Ben McCormick
March 31, 2022
With the most anticipated game in the history of college basketball’s greatest rivalry just two days away, the entire state of North Carolina is on edge. No matter what I do this week, there is something creeping in the back of my mind: the fact that the most anxiety inducing game of my lifetime is quickly approaching. Duke’s Coach K is in the final week of his career regardless of the results of the Final Four. While contemplating the undeniable magnitude of Coach K's career, I began to wonder what is it that UNC fans hate so much about Duke and Coach K. Why does the school 8 miles away and its Coach of 42 years make their blood boil? I know a great many UNC fans—so I figured, why not ask them?
The Fans
This week I surveyed a group of UNC Students on why they hate Duke and Coach K. My goal is not to offer critiques on the answers they gave, rather I merely posed the questions and will relay them here. A pool of 41 students elected to answer 16 questions pertaining to their status in the rivalry and their thoughts on Duke, Coach K, etc. No other demographic details about the participants will be disclosed other than the fact that all 41 attested to being students at UNC.
Of the respondents, 92.7% (38 respondents) claimed to be UNC basketball fans. Of those fans, 58.5% said they became fans either when they committed to UNC or sometime during their enrollment. Another 39% said they became fans either “at birth” or sometime “during K-12”.
When asked why they were UNC fans (multiple responses were allowed), 90.2% answered “I go to school there”, 41.5% answered “friends are UNC fans”, and 34.1% answered “parents/family are UNC fans”.
Do They Actually Hate Duke and Coach K?
The next question asked them to evaluate on a scale of 0-10 how much they agree with the following statements (with 0 being completely disagree, 10 being completely agree, and 5 being somewhat neutral).
Given the statement: “I am a die hard UNC fan”, the mean score was 8 meaning this was highly agreed upon. The next statement: “I hate Duke” also received an 8. And the third statement: “I hate Coach K” received a slightly lower level of agreement with a mean of 7.
These responses establish on average that the pool of students do in fact hate Duke and Coach K.
Just to be sure the next question asked, “Do you hate Duke?”, to which 92.7% answered ”yes”. A similar question asking if they hate Coach K was met with much less agreement. Still, 65.9% claimed to hate Coach K.
Why?
I asked those that said they hate Duke to elaborate on why that was. Right off the bat, 37.5% gave an answer along the lines of "they suck". A few answers even claimed they did not necessarily hate Duke, or even that they did not hate them at all (albeit only a couple). I will not disclose the exact wording of these answers in the interest of privacy of the respondents.
A large group of respondents (32.5%) offered what I think is the closest thing to a legitimate answer to the big question. These respondents expressed that it was some aversion to the perceived "elitism", "nepotism", "arrogance", "classism", or "wealth" of Duke and its students that caused their ill feelings toward the institution and its basketball program. An additional smaller group expressed it was simply due to the spirit of the rivalry.
I then asked them to elaborate on why they hated Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski. I will preface by saying that 21.2% of the 33 respondents who chose to answer this question actually expressed that they did not hate Coach K. These respondents even discussed how he was a good coach, they had family members who love him, or there simply was no reason to hate him. Again, a portion of the responses amounted to a "he sucks". But, there are some interesting results beyond that. Four respondents cited his appearance as the reason (although these are just crude jokes associated with the "rat" jokes from years past). Others claimed they believe him to be conceited, self absorbed, and a coach who puts himself in front of his players. One cited that he made a huge deal about his retirement. Again though, evidence of aversion to elitism and arrogance is apparent in many of these answers.
For this reason, I can confidently say that these results support the argument that UNC students on average hate Duke and Coach K because they believe them to be arrogant and elitist. However, there are certainly UNC fans who only hate on Duke and Coach K because of the spirit of the rivalry. Or, they may not hate them at all. But on average, the hate is there, and for many it is tied to perceived elitism, arrogance, and in regards to Coach K even egocentrism.
Was There a Retirement Tour, and Did Roy Williams Do it Better?
Again, I asked them to evaluate on a scale of 0-10 how much they agree with the following statements (with 0 being completely disagree, 10 being completely agree, and 5 being somewhat neutral). Here are the statements and their mean scores:
- "Coach K only announced his retirement a year early so he could have a 'retirement tour'" (Score: 8)
- "The way in which Coach K decided to retire was inconsiderate to his players" (Score: 6)
- "The way in which Coach K decided to retire was inconsiderate to recruits" (Score: 4)
- "Coach K announced his retirement in advance to give the program time to adjust and so they would not lie to recruits" (Score: 5)
- "Roy Williams' mode of retirement was better" (Score: 9)
On average, the respondents agreed that the sole reason for Coach K's mode of retirement was to have a "retirement tour". There was only a slight agreement, however, with the assertion that the manner in which he chose to retire was inconsiderate to his players. Contrastingly, the respondents actually slightly disagreed with the statement asserting that K's choice to announce his retirement in advance was inconsiderate to recruits. Likewise, the respondents were neutral on average to the popular explanation given by Duke fans: "Coach K announced his retirement in advance to give the program time to adjust and so they would not lie to recruits." However, there was an overwhelming cry of agreement that Roy Williams went about retiring in a much better way than Krzyzewski.
How Qualified Were These Students as UNC Fans?
To ensure that I was not questioning students who genuinely knew nothing about UNC basketball, I asked some generic (and easy) questions. I will preface by saying that on average the students performed well on these two questions. However, there were certainly some deviations. Here are those two questions and their results.
- "Which of the following are NOT years UNC won a national championship?"
(Championship year listed with percentage of those who thought UNC did not win a title that year listed next to it; important to note that many respondents may not have answered this question, and that it is calculated using the number of respondents who chose that answered divided by the total number of respondents [41]).
1957 (17.1%), 1984 (41.5%), 1993 (9.8%), 1982 (19.5%), 1956 (46.3%), 2003 (53.7%), and 2005 (17.1%)
*1984, 1956, and 2003 were the correct responses
- "Which of the following are former UNC players? (check all that apply)"
(Player name listed with number of those who thought they played at UNC listed next to it; important to note that many respondents may not have answered this question and that the total number of respondents is 41).
Hubert Davis (35), Sean May (21), Harrison Barnes (16), TJ Warren (4),
Nolan Smith (4), Joel Berry II (22), Elton Brand (1), Jerry Stackhouse (17),
Tyler Hansbrough (21), Christian Laettner (2), Collin Gillespie (5),
Lennie Rosenbluth (11), Charlie Scott (12), Art Heyman (5), and Stanley Borden (2).
*Davis, May, Barnes, Berry II, Stackhouse, Rosenbluth, and Scott were the correct answers.
*Smith, Brand, Laettner, and Heyman are former Duke players.
*TJ Warren is a former NC State player.
*Collin Gillespie is a current player for Final Four team Villanova.
*Stanley Borden is a current player for Final Four team Duke.
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