WHY DUKE PT. 1

I’m often asked how I became a Duke fan. It’s a valid question.

How did a kid from Oregon grow so passionate for a team that plays (literally) on the other side of the country? It has the makings of your typical fair-weather fan. You know, when someone just likes a team because they’re good.

But I’m not a fair-weather fan. Far from it. In fact, no one in my family of Blue Devils is.

My journey to fandom started when I was about eight years old.

Prior to the 1995-1996 NBA season, the Chicago Bulls traded their backup center, Will Perdue, to the San Antonio Spurs for the polarizing Dennis Rodman. This trade officially boosted the Chicago Bulls into their second NBA Championship three-peat, as they were led by three future Hall of Famers in Rodman, Scottie Pippen, and the greatest player of all-time, Michael Jordan.

Being a young, impressionable boy, I was immediately prone to love everything that my older brothers loved. And my oldest brother loved the Chicago Bulls. But not just the Bulls, he particularly liked Dennis Rodman. It was hard not to. I mean, this guy routinely grabbed more than 20 rebounds a game. Dennis Rodman did all the small stuff that leads to championships: defense, rebounding, boxing out, making the extra pass, and playing 100% selflessly. He also had a flamboyant personality to pair with tattoos and neon-colored hair.

The more my brother’s admiration for Dennis Rodman grew, the more I liked him too. But Rodman had more than a few issues. Every day there seemed to be a new story about Rodman on ESPN. If he wasn’t berating officials or getting in fights with his opponents, he would say or do something crazy off the court.

Needless to say, my mom was neither a fan of Dennis Rodman nor of her boys being his biggest fans. Imagine her horror when she asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I responded, “A Dennis Rodman jersey.”

My mom asked my oldest brother (the one who started this mess) if there existed an NBA player who was as good off the court as he was on the court. A player who was just as likely to be in the news for humanitarian work as he was for his highlights. Despite my mother’s high standards, it wasn’t hard for my brother to think of a player like that.

His name was Grant Hill.