I heart Haterade

Class of Dimes,

Wow. I sure am amped to meet you all. You're smart as heck. And you're cute, too--as yet unscathed by the Freshman 15, sleep deprivation and professorial assertions that you're a freakin' failure.

Enjoy it while you can.

Yep, can't wait to meetcha--but for approximately none of those reasons.

Truth be told, it's scientific inquiry that's propelling my curiosity. I want to see what makes you tick. Because congratulations: You are the most blindly trusting human beings in the world. Somehow, some way, you didn't let CNN Headline News thwart your plans to don Duke blue--and I, for one, am impressed.

What I want to know is, what exactly do you have to hedge your bets on? A rave review in a magazine? Your parents' attendance and assurance that Duke is swell--at least it was, 30 years ago?

Aside from viewing the horticultural triumph that is Blue Devil Days--aside from spending a well-oiled night on the dank carpeting of somebody's dorm room floor--you probably have no idea what you're getting yourself into.

How do you know it's not as bad as Rolling Stone or Newsweek says? Believe them, and you know you're about to shell out the big bucks to attend classes with a bunch of ho-bags, racists and felonious strangulators.

That's right, drag out that vowel. Act like you're not really sure. Like it could be, you know, DeVry. One of those D schools.

Why the embarrassment? Because. One, Duke is a good school. Saying you go here is like saying, "I read Nietzschean aphorisms--for fun."

Two, Duke is an expensive school. Saying you go here is like saying, "I'm rolling in it, buddy."

And three, the world now thinks Duke is a badass school--the school that, in a ballroom full of her white-gloved Ivy League peers, has a hip flask of gin stashed in her garter and a gram in her purse. So saying you're a Dukie is like calling for another round, and then going home with the bartender.

Being despised is nothing new for us. My freshman year I went to every game in the ACC men's basketball tournament in Washington, D.C., from whence I hail. I sat with my old man in the Georgia Tech alumni section (he's a Yellow Jacket). Whooping for Duke, I had great success in pissing off my gold-sweatered boxmates.

And then came the final. Georgia Tech v. Duke.

"Mmmkay, lovebug," my dad said to me on the threshold of the box, the day of the final. This was it: our last 30 seconds of father-daughter civility, Our Moment, before we'd become archenemies.

He reached into his pocket to hand me my ticket.

I looked down at what he'd given me. It was not, as I'd seen every day before, a laminated pass to luxe fanhood--to cheering from the comfort of a plush chair. It was instead a pair of scalped, palm-sweat-wilted tickets to the ground arena.

"Sorry, honey," he said, looking guilty but firm. "But you just can't sit with us."

Betrayed, my roommate (who'd accompanied me) and I went down into the Colosseum-like depths of the MCI Center. Two young gladiatorial envoys, ripe for slaughtering at the hands of 20,000 Duke haters.

A few hours later, ragged and bloody, sustaining severe wounds we stood court-side, clinging to the remaining shreds of our togas. We were mercifully alive, swaying to our alma mater blaring over the sound system. Sweet victory.

So what if we're hated, and for ill-founded reasons? So you're smart. So some of your classmates think $40k per annum is no sweat. Others are on massive financial aid. Most people are just somewhere in the nebulous middle.

And so what if good judgment isn't equally allocated to everyone at age 18? For every bacchanalian reveler, there's a proselyte to the Order of Bostock-and plenty in the middle strata.

But you had faith in us, young grasshoppers, and you will reap the benefits.

Not just in the form of four beautiful letters that will top your diploma. Not just in the form of basketball, or good people, traditions, landscaping or barbecue.

If nothing else, you're getting a collegiate life lesson before you even set foot on campus: Universal acceptance and admiration are elusive, for the most shallow and baseless of reasons. And to be loved or hated as a group has little bearing on your individual satisfaction. That you're gonna have to cultivate for yourself.

Aww.

The Duke name will rebound, give it time. Until then, smile. 'Cause you picked the right one, baby.

Sarah Ball is a Trinity junior and features editor for The Chronicle.