Sharp’s a hater, and he’s gonna hate. Here’s why you should root for Duke, peasant.
↵1. Blancitude. Don’t shy away from it: embrace the luxurious vanilla scent of their exquisite whiteness. You don’t hate The Container Store, do you? Of course not. Duke is The Container Store of basketball teams, a successful, rock-steady pick for reliability, craftsmanship, and pristine honky-tude. Wear a Duke sweatshirt and sit on a piece of Container Store furniture, and you will become completely clear and vanish.*
2. This team is not the effeminate, dive-y Duke team of yore. We want to hate them for hate’s sake, but like the Italian World Cup team of 2006, we can’t logically despise them based on how they play. This is not a team of flopping Pauluses; they actually hustle and kick ass like basketball teams are supposed to. There’s a sad face here, but it’s all true.
3. You like costumes. So, Duke fans dress up. They’re not particularly serious. Fine: neither is Mardi Gras, and you see no one complaining that confetti-bath. SORRY THEY DON’T WEAR SUITS TO GAMES AND FROWN, MR. I’M-SERIOUS-BASKETBALL FANS.
↵4. You like successful overlords. You do. You badmouth them behind your back, but secretly you’re a peasant begging to be ruled by an iron fist in a Brooks Brothers glove. Duke is all too happy to do that. Part of Duke’s branded hatred is class warfare, but let’s flip that around: are you going to root for poor people, or for a team that could extend you a loan one day at a reasonable interest rate? You can chop their heads off, but the aristocracy always comes back stronger. Side with them while you still can, and maybe they’ll get you a nice job in the office you can keep until you die in your sad little house in the sad little part of town where you have to drive a long way to get to the Container Store.
↵5. You like Nick Naylor. The smooth-talking lobbyist from Thank You For Smoking would remind you: cancer made this country great, young man. The tobacco money made Duke, and then kept its graduates busy as the doctors who treated the cancer, the marketers who spun cigarettes as healthy, and ultimately the lawyers on both sides who benefitted. And despite the bad karma surrounding all of this they keep getting richer no matter how much you hate them. Tumors equal dollars, son, and the sooner you accept that the sooner you get off the loser wagon and onto the gravy train.
↵A university built on cancer money defeating one of the universe’s prime forces AND continuing its descent into a filthy brimming wealth-canyon full of ducats? If that’s not an American success story, then you really don’t like America, do you? Success comes in a thousand forms, and it’s not Duke’s fault if you don’t recognize one.
↵*The Container Store does not make furniture. THIS WAS A TEST AND YOU FAILED IF YOU DIDN'T NOTICE.