I don’t really know what it is about Duke, but man do people hate that program. Even more, folks hate a lot of the individual players. I think it’s some combination of winning, hustle, arrogance, overexposure and whiteness that does it. Yes, whiteness. For some reason, the most hated player around is always the other team’s good white player. I can’t explain it, but there it is. And Duke has had a lot of good white players.
Anyway, the point of this post is that ESPN 2 posted a list of one guy’s ten most-hated Blue Devils. And yes, eight of his ten choices are white and that’s only because he included Gerald Henderson who probably wouldn’t make this list if he made it again a year from now.
My ten? Let’s see…
1. Bobby Hurley
2. Christian Laettner
3. Steve Wojciechowski
4. Chris Collins
5. Greg Newton (man, the 1995 team not only sucked, but it was full of detestable players!)
6. Dahntay Jones
7. J.J. Redick
8. Lee Melchionni
9. Josh McRoberts
10. Danny Meagher
Actually, I should probably bump Meagher up several notches, but I don’t feel like reshuffling.
In the spirit of fairness, and since the best way to engender hate is to be good, here are my ten most-hated Tar Heels:
1. Brendan Haywood
2. Rasheed Wallace
3. Makhtar Ndiaye
4. Matt Doherty
5. Jeff Lebo
6. Michael Jordan (I hated him until the NBA)
7. Dante Calabria
8. Eric Montross
9. Jeff McInnis
10. J.R. Reid