DURHAM — At the halftime of the Duke-Carolina men’s basketball game, Duke
University will award its highest non-academic honor, the Spire Award, which
recognizes those who make the significant contributions “to improving the aesthetics
of the Duke Campus,” to Matt Doherty, the former men’s basketball coach at the
University of North Carolina and current head coach at Southern Methodist University.
In his written citation, Duke President Richard Brodhead said that Doherty “had
brought a greater awareness of the possibility of the human form in its use as a catalyst
to spectatorial participation in athletic competition.”
“Doherty,” said Brodhead, “even if inadvertently, heightened our sense of beauty, and
the possibilities that lay ahead. For this our campus community will be forever
grateful.”
The genesis of the award to Doherty came during the UNC-Duke game in 2001, at a
critical juncture late in the game. Doherty made what he thought was a private
comment to his players as they broke a timeout huddle: “Oh, by the way, Duke still has
the ugliest cheerleaders in the ACC.” The players are said to have laughed — but the
remark somehow made its way into an ESPN magazine article.
Doherty said it was just a joke — meant to break the tension of the game. In a letter to
the Duke cheerleaders two days later, the then-UNC coach wrote, “I apologize for the
insensitive reference and hope you do not take it seriously or personally.”
Unfortunately, they did. Fortunately, for the Duke community and its sports fans, the
Duke University athletic administration did as well.
Led by Dr. Swen Flierigsted of the Duke Medical Center’s Department of Plastic,
Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery, a committee was established to investigate
Doherty’s claim. While the committee could find “no credible evidence” that Duke had
ever been determined empirically to have “the ugliest cheerleaders in the ACC,” they
did find that their squads regularly did finish last in fan polls of the prettiest in the
conference.
Following an analysis of aesthetically pleasing body proportions by Flierigsted, based
on the Florida State cheerleading squad, Duke then began in earnest recruiting
cheerleaders and dance team members who met the raised standards, ones who could
in addition to entertaining their own fans, easily distract opposing team players.
But the benefits of the upgrade appear already to have gone beyond that well-
established role.
Newly hired Duke head football coach David Cutcliffe credits Doherty, at least in part,
for his biggest recruiting coup, signing Sean Renfree of Scottsdale, Ariz. Renfree is
rated the 10th-best quarterback prospect in the nation. Said Cutcliff, “When Sean
came back from his campus tour, including a men’s basketball game in Cameron, don’t
think he was talking about the beautiful steeple on Duke Chapel, or the game for that
matter — he was all about ‘babe-i-lic-ious’ cheerleaders.”
It is worth noting that this is the first time the Spire Award, named after the spire on
Duke’s landmark chapel, has been given to someone without a direct campus
connection — alumni, faculty, staff, student or donor.
Duke Chapel, designed by architect Julian Abele, is an example of neo-Gothic
architecture in the English style. Gothic architecture is characterized by large stone
piers, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses, which allow the creation of
vast open spaces, uninterrupted by columns for support.
* * *
Urban renewal to raze Krzyzewskiville
DURHAM — In news with an ironic twist, just days after being voted the Most
Expensive Place to Live in America, according to an analysis by the management
consulting firm Runzheimer International, Krzyzewskiville finds itself high on the list of
neighborhoods in Durham slated for urban renewal.
The Runzheimer analysis shows Krzyzewskiville, given the levels of amenities (or, more
exactly, the lack thereof) and average room size (four-foot wide by eight-foot deep), as
more than three times as expensive per day as the luxury resort of the Greenbrier in
White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
The cost to attend Duke, for an undergraduate, for the 2007-2008 school year,
including room, board, tuition and fees, totals $45,121.
Krzyzewskiville now finds itself high on the urban-renewal-candidate list after years of
continuing complaints from nearby low-income neighborhoods downwind from its site
about the smell emanating from the refugee-like squatters camp and contaminated
runoff polluting area water supplies, and because Krzyzewskiville easily met all the
criteria for a homeless site as established by the Remove and Relocate Subcommittee
of Durham’s Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness.
Gary D. Gaddy once, while on a senior-year sabbatical from Furman University, lived
rent-free in a Krzyzewskiville-like pup tent for about a month while tending an organic
apple orchard near Woodville, Virginia, not too far from beautiful Skyline Drive.
A version of this article was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday March 6,
2008.
Copyright 2008 Gary D. Gaddy
garygaddy.com 