Roth: Time To Learn, Heal, Move On

Lacrosse Ordeal Should Not Obscure The Good Things At Duke

DURHAM, N.C. - Mike Krzyzewski's latest Chevy commercial begins with the assertion that nothing is more powerful than the truth. If only that sentiment could be applied to the controversy that erupted on his campus and in his community the day after his 2006 season ended.

Over the past month, millions of people across the country have formed an opinion and passed judgment on Duke, its athletics department and the lacrosse program based on an alarming paucity of knowledge. Only a select few know what actually took place during an ill-advised team party at 610 N. Buchanan on March 13, and most of them have kept their mouths shut per instructions from their attorneys.

All the rest of us know is that a stripper hired to perform at the party claims she was sexually assaulted by three team members, that the players deny it, and that none of the DNA evidence released so far corroborates what the alleged victim reported to the police.

Perhaps if someone at the party had offered a plausible counter version of what happened, or perhaps if the local district attorney, who is in the middle of an election campaign, had been a little more reserved in his initial public comments, this situation might not have ignited a media wildfire. But that's where we are, and now everyone has an opinion no matter how uninformed. Which, of course, is everyone's right. The truth, though, is that we just don't know what happened.

We are not reviewing all the events of the past month here, given the widespread coverage that has been available virtually everywhere and the new twists that develop almost daily. There are, however, several broader points relative to Duke athletics that are worthy of discussion, and here are a couple of them.

1. The Black Eye

Whenever the three N's ? New York Times, Newsweek and Nightline ? are reporting from your hometown, chances are that it's not good news. Regardless of how this case ultimately turns out, it has been a huge black eye for Duke and Durham, and a black eye typically lingers long after the sting of the initial punch. Duke's image and reputation have taken a hit, and some of the characterizations of Durham by those who don't know anything about the place just haven't meshed with reality.

Both the university and the city are strong enough to weather the storm. It is not the first time either has dealt with controversy or bad press. For the most part, local leadership from the mayor to officials at Duke and N.C. Central (where the alleged victim is a student) has been wise to insist that citizens maintain their composure and permit the legal process to run its course.

Within athletics, morale around the department has been understandably low even while many of the calls and emails have been supportive of the way the situation has been handled. Coaches and athletes from basically every sport have had to deal with some fallout. Even those who may believe in the lacrosse players' innocence are disappointed that the actions of a few have tainted the name on the front of 600 athletes' jerseys.

But also noteworthy are the critics ? within the Duke faculty and elsewhere ? who are using this momentary black eye to condemn all of athletics for having outgrown its place within the university. Thankfully, Duke's leaders, from president Richard Brodhead to athletics director Joe Alleva, are striving to pull some educational value from this unfortunate spotlight.

The president has already commissioned five independent panels to study everything from the Duke lacrosse culture to the way the school has responded to the affair. He presented his plan in a thorough letter to the community, pledging to deal with the challenges and criticisms unleashed by the incident. Alleva and his staff, meanwhile, already are well into plans to enhance some of the awareness programs they have been offering to athletes for years.

It is all but certain that by the time the next academic year arrives, the athletics department will have crafted a code of conduct that all student-athletes will have to sign to wear a Duke uniform. The conduct of most of the Blue Devils already is exemplary, but this will make it an oath.

It is important to note that educating athletes on issues beyond their sport and their coursework has been an on-going process. Every year, all freshmen athletes are required to attend a campus orientation program that advises them of the school's academic, residential and judicial policies. If they didn't know much about plagiarism or the consequences of underage drinking on campus, they do after this orientation.

In addition, all athletes every year are made aware of the school's substance abuse policies and drug testing procedures. Every athlete is required to sign a statement saying he or she has not broken any NCAA rules, and every squad is given a seminar on gambling. Extra time is devoted to gambling for the football and men's and women's basketball programs, with the hoop teams being required by ACC rule to watch a video on the subject prior to the NCAA Tournament.

At some point during the year, all sports teams go through a drug and alcohol awareness seminar with a campus professional, so they will learn about the consequences of those activities on their health as well as their sport performance. All freshmen are encouraged to attend a seminar conducted by Duke Student Affairs on date rape and various similar campus issues. A few sports teams, including lacrosse, had a member of the Student Affairs staff visit with them this year to cover topics such as dating, sexual harassment, academic integrity, drinking violations and other disciplinary matters.

So the athletics department already has been vigilant in educating its students, and now, according to Alleva, those efforts are likely to be intensified. Programs will be expanded, and sessions that were optional before may become mandatory. “We are constantly evaluating to see if we can improve the programs we offer or to see if we need additional programs,” says Brad Berndt, an associate athletics director. “That's part of our mission as educators.”

A national publication recently quoted a female student who mentioned it was difficult to meet her academic challenges while looking over her shoulder wondering if the white guys she saw were members of the lacrosse team. That is not a healthy atmosphere, but that can change if this incident helps redefine the parameters of acceptable behavior.

2. The Durham Disconnect

The clich?s and sensationalized phrases describing Duke as a “bastion of privilege” set within blue-collar Durham have been omnipresent in the media over the past few weeks. Just about every stereotype involving the “deep division” of black vs. white and rich vs. poor has been draped over town and gown in discussion of this situation.

Certainly some legitimate issues have been raised. An N.C. Central student was on television the other day suggesting that if the races had been reversed in this case, three black males suspected of assaulting a white woman would have been locked up long ago. Conversely, there is little doubt that ugly strains of racial profiling would have arisen had 46 black guys been asked for DNA samples by detectives hopeful of finding something to link one of them to a crime.

But the perception that everyone on campus is a rich white kid who looks down at everyone in a town that wishes they weren't there just isn't accurate. First of all, 30 percent of Duke's students are from some minority group and 40 percent are on financial aid. There is diversity, even if there could be more. The university, meanwhile, is the city's biggest employer, with paychecks going not just to blue-collar workers but also to thousands in fields from education to medicine and research. Its economic impact on the region is significant.

You do not have to look very far to find Duke athletes who care about this community in a tangible way. Since 1992, the Read with the Blue Devils program has been sending Duke athletes into third and fourth grade classrooms to read and interact with Durham youth. It is a model program that has touched thousands of lives. Twenty-four local schools have benefited from that program this year alone and every sport participates.

For the past few years, Duke's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has put together a team of about 40 athletes from all the sports for additional outreach activities. They adopt needy families at Christmas time through their Project Share, conduct canned food drives for the Food Bank of North Carolina and hold a Winter Fun Day each year in which students from a specific school in Durham are brought to campus for clinics in various sports as well as fellowship with the athletes at a women's basketball game.

The women's basketball team has been interacting with and fund-raising for the Durham Ronald McDonald House for years. The football team's In Kids Defense program this year provided a computer lab for a charter community school in Walltown, and there is now a Duke School Days program that annually brings middle school students to campus for tours and messages from Duke athletes.

Those are some of the sanctioned activities you might have heard about before, but they are just a drop in the bucket of ways Duke athletes contribute in the community. There are too many mentoring, tutoring, big brother-big sister and adopt-a-grandparent instances to mention. You probably haven't heard about the athlete volunteers who have been working the local soup kitchen every Saturday this semester, or about the two fencers who started a fencing program at one of the Durham elementary schools this year and have been going there a couple of times a week to work with the kids.

No one is saying much positive about the Duke lacrosse team right now, but I've been told they were among the most active teams last fall in the Read with the Blue Devils program, and among the most diligent in raising funds for Hurricane Katrina victims, not to mention a lacrosse clinic they have for the community and the participation by several players in the Special Olympics effort.

And this kind of action is not confined to athletics. Just a few weeks ago we had a note in BDW about the dozens of students who spent their spring break on mission trips for hurricane victims. The Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership has made a real impact in some of the areas closest to campus. A sign on campus recently announced that there were 51 service organizations active there. The Princeton Review cited Duke for having one of the nation's most outstanding community service programs, with special mention for the Community Service Center, which makes an effort to get freshmen students involved in outreach activities very early in their careers.

This is a much more accurate reflection of Duke students and athletes than the portrayal that has made headlines recently.

“Prior to this incident I think we had built up a good relationship with our city,” says Alleva, “and after it is over we will have to reach out even more to help mend it.”

Ticking Time Bomb

Those are just a couple of the issues that have surfaced in reaction to the March 13 lacrosse party, which by the way was not even attended by about a third of the team. Misconceptions about Duke, athletics and Durham have been everywhere, but nothing may be more accurate than the description of this incident as the perfect storm. It cuts across so many levels including gender, race and socio-economics that it has provided a forum for just about anyone with a cause.

It bears repeating that we still don't know exactly what happened at 610 N. Buchanan, and but it's also worth asking if anything could have been done to prevent the behavior that has been acknowleged. In retrospect the lacrosse team has been called a “ticking time bomb,” with references to a work hard, play hard attitude and several previous citations for drinking violations and disorderly conduct.

It's important to remember that at Duke, the first chain of command for disciplinary action is the campus judicial process, not the athletic department. Conduct violations such as illegal drinking in the dorms are handled on campus and there is nothing that compels notification of a coach or athletic administrator unless the offense is punishable by suspension from the university. So there can be a lot that goes on that coaches don't know about until well after the fact or after several violations have accrued, even though in the public's eye, the coach might be expected to have influence over the offending behavior. Maybe one of the president's panels will come back with the recommendation that coaches or someone in athletics routinely be included in the loop when athletes are caught misbehaving on campus, not just when it reaches crisis proportions.

Nevertheless, red flags had been raised on lacrosse long before last month. Coach Mike Pressler, a good man and most unfortunate casualty of this episode, had been advised that his team was under a microscope. He did not shy away from disciplining his players, and on a road trip home from San Diego, he told them on the bus ride back from the airport not to do anything stupid during spring break.

The date of that request: March 12.

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Joe Alleva:

“We have a great university and a great athletic department. We have outstanding coaches and student-athletes. It is important to remember that the basic fabric of what we have here is very good, even while we are dealing with this very serious situation.

“We are facing adversity now, but out of this adversity we will become better and stronger. We must grow from this, and I am certain that we will. There are many lessons to be learned from this entire episode, and as an educational institution that learning process will help us as our community heals and we move forward.”

Roth: Time To Learn, Heal, Move On

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