On any ordinary Monday morning in 1992, then-North Carolina Senator and former President of Duke University Terry Sanford began his week attending to the public’s business. However, this particular Monday in March happened to be the day after Selection Sunday and, like so many of us, Senator Sanford contemplated his blank NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament bracket at the expense of perhaps more pressing work.
Among the hundreds of linear feet of Terry Sanford’s records and papers held in the RBMSCL (his senatorial papers) and University Archives (records from his Duke presidency) is his 1992 NCAA Tournament bracket. Although he couldn’t have foreseen Christian Laettner’s last second turnaround jumper against Kentucky and Duke’s trouncing of Michigan’s “Fab-5” in the tournament final, the man that the Duke Student body fondly referred to as “Uncle Terry” chose Duke to repeat as NCAA champions. Will they do it again in 2011?
Post contributed by Josh Larkin-Rowley, Research Services Assistant.
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How intelligent and historical for the staff of Archives to display President Sanford’s completed brackets in 1992. Hope it is a precursor for a repeat in 2011. Please dig out more “diamonds in the rough” archives and letters from the vault to post for the Duke community. Good Job! Layne Baker