At the end of the night, you have to admire Duke.
With the entire state of Indiana rooting against the Blue Devils and Lucas Oil Stadium sounding like an oversize Hinkle Fieldhouse, Duke did everything it needed to end Butlerâs amazing run in the N.C.A.A. tournament.
Between Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith, Duke made big shot after big shot, grabbed crucial lose balls, made critical free throws and wore down Butler, 61-59. This was Dukeâs first championship since 2001 and its fourth over all, won by a group that was regarded as one of Mike Krzyzewskiâs more ordinary teams.
Not on Monday.
This much is sure, the N.C.A.A. won.
Again.
The national championship game drew 70,930 fans bringing the weekend total to more than 140,000, the second largest total in tournament history.
About six hours before the game, Richard Brodhead, the president of Duke, and Bobby Fong, the president of Butler, sat in Fongâs spacious office and got to know each other.
The congenial meeting would soon move to Lucas Oil Stadium and turn partisan amid thousands of screaming fans in a sea of blue.
âYou and I made many of the same choices with our lives,â Brodhead said, referring to Fong. âIn college, we decided we would pursue the same subjects; we both went on to graduate school in the same field. Then both of us gravitated to teaching and turned our love of teaching into a different kind of job. You are the head of one school. Iâm the head of another school, and we sit across the table as friendly rivals because tonight weâll have this great contest.â
Both were English majors; Brodhead at Yale, Fong at Harvard.
Eventually, the subject of intercollegiate athletics came up. How does the grand spectacle of March Madness fit into the mission of higher education. Brodhead and Fong agreed that the athletes were wonderful ambassadors of their universities. They, as educators, insist that athletes are to be treated like regular students.
But the reality is that they are not like other students. They hold a rigorous âpart-timeâ job and perform before a large public audience for the glory of the university, often risking injury in pursuit of a championship.
âThe truth is they are and they arenât,â Brodhead said. âThey lead a very demanding life. Theyâre very good at what they do, but what makes our basketball team fit at our university is that they are part of a continuum of people who set their height very high and are willing to work amazingly hard to reach as far as their talent will let them.â
Fong made the case that the dancers at Butlerâs prestigious Department of Dance, and especially the ballet program, were just as uniquely important to the university as the menâs basketball team.
The department of dance offers three degrees â" in performance, pedagogue and arts administration. Butler was among the first liberal arts schools with a dance program to offer a degree in dance, with ballet as its primary focus.
Michelle Jarvis, the associate dean and chair of Butlerâs School of Dance, said the dance students compared favorably to the universityâs traditional athletes.
They are highly competitive, admitted after a rigorous audition process. They train every day from September to April. âWeâre a six-day-a- week operation,â Jarvis said.
In the summer the dancers are building relationships with professional companies by completing internships in the United States and abroad.
âThey are busy all year long, aspiring to be that artist,â Jarvis said.
Jarvis made the case that the dancers are as important to the university and work just as hard as the basketball team and face many of the same physical risks.
The program performs three times a year and often draws large crowds.
There is nothing on the campus that creates public moments on the scale of high profile sports programs.
Last January, 94,906 fans watched Alabama defeat Texas for the national championship in football.
On Monday, more than 70,000 watched Butler play Duke.
As the debate over the role of athletics at colleges intensifies, moments like the Final Four make a strong case that athletes are unique students on campus.
âThereâs an audience for this kind of excellence that there may not be for a student violinist or a student scientist,â Brodhead said of athletics. âBut in a way, the impulse, the drive is continuous.â Yet at Butler the dance program is more connected to the university than any sports team. In two weeks, the ballet department will perform âSwan Lake.â After that performance patrons can visit the school of dance, a meaningful validation by the university.
After Mondayâs national championship game fans will not see a similar academic building reflective of the vast athletic universe of which the Final Four is a part. It does not exist.
The sports programs are university cash registers, convenient marketing vehicles and little more.
Butlerâs run to the Final Four and Dukeâs re-emergence as a national power, reinforce the value of intercollegiate athletics to the mission of higher education. College athletes in big-time programs are unique students on campus. Like dancers, artists and musicians, they deserve an academic home.
Perhaps Mondayâs game between two well-respected private colleges will catapult athletics to a respectable place in academia.
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