Support was absent, coach says

DURHAM -- Mike Krzyzewski, the face of Duke athletics, was virtually silent last spring as the lacrosse case put the school and its athletic teams under scrutiny.

Now, a year after an escort service dancer alleged being gang-raped at a lacrosse team party, the men's basketball coach says the university should have shown more support for the players.

"The one thing that I wish we would have done is just out, publicly say, 'Look, those are our kids. And we're gonna support 'em, because they're still our kids.' That's what I wish we would have done," Krzyzewski told Bob Costas, a sports commentator who has a television show on HBO. "And I'm not sure that we did -- I don't think we did a good job of that."

For months, bloggers and others have criticized Duke, accusing the university of not standing behind the players as the judicial process unfolded.

Since the spring, defense lawyers have poked gaping holes in the prosecution's case against three former lacrosse players -- David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann. District Attorney Mike Nifong, the prosecutor who led the investigation, has resigned from the case and is in a battle to save his law license.

One segment of "Costas Now," an hour-long sports program that airs tonight at 10, will be a one-on-one interview with Krzyzewski, according to Kris Goddard with HBO Sports media relations. According to excerpts from the transcript, Krzyzewski criticizes Duke professors for their criticisms of big-time sports at the university.

"We had almost 100 professors come out publicly against certain things in athletics," Krzyzewski told Costas, "and I was a little bit shocked at that. But it shows that there's a latent hostility or whatever you want to say towards sports on campus. I thought it was inappropriate, to be quite frank with you."

Krzyzewski voiced similar feelings in June during his first extensive public comments about the impact of the case. He called those who used the occasion to attack athletics "very narrow-minded."

"I don't think there's a latent hostility," said Paula McClain, a political science professor who has questioned the role of big-time sports programs at top-tier research universities. "The questions about athletics are not just related to Duke. I'm sorry Coach K really feels like it's hostility toward athletics and such, because most faculty really appreciate Duke athletics."

The 'Group of 88'

Dozens of Duke professors have been targets of outrage for the past year for signing an advertisement that ran in the student newspaper shortly after the gang-rape allegations. Critics accuse the 88 professors who signed the ad of being too quick to condemn the players. The professors, or Group of 88 as bloggers have nicknamed them, brush aside the criticism, saying they were speaking out about issues of race, sexual violence and social elitism that plague the campus culture, not taking a stand on the guilt or innocence of the players.

President Richard Brodhead has been under fire, too, for not standing up for the players more. In December, as defense lawyers continued their assault on Nifong's case, Brodhead began to publicly criticize the prosecutor.

Krzyzewski, who also bears the title of special assistant to the Duke president, told Costas he did not speak out last spring because Brodhead did not ask him to do so.

"I met with my college president. I told Dick Brodhead, 'If you need me ... you tell me, and then put me in a position where I'm not the basketball coach. But I am that special assistant to you,' " Krzyzewski said. "Dick Brodhead did not bring me in."

(Staff writer Luciana Chavez contributed to this report.)