In 1991, when Duke won its first national title, the hotel in Indianapolis was crowded with people we’d never seen. It took about 20 seconds to realize that something fundamental had altered and would never be the same again.
Duke basketball, and later Duke sports in general, went from a small family atmosphere to something big time and more corporate. We stood in the lobby and looked at all these strangers in 1991 and understood that, as much as we might not like it, things could never go back again.
And that was fine. It was a natural tradeoff and we loved the success.