Some thoughts on Brian Wilson and Chris Pollard

Duke baseball at crossroads?

Surf’s Up.

Rest in peace, Brian Wilson.

I’m going off the rails for just a bit here.

I was 13 when The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Rocked my world, in several senses of the term. That transistor radio that I used mostly to listen to sports suddenly found itself tuned to music stations a lot more. AM of course.

I’ve never surfed and I was never into hot rods. But the Beach Boys were as much a part of my world as any of the British bands, as much as Dylan or Motown.

Wilson was the center of that. There was always more to him than stuff that attracted the casual fan. Listen to “In My Room” or “Surfer Girl” and it’s clear that he had a pretty complicated internal life.

When I heard of his death I put on Pet Sounds for the first time in too long and yes it brought back memories, took me back to my high-school years. But it still holds up almost six decades later as a rock masterpiece, perhaps equaled but never bettered in my opinion.

Brian Wilson didn’t tour with his group for very long for reasons long made public. I did see the group at Wallace Wade for Joe College back in 1971, around the time that Carl Wilson was showing his chops and before Mike Love had turned the group into a tribute band. Good times.

I did get to see Brian in Raleigh a few years ago as a solo artist. He was in good spirit and good form. For awhile. The years had not been good to him. Late in the concert he was singing “Caroline, No,” for my money the most achingly beautiful song in the rock canon. He got about half way through, got up and walked off stage, as the band finished up. Not sure what happened. Maybe his voice gave out, maybe his body gave out, maybe he forgot the words.

Rest in peace indeed. He’s earned it.

Speaking of tortured arists, Sylvester Stewart, AKA Sly Stewart passed a few days before Wilson. He wasn’t the same level of transformative figure, at least in my world. But for a few years Sly and the Family Stone were a multi-racial, mixed-gender group who sang about love, peace and harmony and pulled it off, in large part due to the sheer talent of Stewart and his band.

It didn’t last long. Some of it was the world changed, some of it was Stewart’s reliance on hard drugs. He somehow survived it but never regained the magic.

Rest in peace also earned the hard way.

Back to our regular programming.

It’s hard to fully grasp what happened to Duke baseball in a matter of days, a College World Series berth hanging in reach like low-hanging fruit, to a program with no coaches and at least temporarily not many players.

Clearly Chris Pollard and the University of Virginia didn’t suddenly start talking to each other at 4 A.M the day after Duke’s season ended. I had heard that the Cavaliers had prioritized Pollard to replace Brian O’Connor but Pollard had been linked to other vacancies over the years and nothing came of it.

Keep in mind that Duke hired Manny Diaz when Penn State was preparing for a bowl game and just hired Clemson basketball’s strength-and-conditioning coach.

That’s the world we live in. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. But the universe stopped caring about what I think back in - - - wait, the universe never care what I think.

What changed for Pollard? What combination of transfer portal, NIL, agents, the House Settlement and resource allocation made this time different?

The people that know the answer to that question aren’t talking. But Virginia is a larger, state-supported school and baseball has a much bigger role in the school’s sport’s ecosystem than baseball does at Duke. While Duke has been trying to kick in the door to get to Omaha, Virginia has been to the College World Series seven times beginning in 2009, winning it all in 2014.

I’m going to go with Occam’s Razor here and guess that Pollard simply felt that Virginia gave him a better chance to win it all. Or at least get close.

How far back does this push back a program that just days ago seemed poised to achieve heights not seen in over six decades?

Decisions have to be made. Duke needs to thread a pretty tight needle between getting it right and getting it done quickly. The portal is open for business. Maybe the right hire can claw back some of those portal entries. If not, will enough talent be left in the portal for Duke to be even marginally competitive next season? Can Duke hire someone still coaching, e.g. LSU’s Josh Jordan, and ask them to do double-duty? Or pull a Jai Lucas and leave their team at a critical part of the season?

Competent CEOs have a digital Rolodex to replace key losses and Nina King is more than competent. Brad Berndt is likely to do a lot of the heavy lifting, as he did when Pollard was hired.

That seems like a lifetime ago.

Longer-term decisions also will have to be made. Pollard proved that Duke can win in baseball. The Coombs Field renovations are half done. I assume Duke will continue. But Pollard railed against the old 11.7 scholarship model. That’s been blown up. But maybe it makes sense for Duke to use that House money on football, which leaves how much for baseball scholarships? Is there potential for a robust baseball-centric NIL program?

Or does Duke go back to the better Steve Traylor or Sean McNally teams, competitive but not really threats to go deep into the post-season? Or even worse?

We’ll find out the answers to those questions, some sooner rather than later. Hang on. It could be a bumpy ride.