cannot cast enough praise on Brad Stevens and his Butler team after their magnificent run in the NCAA tournament. What a fine coach. What a tenacious team. Clearly, Butler was as deserving of the national championship as my own alma mater, Duke.
Butler has arrived at a new level. My experience tells me that Butler will stay at this level. And I feel I can tell Butler fans what to expect, because, in a way, I feel I've gone to school at Butler too.
First, though, you need to understand the making and heart of a Cameron Crazie.
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I first saw Duke play in person at the 1963 Final Four in my home town of Louisville. I was 14 and pulled for Duke. I'm not sure why. Eventually, I went to college there. I never applied anywhere else.
During my four years at Duke, I was the wildest Crazie there was. I have a letter from Coach Bucky Waters saying as much.
One of our wins over North Carolina--an 87-86 triple overtime classic in 1968--left me bleeding and voiceless.
In 1969, I organized a 100-car caravan to a neutral-site game in Greensboro, actually delivering $2,640 in cash to Duke Assistant Athletic Director Tom Butters two weeks before the game and asking him, rather naively, for "440 seats together.” Butters delivered. They took out two press rows and set up 440 folding chairs on the playing floor. I was a hero.
I helped with on campus recruiting my last two years there. I even hit the recruiting trail for Duke while attending law school at Michigan, doing ground work for Freshman Coach Jack Schalow and Assistant Coach Hubie Brown.
While I was at Duke, and for many years after I graduated, we were a lot like Butler. We were a private school with excellent academics that was damn good in basketball. We had true student athletes. Our players had game and they graduated. But we could never break through. Like Butler, we lost in the title game. In fact, we lost in four of them.
In the 1964 final, we lost to #1 UCLA. The game was played in Pauley Pavilion, their home court.
In the 1978 final, we lost by 6 points to a dominant #1 Kentucky team, though we earned a measure of respect by forcing Joe Hall to re-insert his starters with a minute to play.
In the 1986 final, we entered the game 38-2 and ranked #1. We led for 39 minutes, but then lost by 3 points in the waning seconds. I punched a hole in my apartment wall after that one.
In the 1990 final, we got blown out by UNLV by 30 points.
The following year, we met that same UNLV team in the semifinals and pulled a huge upset, winning by 2 points. Two nights later, we finally got over that last hurdle. We beat Kansas and won our first title. I floated a foot off the ground for weeks. At long last, I had bragging rights with my Carolina friends--especially pleasing since Carolina had beaten us by 22 points in the ACC final three weeks earlier and had made it to the Final Four as well.
We were media darlings. Everyone loved us. People said we “deserved to win it,” that we were “overdue,” that we “did things the right way,” that it was “good to see a clean program with real student-athletes win a title.” When Butler wins the title, you will be media darlings too ... even more than you are today.
But we made a big mistake the next year. We won the 1992 title, too. And, in 1994, we finished a run of seven Final Fours in nine years. We were clearing too many hurdles. And here's what happens when you do.
Suddenly, we became "elitists,” “snobs,” and “villains.” A United States Senator from Kentucky told me, to my face, that “all Duke people are arrogant.” Opposing coaches proclaimed Duke a team of "five guys fouling all the time” and said our coach had the refs in his back pocket. “Duke gets all the calls,” they said. I was told that “college basketball was down” during both of our title years, despite the fact that we had to beat undefeated UNLV and then Kansas in '91 and beat a Damon Bailey led Indiana team and then Michigan’s Fab Five in '92.
Even when we "failed," the criticism continued. After our 2001 title, Duke won only 7 NCAA games in the next five years, never making it past the Sweet Sixteen. Reporters asked Coach K about the Duke “meltdown.” Sports reporters said that we were “just a name on a jersey.” Pundits suggested that "Coach K had lost his touch."
To show you how bad it gets with the criticism, you need only examine the “meltdown.” During those five years, Duke averaged 28 wins a season, finished four of the seasons with final AP ranks of #1, #3, #6, and #9, won three ACC championships, and recruited the team that led us to the 2010 national title.
Then our worst nightmare came true. We were matched with Butler in the 2010 final.
The game was to be played in front of 70,000 Butler fans in the Bulldogs’ home town in the center of basketball-crazed Indiana. The game was billed as “Hoosiers, the Sequel,” the original movie (a personal favorite) having been filmed on Butler’s home court.
Butler even had its own Jimmy Chitwood, a handsome young kid named Gordon Hayward whose toughness and skill is utterly belied by his boyish looks. Despite the fact that none of Duke's players had ever been to a Final Four, we were billed as Goliath preparing to bash a courageous young David. Across the land, 70 million television fans settled in to watch the game … about 99.5 percent of them pulling for Butler. And I may be overestimating the Duke audience.
In the end, Duke outscored Butler 61-59. In all fairness, I cannot use the word “beat.” Nobody beat anybody that Monday night.
Since the game, I have been possessed by strangely conflicting feelings. I am thrilled that Duke won. In fact, I was so nervous after the game ended that I was shaking. At the same time, though, I am disappointed that Butler lost. Many of my Duke friends have said the same thing.
I think the reason for this conflict is that we see ourselves in Butler. We see a team from a small private school with true student athletes. We see a program that does everything the right way and plays really great basketball. We see a team that had trouble breaking through.
I know the Butler faithful are sick with disappointment over the loss. Even the Duke players felt badly for the Butler players after the game. They said as much in their post-game interviews.
These conflicting feelings arise because of our respect for your program and because we can so easily identify with your pain. We lost three national finals by 3 points each in 1986, 1994, and 1999, and lost a semifinal by 2 points to eventual champion Connecticut in 2004. It hurts to lose those close games in Final Fours. We've been there.
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Ten years ago, I was invited to give a talk at the Holcomb Observatory on the Butler campus. I was received with typically generous Hoosier hospitality.
I understand that Duke will visit Butler in the near future as well. Our schools are now negotiating a regular season series. At first, I thought this was Duke’s way of paying Butler a compliment. Then it occurred to me that it was, equally, Butler’s way of paying Duke a compliment.
Just imagine this series—Duke at Hinkle Fieldhouse and Butler at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Won’t that be something to behold? And when those games take place, I am sure the visiting teams will be received with well-deserved respect. After your performance in Lucal Oil Stadium, you certainly have Duke's respect.
As for that national championship that eluded you by inches, just tell Jimmy Chitwood to keep shooting. I know the script. I know how the story ends.
Eventually, the last shot goes in.
