Born-Again Christian (Laettner)?

Yesterday’s disappointing and sudden ending to an otherwise inspiring Cats’ season was compounded by another unfortunate circumstance: It was the first time (and I fervently pray the very last time) that I have ever rooted for Yale University. And they still lost.

Ever since that institution of ill repute broke my teenage heart by deferring my application for early admissions — sucker-punching me into the arms of its snooty arch-rival in Boston — I’ve despised everything to do with Yale.  I even refuse to wear the brilliant Kentucky for Kentucky “Y’ALL” send up of their iconic lettering.

But in a once-in-a-generation NCAA tournament second-round matchup with the Duke Blue Devils, I was all Eli. Boola effing Boola!

As I explained in more detail in this space a few months ago, there’s no institution that I abhor more than Duke University basketball.  Hey, according to a piece this week in the esteemed Wall Street Journal, I’m now a national expert in the art and science of hating the Blue Devils.  (Please note: I hate the game, not the players — more on that later.)

To sum up my feelings — and those of a significant segment of hoops fans — there’s no more sturdy symbol of the ever-increasing sanctimony and hypocrisy in college athletics than the squad from Durham. Especially their fan base.  Everyone of us has a Dukie friend who continually peppers us with his haughty insults:  How their academic standards are higher, their players smarter and more virtuous.  How their recruiting is as pure as Caesar’s wife.  How their Messianic coach is focused solely on the sport’s integrity.  Yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever.

Undoubtedly, that Blue Devil frenemy let you have it yesterday.  (Tech geeks:  I’d pay a ton for an app that blocks Dukie texts, tweets and Facebook posts during March and April.)

Perhaps even worse is the pervasive sense of apparent entitlement among some of their most visible star players.  Exhibit One…duh…Christian Laettner.  If there was one shining moment that best encapsulates his notoriety – and our reactive revulsion to it –  it’s not the ad nauseum-replayed “Shot,” but rather, from the same historic NCAA tournament game, the clandestinely insidious “Stomp“: A Devil of a Christian intentionally and imperiously assaulting a prone teenager of the Chicago inner city with the sole of his shoe…and getting away with it!  That one image elegantly epitomizes the shifty, smug and supercilious Dukie image in the hearts of Big Blue Nation.

And now, more than two decades later, Christian appears to have been born again in the form of sophomore Duke sensation Grayson Allen.  In his freshman year regular season, Allen lurked in the shadows of his more high-profile classmates, but excelled in the Big Dance: Grayson’s coming-out party came on Championship Monday, in which he lifted the team on his back, scoring 16 points, including 8 straight during perhaps the game’s most crucial stretch.  This season, he’s emerged as the team’s undeniable offensive star, averaging more than 21 points a game.

But as has been the case with too many of his alma mater’s standouts, Allen’s stardom has been accompanied by increasingly bad behavior.  Sure, taunting opponents and yelling at refs have unfortunately become all-too-common in sports, even in the college version of the games.  But Allen took his ignominy to a new level when he intentionally tripped an opponent not just once (and I guess some BBN fanatics might excuse the tripping of a Bird), but twice.  Worse yet, less than a week after UK’s Isaac Humphries was assessed a game-deciding technical for an exuberant ball toss, Allen simply received undisclosed “discipline” from his team and a toothless “reprimand” from his conference for his recidivist second offense.  (Even the ever-noble Coach K laughs off Allen’s actions, calling him a “cowboy” and an “a-hole.”)

Is the standard “three trips and you’re out”?  If so, shouldn’t this count from yesterday’s Yale game?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of7kS9VOqUg

The physical manner in which he handles his opponents has positioned Allen well for a future as a Donald Trump rally enforcer, or maybe even Trump’s campaign manager. Or perhaps Allen would be automatically disqualified for resembling a younger version of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz:

Grayson Allen says he doesn’t look like Ted Cruz, is only person alive who thinks so. https://t.co/7mcKIRhkLD pic.twitter.com/x7foKNFQvP

— VICE Sports (@VICESports) March 19, 2016

All kidding aside, it’s instructive that even in the era of Trumpian race-baiting, a caucasian Dukie has yet again united the hoops nation in communal fear and loathing.

The American aversion to elitism comes in many forms.  For fans of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, it’s the DC and Wall Street Establishments who’ve dragged the nation into the ditch, securing power and riches, while median salaries and American Dream-expectations plummeted for working people.  For fans of college basketball, it’s a series of entitled pale-faced prep schoolers, who upon donning Duke’s blue and white, appear to play by a different set of rules, acting out — sometimes physically — without reprisal or consequence. Worst of all, they often revel in their bad boy images, setting an awful example for the highly impressionable youth who emulate them as hardcourt heroes.

Now, it would be hyper-hypocritical for this Trump critic/Ivy League elitist to register an emotion as strong as hate toward any student-athlete, no matter how ill-mannered.  I’m cognizant that Grayson Allen’s only 20, and that he’s part the product of a toxic, angry pop culture in which our opponents are too often considered our enemies: Age and wisdom hopefully will guide his path toward maturity.

But the grownups around him have no excuse.  It’s high time that coaches, administrators, and league officials take a much stronger stand — cut out the enabling winks and nods — and remind their young players to shape up: The whole world is watching.