The Chapel bells toll. A new order is being ushered in at Duke University. The days of President Dick Brodhead are over. Brodhead, having failed to determine an heir, passes the baton to his disciple and trusted advisor, Tallman Trask III. The newly-formed Trask Administration has assumed control, and the days of relative peace have subsided. President Trask promises a new era, one of law, order, stability and monumental construction projects. But his schemes are destined to fail.
Having disparaged all the actions of his predecessor, Trask orders the re-renovation of the Chapel and West Union, a ten-fold expansion of Duke Student Government’s dildo budget and the erection of a 400 ft. tall statue of himself resting his hand on the Chapel’s spire. To accomplish this and maintain order, he quadruples the size of DUPD and arms all the RAs with the finest weaponry left in the Durham Armory. Instead of seeking donations through a sensible GoFundMe, Trask cuts all financial aid, sends students he can’t afford to keep to Kunshan, destroys all air conditioning units on campus and forces the school to use half-ply toilet paper.
In his madness, President Trask takes his new Carolina-Blue Ferrari—courtesy of misplaced SOFC funding—out for a spin and, taking up two spots, parks it in one of seven new parking lots designed for commuters, alumni and Trask himself.
The university is at the precipice of revolt. Fearing that the immense student unrest will reduce cool alumni shoutouts, President Trask calls for a council in Page Auditorium to re-explain the school’s unwavering policies.
That fateful day, there is no room in Page Auditorium. It boils with enraged students of all stripes, voicing their anger and demanding the end of Trask’s policies.
As President Trask, who, in an attempt to relate to the kids these days, insists to go by a rapper name, “Double-T 3,” begins his speech, the most rebellious of the lot verbally accost him, demanding the administrator’s beheading. Instead of listening or asking for a compromise, Trask demands that the students be fortunate to be attending such a selective and prestigious institution. He shouts, “A top-five dining rating from ‘The Daily Meal’ is something you should all be grateful for.”
Trask, in a blind fit similar to that which led to the mowing down of a parking attendant years ago, announces that due to the students’ impetuousness, he would move swiftly to finish off his most evil plot yet: the glass-box campus. Dozen of egregiously large and expensive glass boxes would soon be constructed all across campus, causing once scenic landscapes to look more tacky than ever before. This ignites the violent frenzy. The students rush the stage in a seditious and final attempt to remove the mad(Tall)man once and for all.
Trask, terrified by the impeding wall of students, flees the scene in his Ferrari, straying from his getaway route to make sure to run over anything and everything in sight. The graduate students, in their newly-formed union, stand in solidarity and halt the sports car’s rampage. Surrounded by an angry mob of righteous indignation, Trask throws that puppy into reverse, through a wall of scrawny freshman to escape...right into the quarry. Screaming all the way down, Trask peeks out of his window to proclaim his last words, “MY PARKING PASS LETS ME PARK ANYWHERE.”
The task of picking a new ruler of Duke University falls to the Board of Trustees. The Board, unequipped to do anything but throw money at stuff, and hoping to flee campus while there is still time, adjourns until 2025.
Without any form of central authority, the university begins to tumble into utter anarchy and chaos. Winter has finally come to Duke University. A snow day cancels class for weeks, opening up opportunities for theft, arson and looting, and no space is safe.
Duke administrators and faculty flee in droves from the Duke bubble to a place where no Duke student would ever venture: greater Durham. In the end, only the good Larry Moneta remains, having fortified himself in the Bryan Center. After running out of provisions, due to the lack of a convenient Au Bon Pain, he sends out what he says is his final email to the student body, with one more plea for solidarity and for mercy. When no mercy comes, he sends out one more email, for good measure, suspending classes indefinitely. The school officially belongs to the students...and to Coach K, who remains the old god and the new to the student body, and who is likely currently sipping mimosas in Miami.
This is the tumultuous state of affairs that Dear Old Duke faces after the Fall of Trask, and a tale rife with tragedy, drama, sketch comedy and failed social climbs ensues. This epic, to be told over several installments, is A Song of Natty Ice and Fireball.
The Pledgemaesters insist that this specific lore is of far greater importance than that of the kingdom of Morgan-Stanley, and their Game of Loans.
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