Duke Lacrosse Team Had a Reputation for Swagger

DURHAM N.C.

      There is a saying at Duke University that there is only one real fraternity on campus: LAX, shorthand for lacrosse.

      Long before the university was rocked by allegations that lacrosse players raped and choked a stripper during an off-campus party March 14, Duke’s highly ranked team had a reputation for swagger and a powerful sense of entitlement.

      Now administrators are starting to wonder whether they put up with it for too long.

      “Taken as a group, is there a special history of bad behavior with this team?” Duke President Richard H. Brodhead asked Wednesday in announcing the resignation of the team’s head coach, the cancellation of the rest of the season and the opening of an internal investigation.

      Even before the scandal, the nearly all-White team had come to personify an arrogant elite on this privileged campus. Nearly a third of the team’s 47 members have been charged in recent years with offenses such as disorderly conduct and public urination.

      Neighbors have described the leased single-story home where the alleged attack took place as a kind of “Animal House.” A rusted tin shed out back is spray-painted with players’ nicknames and jersey numbers, and a primitive painting of a lacrosse player adorns the roof.

      Dr. Peter Wood, a Duke professor of American Indian history who was captain of the Harvard and Oxford University lacrosse teams, says he complained two years ago about coach Mike Pressler’s decision to order practice on a weekday morning that conflicted with his class. He also has had problems with team members signing in, then ducking out of class.

      “Certainly in recent years I’ve been troubled too often by encounters with the men’s lacrosse team,” he says, adding that he “sensed very clearly their tightness as a group.”