An Open Letter To Jon Scheyer

Things are going well. There’s just one thing.

Dear Coach Scheyer:

While it was understandable that you had an impulse to apologize after losing to UNC, it wasn’t necessary.

Losses happen, even to Carolina, and, well, uh...stuff happens sometimes. Your predecessor had some painful losses at Duke. So did you as a player.

But expectations are a drag sometimes and maybe you felt like it was important to do that.

Most Duke fan understand that the transition from Coach K’s program to yours was not a minor thing of a few months. You surely know that better than anyone.

There are those though who do not and who expect everything to stay exactly as it was before you took the job. That is not only impossible; it’s undesirable. You are not supposed to be the caretaker of the Krzyzewski era. We want you to build your own.

And in order to modify the program to fit your vision and strengths, you have to make changes. Some of them may be unpopular or misunderstood at first but people will get it later. Stick to your vision.

People forget that not only is it a young team, it also has a young coach. Most of us understand that. It takes some experience to have some authority.

As we said, we could understand why you thought an apology was required and perhaps it was. But not from you.

As much pride as we all take in the Crazies, they were not at their best for UNC. As much as it hurts to say it some of their behavior was pretty bad. Stuff was thrown at the UNC players at the end, who came over to have words with the Crazies, possibly because some Crazies are on video saying some terrible things to the UNC players before the game. Their behavior after was not great either but when you reframe it a bit it’s easy to understand the reaction.

All we can say is: nip it! Nip it in the bud! Nothing like that should never happen again. It may be time for an avuncular letter or a modern equivalent.

Good luck the rest of the way. Let’s go Duke!