Considering Adoption

Ever since I was a little kid, I've been following the Braves, Giants, Knicks and Islanders.  When I got older and started college and grad school, I picked up Princeton and Stanford as my two NCAA interests.  As I've moved across the country from New York to California, I've periodically found myself watching Dodgers, Clippers, Sharks or 49ers games, but never with any rooting interest - I've always stuck by my hometown teams and, with the exception of my two alma maters, haven't added to my roster of favorite teams since I was a child.

Recently, however, important influences in my life have had me gravitate toward Duke basketball.  Over the last two years or so, I've seen a couple of Duke hoops games in person, toured Cameron Indoor Stadium on Duke's campus in Durham (twice), and watched dozens of Blue Devils games on TV (almost all of them are nationally televised on ESPNU or ESPN2 or even ESPN).  Most recently, I sat in the Blue Devils fan section and watched Duke beat up on Washington at Madison Square Garden this past Saturday and, as much as it amazes me, found myself legitimately rooting for Duke.

After Duke beat Washington, Oklahoma State and Pittsburgh tipped off.

As a kid, I always respected Duke, but never really liked them.  I was always impressed by the way the school could maintain such high academic standards while remaining so competitive, year after year, on college basketball's biggest stage. As a college student I looked up to Duke as a model for what Princeton athletics should strive to become, and today I feel the same way about the comparison between Duke and Stanford basketball.  But at the same time, Duke almost seemed to me like the Yankees of college basketball - always rebuilding and reloading while smaller schools struggled to recruit even the players who sat on the end of the Duke bench.

As I've watched more and more Duke basketball, though, and grown closer to one of their most diehard fans, my jealousy of - and contempt for - the school has slowly worn away.  Now, I find myself listing Duke basketball as one of "My Teams" on my ESPN Android app, watching their games on TV and checking their postgame box scores online.  For better or worse, I am now - at least on a minor level - a real Duke basketball fan.  And while I can't ever imagine a world in which I care about Duke hoops more than I do Princeton or Stanford, at this point in my life I'm mature enough to realize that anything's possible.