I’m not going to call out my friends over at Fistful of Talent and The HR Capitalist for being un-American but I am going to let that suggestion ring a little bit in the heads of my readers. These pro-Duke missives that they dropped on us telling us how we should want to be like Duke rub me the wrong way as an American. Yeah, I’m going patriotic on you.
Rooting for Duke is like rooting for Microsoft to crush a software startup. Rooting for Duke is like rooting for Starbucks to put the local coffee joint out of business. It’s like rooting for Goliath over David if I can go Biblical on you.
Rooting for Duke is like rooting for Walmart. Yeah, I said it.
There are better operating systems, coffee shops, fighters and general merchandise stores out there. Like Diddy says though, it’s all about the Benjamins. It is about might over right.
Some of you free market purists will say there is never a question about might versus right because they aren’t mutually exclusive. Might equals right in our free market society.
If might equals right, how is the United States not a British colony anymore? If might equals right, why couldn’t we win in Vietnam? If might equals right, how come Americans all own shares of GM as we pay our taxes this April?
Now some will say I am simply jealous of Duke’s success.
Of course I am.
Much of their success comes with privilege though. Their coach is likely the highest paid in the country (private schools don’t have to release salaries). They’ve got beautiful facilities, generous donors and a sweet TV deal. They play a system of basketball where they can punch it in for three quarters of the season and still get a great seed in the tournament. Coach K can take off months at a time to coach USA basketball and not sweat anything.
Their brand of basketball is uninventive, systematic and simply takes advantage of the depth of college level talent they can attract because of the above mentioned privilege. It is the epitome of might over right.
If I can loosely relate this back to business, I think that’s why the appeal of the American small business is so strong. No one in a small business can afford to be uninventive, rest on their laurels and strength of position in the market. There are always major threats and challenges that keeps them thinking about new product lines, improving existing products or digging just a bit more market share to get another employee on board.
I love the stories about scrappy teams that succeed. I think the same goes for businesses too. That’s why it will always be more fun to root for the underdog.
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April 8, 2010 at 12:41 pm
As a native son of Indiana, I was cheering for Butler in the final game. Nonetheless, I don’t hold anything against Duke for their success. They don’t cheat. Their players tend to graduate. AND – they win on the court. As noted in the movie, Hoosiers, the goal is just as high at Cameron as it is on any other court.
Furthermore, Duke is much smaller in student population than many of the public-funded competitors it plays against. It is successful academically as well.
Those bashing Duke are mis-guided at best. We should applaud their success. Rooting for Duke is NOT un-American b/c Duke is doing it the right way – can I say it – the American way.
April 9, 2010 at 11:19 am
Lance – Tru dat!
April 9, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Lance, you really pinpointed the root of why we love the underdog: in the Revolutionary War, we WERE the underdog! Now every show from “American Idol” to the Olympics trades on that sentiment. I think, too, that we want the underdog to win because every time we see it happen, we believe there might be hope for our dreams, too. Go small business.