Duke basketball coach wants more NC spending for education

Even with his well-know accomplishments, this space is usually short on compliments for the basketball coach at Duke University. When all is said and done with today’s post, there are some readers who will disagree with the praise heaped for what the coach did Tuesday at the North Carolina General Assembly. They need to reconsider their objections.

The Duke coach was in Raleigh to be praised by elected representatives from across North Carolina for his team winning the 2015 NCAA National Title this spring. Isn’t it great when elected officials suck up to overpaid college basketball coaches? Puts them all in their place, doesn’t it. Elected officials are fine people; well, some of them are. It’s good when bill-making is halted to hail college basketball. That means the citizens of North Carolina are a little safer for a few moments.

Tuesday, the Duke basketball coach spoke to a joint session of the North Carolina legislature. It wasn’t a session where the legislators got together with joints even though they would do a service to our citizens if they would legalize the use of the stuff that usually goes into joints. This was a session where the members of the House of Representatives crowded into the Senate chamber where the Duke coach lectured the esteem combined body.

“We need to be the leader in education,” he said with his normally whiney voice. It was at that moment everyone there knew who was talking. “Please, please, always have an open heart and an open mind and never put a ceiling on what is most important, and that is educating our youngsters.”

For a man who is keen on hiring high school graduates for one year of college before encouraging them to drop out of school to get a job, he did an admirable thing Tuesday. Like him or not, he sent a strong verbal message to those who control educational spending in North Carolina. We all should be thankful for his wanting to increase spending on education.

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Dictionary.com word of the day

schism (noun) [siz-uh m; skiz-uh m] division or disunion, especially into mutually opposed parties