By C. Schwetty Jacques
Sports Reporter
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- A team of cultural anthropologists here reported that Duke University graduates arrived at work this morning 80 percent less cocky than usual following Friday's NCAA tournament loss to unranked Virginia Commonwealth University.
"We observed Duke grads shuffling into work with their heads down, striding quickly past colleagues while turning their coat collars up, and otherwise doing everything they could to avoid attracting attention to themselves, said Dr. Irving Woo, team leader for Project Jerk Watch. "Remarkably, in some instances we discovered Duke graduates actually being polite to their non-Duke-graduate co-workers this morning," Dr. Woo said. "And I mean genuinely polite, not the sarcasm-tinged fake politeness they typically exhibit."
Dr. Woo said his team was surprised to measure the 80 percent reduction in Duke graduate cockiness.
"We always thought that the Duke swagger was predominantly associated with academics, but that appears not to be the case," Dr. Woo said. "If you think about it, without the basketball program, how many Americans would have even heard of Duke University? Our data show that Duke graduates' natural arrogance is multiplied by the ability to brag to co-workers about basketball, which opens the door to their bragging about what a great school they went to, but which they also feel is the only subject their intellectual inferiors can comprehend."
However, Dr. Woo added, many Duke graduates are smart enough to realize that their colleagues are, by virtue of working similar jobs at similar pay and similar social standing, are in fact their social equals and couldn't care less where they went to school. "So bragging about the success of Duke's basketball team becomes their only means of asserting social dominance."
Despite the 80 percent drop in cockiness, Duke graduates still measured at the top of the Cockiness Scale, Dr. Woo said. "Even at 20 percent cockiness, they're still a bunch of arrogant pricks," Dr. Woo said. "They register fourth behind Harvard graduates, poetry professors and elected Democrats."
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