Hey, the Cornell game was good

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - What is there to say about Monday's lacrosse game? It's Tuesday evening as I write this, and the loss is still too painful to delve into. Let's talk about the Cornell game instead. If I live to be a thousand, I doubt I'll ever be more gratified by a sporting event.

I caught Saturday's semifinal with a dozen alumni and students in the Wild Wing Cafe, a chain sports bar on Asheville's Biltmore Street. We pushed a couple of tables together, ordered an unholy number of Ranchilada wings and made small talk while waiting for the first faceoff. An anesthesiologist with Trinity and Med School degrees showed up decked head-to-toe in Blue Devil gear and brought his high school-aged son. Two grad students from the Nich School came out, despite their limited connection to Duke sports and unfamiliarity with lacrosse. We even reeled in an alumnus from Greenwich, Conn., who was in town scouting a company for his hedge fund. He asked his hotel's concierge where he should watch the game, and by pure coincidence she directed him to the Wild Wing.

ESPN kept delaying the game, so we killed time chatting about the one link we all had in common: Duke. The doctor's son said he is applying early decision here next fall, and it turns out his sister is in my grade. The old-timers retrieved alcohol-soaked memories from the cobwebs: "There was a party on West Campus every night. The Main Quad permanently smelled like Bourbon Street on Sunday morning."

Greer scored with three seconds left in regulation, and our group exploded. Everyone hugged and high-fived; the hedge fund manager gave a cell phone play-by-play to a family member in his clipped Yankee accent. The rest of the bar might have thought we were insane. If they did, we were oblivious. We happily waddled in our love of Duke.

From my perspective, one of the saddest outcomes of this mess is that it has diminished the enthusiasm some people have for our school. Reade Seligmann, for one, has severed his ties with Duke and will transfer to Brown, for reasons that are complex and unclear. Seligmann's statement was diplomatically vague: "I appreciate the support and loyalty of my teammates and coaches at Duke. I know that they will understand why I cannot return to Duke."

I certainly don't criticize his decision, but it saddens me. On a personal (and admittedly selfish) level, after spending hundreds and hundreds of hours covering the case for The Chronicle and learning to respect the lacrosse players, their attorneys and families, I was always hoping for some fairytale resolution to the case. The indicted players would return to Duke as heroes, win the 2007 or 2008 (hope springs eternal) national championship, and the screenwriters of "Hoosiers" and "Rudy" would option their story. The mechanics of this scenario are fuzzy (Pressler and Danowski as co-head coaches? They're both good, I wouldn't want to give up either), but the point is the players would be redeemed, and so would my beloved school.

But aside from the wish-fulfillment level, I really regret for Seligmann's sake that he won't have the lasting relationship with Duke that I will. Brown is an incredible school, but it isn't known for inspiring the sort of semi-sacred alumni bonds that Duke, Notre Dame and few other schools cultivate. It's harder to imagine a dozen Brown alumni coalescing in a mid-sized city 200 miles from campus (say, Schenectady, N.Y.) to watch a lacrosse game. We are tremendously privileged to attend a place that inspires this loyalty. We owe it to ourselves, and to everyone who has ever attended or might ever attend this school, to keep a vigilant eye on Duke, and make sure it remains a worthy object of our affection. Go Blue Devils.

Jared Mueller is a Trinity junior and a former city and state editor and editorial page managing editor of The Chronicle. His column runs every other Thursday during the summer.