<p>placido, Michigan suffers the same as Duke. Universities with excellent academics and strong athletics attract much attention, both positive and negative. I guess our proud and roudy alums can be annerving at times! But I suspect the reason why Duke is not popular on CC is because the vast majority of its alums in these forums are trash. Only a couple of its alums show class. Guys like LesDiablesBleus far outnumber guys Warblersrule.</p>
<p>By the way, Duke’s ascention is not that unusual. Many excellent universities have come as far in a similar period of time. Stanford, Chicago, Caltech were all founded around 1900. The fact of the matter is, even the traditional powerhouses (universities like Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Penn etc…) were relatively small and very primitive until the WWI period. Only in the 1920s did universities really start to develop and grow. As such, it was not so difficult for newer participants to become relevant in a matter of years. Today, universities are much larger and take decades to improve, but back then, it could be done in a matter of 5-10 years.</p>