Catchy lines tackle Duke

Odd that Sam Cassell, an aging member of the Boston Celtics, won an NBA title the same week Duke football took another, somewhat undeserved hit in public perception.

What we choose to believe, or hear, and what actually happened can be subtlely different things, as a comment from Cassell, the former Florida State guard, aptly illustrated following his team’s first ACC basketball game.

FSU, an expansion addition for football purposes, debuted at the Smith Center on December 15, 1991 against a North Carolina squad coming off a Final Four season. Cassell scored 16 of his team’s first 23 points, and the Metro Conference escapees registered a stunning 86-74 victory over the defending ACC champs. Afterward, crowing happily in the locker room, the loquacious junior college transfer aptly dismissed the somnolent Dean Dome assemblage as a “cheese-and-wine crowd.”

The comment struck home in part because it inverted an oft-repeated cliché. Yet, despite taped evidence to the contrary, media members and others persisted in quoting Cassell in terms with which they were familiar. Thus, he is remembered for characterizing Tar Heel fans as a “wine-and-cheese crowd.”

Arguably this is a distinction without a difference, but it is neither as charming nor striking as what Cassell actually said.

So it was that, when Duke won a civil case last week in Circuit Court in Franklin County, Kentucky, the story emerged with a spin not quite in keeping with the facts.

Judge Phillip J. Shepherd dismissed a lawsuit by Louisville, which asked for at least $450,000 in damages for three football games that were canceled by Duke. The teams played one of the four contracted contests, a 40-3 home loss by the Blue Devils in 2002.

The suit was filed last fall and argued early this year, ironically around the time Louisville hired Ted Roof, the recently fired Duke head coach, to work with its linebackers as a defensive assistant. (Roof has since moved to the University of Minnesota, where he is defensive coordinator.)

Shepherd’s ruling, first reported by the Louisville Courier-Journal, was notable for two sentences. “At oral argument,” Shepherd wrote in his opinion, “Duke (with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty) persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower. Duke’s argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville.”

The point was embraced with glee by the Courier-Journal under a headline: “Judge agrees: Duke football as bad as it gets.” Variations on the theme reverberated throughout the media.

Just one problem. The Lexington, Ky.-based civil litigator who represented Duke said those sentences from an opinion that ran “eight or nine pages” did not summarize her argument.

“That was not the central theme at all,” Barbara Edelman said. “I think the contract suggested the strategy. It was pretty simple. If they found a replacement game, Duke wouldn’t have to pay.”

Edelman argued that, in scheduling games with Utah and Memphis, Louisville had successfully replaced its three lost meetings with Duke. She said the contract did not stipulate that Duke was obligated to find an ACC replacement, as Louisville sought, or even a BCS opponent. All it needed was a similar payday against a program comparable to Duke.

“There wasn’t anything all that creative or clever or tricky,” Edelman said. “I think the University of Louisville was looking to get more out of (the contract), to get a double payment for the game that was scheduled and the game that was canceled.”

Unfortunately for Duke, that’s not what will be remembered, despite Edelman’s explanation. The story is too juicy the way it was first written, and does have a ring of truth.

After all, for most of the past 40-plus years, Duke football has been at best a likable loser, an athletic afterthought. The Blue Devils managed no more than four victories in any season since 1995, including four winless records. Roof was 6-45. The words “Duke football” became synonymous with futility, as seemingly contradictory as comedian George Carlin found word pairs like “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence.”

The recent hire of David Cutcliffe to replace Roof generated a nice positive buzz, kindling hopes the program will revive immediately. But before that could be tested on the field, Duke took this latest hit en route to courtroom victory.

The travails of Duke football are a bit remote to Edelman, who lives at the heart of University of Kentucky territory. Her husband, Ray Edelman, played basketball for the Wildcats from 1972 through 1974.

UK fans tend to have little use for Louisville. Edelman’s feelings about the other litigant in the case are perhaps best summarized by how quickly she recalled a crushing overtime loss by UK in the 1992 NCAA regional finals. “I was there when (Christian) Laettner made the shot,” she said, as if that explained everything.