Hornby has a legitimate point to make about controversial art being thought-provoking. Fine, maybe the "old time religion don't cut it no more," but Hornby's comments are antithetical to the cultural standards on which the nation was founded. The Quad Quotes "promo" suggests that Duke University prefers "anything goes" to reinforcing our fundamental values, religiously based or not.

It seems incongruous that Hornby's remarks were deemed worthy of publication in the same issue that included President Brodhead's comments about the lacrosse-team controversy. The president is said to be forming a committee "fueled by a commitment to 'take the ethical dimension of education much more seriously than heretofore.' "

Okay, I'm with President Brodhead. He should do that; but let's not land on just the athletes. For starters, let's abjure, not acclaim, speech like that of Nick Hornby; let's ensure that professors' personal biases do not affect their grading of papers; let's not allow politics to trump merit in the admissions process. Let's not lose sight of time-honored standards. Appearing to condone profanity, blasphemy, and pornography as a mere byproduct of an intellectual pursuit does not serve the university well.

Phil Clutts '61
Charlotte, North Carolina