I wish I knew, Emma. Maybe then I'd know a little bit more about myself.

See, I don't like Coach K, either. Never have. I hated his smarmy, dirty-playing Duke teams from the early '90s (to this day I don't understand how Christian Laettner didn't get thrown out of the famous Duke-Kentucky game after he SMASHED HIS FOOT ON A PROSTRATE OPPONENT'S CHEST). I openly despised one Blue Devil after another over the years, including Cherokee Parks, J.J. Redick, and of course Laettner, the canker sore of the 1992 Dream Team. As for Coach K himself, I found one reason after another to hate him, from his trademark smirk to his obtuse American Express commercials to his obnoxiously un-spellable name.

But objectively, what's not to like about the guy? He's presided over the most successful program in men's college basketball history this side of John Wooden's UCLA teams. He held out longer than any active coach against the tsunami of underclassmen leaving early for the NBA (I still remember being shocked that Luol Deng would dare to leave Duke after his freshman year), and even now most of his stars stay all four years. And from a distance he seems like a personable guy who's a good ambassador for the Duke community and so far had coached for 31 years without a major scandal.

So why do I, Emma, and so many others dislike Coach K in spite of his seemingly spotless resume? Could be the aura he and the Dukies emit, a country-club, we're-better-than-you vibe that isn't helped by the fact that unlike the other big-time hoops programs, the players are predominantly white? Coach K's attitude is even worse than that—with every smirk it looks like he's saying, "We're better than you, we know it, and you know it, but we're going to be magnanimous about it." Or if implied condescension isn't the answer, it could be that no one likes rooting for the CEO of March Madness's U.S. Steel, or even that Coach K looks like the middle-management twerp in your office that everyone hates.

But that's all conjecture. All I know is I dislike him—I don't really get why. Any insights, Hampton?

–Jake