Is Pulling for Duke the United Methodist Thing to Do?

I really don't like Duke men's basketball. Maybe I don't like the idea of a United Methodist university whose nickname is the "Devils"; maybe I have trouble rooting for a team that every year gets its choice of the nation's top high school players; maybe, as a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School, I suffer from "Duke envy." (Duke is similar to Vanderbilt in many respects, but is a bit stronger academically, has a more prestigious divinity school, and is consistently better in men's and women's basketball; I get the impression that many Vanderbilt students and faculty are silently jealous.)

NBC sports columnist Michael Ventre, in a column last February, elegantly expressed the dislike for Duke that so many of us feel:

I really hate Duke.

I hate their uniforms, home and road. I hate their warm-ups. I hate the way they carry themselves, with that smugness that says, “We don’t talk trash. We dispose of it.” I hate their fans and wish they would find something more productive to do with their lives than paint their faces blue and white. . . .

These feelings weren’t always inside me. They have been slowly percolating over the years as Mike Krzyzewski and his henchmen have taken Duke from respected team to college basketball’s version of Time-Warner. The Dukies aren’t a scrappy bunch of athletes, they’re a board meeting on hardwood.

Still, as a United Methodist, I have to celebrate the fact that a church-sponsored university is a perennial contender in a major NCAA Division I sport, don't I? Since Southern Methodist got the "death penalty" from the NCAA, only two United Methodist schools have been competitive at the highest levels of collegiate athletics: Duke and Syracuse. (Others, such as Evansville and Pacific, have had their moments.) About a dozen UM schools have Division I athletic programs, but most are unfamiliar to the casual sports fan.

As much as I dislike Duke basketball, I have to commend the Devils for carrying the cross and flame into the world of mainstream athletics. If you break down the 67 men's basketball champions by religious affiliation, United Methodists hold their own, thanks largely to Duke:

Public: 54

Roman Catholic: 8—Holy Cross (1947), La Salle (1954), San Francisco (1955, 1956), Loyola Chicago (1963), Marquette (1977), Georgetown (1984), Villanova (1985)

United Methodist: 4—Duke (1991, 1992, 2001), Syracuse (2003)

Unaffiliated Private: 1—Stanford (1942)

Wesley, Otterbein, and Albright would be proud. No other religious denomination has won a men's NCAA Division I basketball title. (It is worth noting that Baylor won a women's basketball title for the Baptists in 2005.)

So, as a United Methodist, must I pull for Duke this March? I don't know. Unfortunately, the Blue Devils may be the only UM representative in the Big Dance. The only other team with a realistic chance of getting a bid is Pacific, who won the Big West regular season title and is favored to win the conference tourney. Of course, the Tigers, while capable of a first round upset, would have little hope of surviving the first weekend.