DJ Burns might just save America
We need a new national myth, and North Carolina State’s rumblin’, bumblin’ big man is spinning and scoring his way into the national consciousness
I was struck by a recurring theme from interviews conducted during Thanksgiving-related events last year.
Whether it was commentators and participants involved with the Macy’s Parade, or (then)-Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll speaking ahead of the late-night NFL game, the message was simple, and heartening, one.
This was a day to spend with family, focusing upon the ties that bind us together. Reflecting upon what we have to be grateful for.
This often feels like a false oasis, quickly scuppered once the sojourn ends and real life picks up where it left off. We fall back into routine, the drumbeats of division resounding from every media corner as we slump over our phones on the way to, from, or even during, work. Never forget: polarization is profitable!
A side note: one of the questions I’ve always wanted to ask would be to Jonathan and Christopher Nolan (although maybe more so Jonathan because he was the one tasked with crafting the character) about how much Michel Haneke’s 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, in which a heinous, unprovoked act of violence is prefaced by a steady stream of nightly news commentary focusing upon terrifying events unfolding around the world, informed the character of the Joker. Particularly that “part of the plan” speech he gives at Harvey Dent’s bedside. The conditioning we receive on a daily basis. Certainly raises the question about what we’re told to freak out over, too.
Everything is immediately filtered into the ever-widening cultural divide. Shakira’s thoughts about the Barbie movie? Conservatives pounce. I still feel there’s a sizable portion of the population that aligns, like I do, with the ethos embodied in The Kills’ song “Wasterpiece” off their album God Games, released last year.
That high on life shit
That doin’ alright shit
I’m on fire shit
But I don’t buy it
I don’t buy it
It’s choose a side, kid
It’s do or die, kidBut it’s not our time
It’s not our time
It’s not our time
It’s not our time
It’s not our time
In an age when nothing is allowed to simply exist, without being hoovered up into the culture-war chest of the two political camps, I keep looking for things that can be qualified as an absolute good. That cannot help but bring people together, that rise above politics, which can’t help but keep trying to infect itself into each and every thing we do.
And I think I’ve found it. Because what is more American than a kid who helps his team knock Duke out of the NCAA tournament. Lol.
Not to pile on the Blue Devils, but I always find it hard to feel sorry for that program. Whether it’s the sweeping, bucolic campus grounds, plus-sized tuition, or maybe more than anything (former coach) Mike Krzyzewski embarking upon that much-publicized farewell tour ahead of his retirement after the 2021–22 season (for a fun contrast, Villanova’s Jay Wright simply announced, out of the blue, that he was retiring once that season was done,) Duke has never lacked for coverage in the national conversation.
The antidote is found in the person of North Carolina State big man DJ Burns, who’s quickly become the face of the 11th-seeded Wolfpack’s captivating run through the NCAA tournament to the Final Four. They certainly face a…tall task this Saturday, when they face the daunting Purdue Boilermakers, led by the 7-foot-4 Zach Edey.
After dropping seven of nine games to end the regular season, the Wolfpack ripped off five wins to nab the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament title and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
“Like guarding a tank…” Jay Bilas (I think) mused, watching the 6–foot-9, 275-pound Burns during one of those games. (Burns was named the Player of the Tournament.) Beginning the team-of-destiny narrative, Burns hit his first—and to date only—three-pointer of the season in the championship against North Carolina.
Following in the recent trend of 11 seeds making hay come tourney time, NC State has claimed three upsets (a second-round overtime win over 14-seed Oakland the outlier in their victory quartet), including takedowns of heavily-favored 2-seed Marquette and fourth-seeded Duke in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8, respectively.
Burns has been a revelation. The highlights against Duke morph into something out of science fiction, Burns spinning with pinpoint precision around Blue Devils defenders, or fishing bullet passes out of the air with that oven mitt of a left hand.
Little wonder talk of him making an Antonio Gates-style leap to the NFL quickly surfaced after the Duke win. Fancy footwork in a big guy doesn’t go unnoticed. It was all part of a 29-point performance for Burns (on 13-of-19 shooting) punctuated with four rebounds, three assists, two blocks and zero turnovers.
He’s hardly a nobody suddenly springing to the fore (Burns was a highly-rated recruit), but going up against Duke brings out of the underdog in all of us. So why not root for him, and his team?
For a guy who’s averaged 20.8 minutes per game over a career that’s spanned five seasons (after leaving Tennessee, his first stop, without featuring for the Vols, there were three at Winthrop—Burns was the Big South freshman of the year and Player of the Year there—and now two at NC State), his production rate is staggering.
But that’s not what separates NC State, and Burns in particular, and makes them the type of story that can unite a debilitatingly fractured country. Compared with some of the other ways we’re told to circle the national wagons, a basketball team seems a far more wholesome option.
Forty-one years after Jim Valvano led the Wolfpack to their last NCAA championship, they’re this season’s gatecrashers of the most popular party in sports. The NCAA tournament is perhaps unmatched in its ability to captivate the collective conscious. Three weeks in which you can remember the best things in life.
And in a world in which the haves are increasingly hitting the accelerator to get away from the have-nots, it’s a reassuring reminder that the hoi polloi could always make the decision to band together, rather than draw apart over the neatly, pre-packaged divide. It’s a way we could start building a better world.
But until that day, NC State, and Mr. Burns, will have to do. Go Wolfpack.
