He had a square face, a widow’s peak, and a strange surname.
And for a moment, Jack Gohlke had America’s heart.
Gohlke, you see, was a graduate student at Oakland University. But he was also a basketball player – one who specialized in long-range shooting.
And for one night in March, Gohlke couldn’t miss.
Oakland was facing the venerable Kentucky Wildcats – college basketball’s winningest program – in the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Tournament. Kentucky had a name brand, elite athletes, and a high-octane offense. But they didn’t have an answer for Gohlke.
The twentysomething with a square face and widow’s peak connected on 10 three-pointers, leading Oakland to an upset victory. Some pundits quipped that a team full of future NBA (National Basketball Association) pros got beat by a future Regional Manager of Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
A day later, the nation was captivated again. The Yale Bulldogs stunned the Auburn Tigers in another NCAA Tournament matchup.
Auburn didn’t have the basketball bona fides of Kentucky. But NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley once sported their uniform, as did many other pro hoops stars. And the Tigers competed in the same athletic conference as the Wildcats, playing games under the bright lights of massive arenas.
They were no slouch. But just like Kentucky, their championship dreams were over in a flash. The surprise result only adding to the lore of the sporting event nicknamed March Madness.
Following the game, the Auburn coach lauded Yale’s team. He then harkened back to his early coaching days, when he led the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers to Tournament victories over vaunted opponents.
I know what it’s like to be them, he exclaimed.
From my sofa, I chortled.
No, you don’t, I exclaimed out loud. None of us do.
College degree required.
These three words have long been hallmarks of job postings. And while that’s changed a bit in recent years, a degree can still hold plenty of sway.
I know this as well as anyone. I have two diplomas hanging on my wall — one for a bachelor’s degree, another for a master’s degree. I’ve seen the impact each has had on my career, and my life.
And yet, there’s an unspoken truth surrounding those framed pieces of embossed paper. The institutional name printed on the top matters more than my name printed in the middle.
Sure, the schools I attended do carry some cachet. Their names enhance discussions I have while networking or applying for jobs.
But other universities have bigger names. Names that can start these conversations on their own. Or even render them moot, entirely.
To underling this point, let’s take a closer look at those two schools that authored upset victories in March Madness.
Prior to those basketball games, you’d be excused if you thought Oakland University was in the East Bay of California. Many shared that misconception.
The few who knew where the school was actually located – namely, the suburbs of Detroit – were the ones who were more likely to value the name atop the diploma. Which is to say, the institution didn’t have much sway outside Michigan before Gohlke connected on some three-pointers.
Meanwhile, everyone knew where Yale was located. And even if they couldn’t describe what the city of New Haven, CT looked like, they understood what a Yale degree represented.
Yale, you see, is one of those names atop a diploma that renders a conversation moot. The institution’s reputation alone can opportunities for its alumni. Opportunities many of us can only dream of.
A glance at a list of prominent Yale alumni will feature award-winning authors, business tycoons, accomplished attorneys, political leaders, and much more. Five United States Presidents got a degree there. As I write this, one third of the U.S. Supreme Court and nearly a tenth of the U.S. Senate are former Yale scholars.
The one area where the prominent alumni list is slightly shorter is in athletics – particularly in football and college basketball. There are many reasons for that – including a paltry athletics budget and an institutional ban on athletic scholarships. But it leads to a scenario where Yale’s basketball team are the little guys, fighting off vaunted opponents like Auburn on the big stage.
The absurdity of all this is palpable. The gap between Yale University and Oakland University is as wide as the 2,200 miles between the cities where they shocked their vaunted opponents on the hardwood.
Yet, for a few days at the start of spring, we conflate them. We shroud ourselves in the underdog spirit. And we forget which direction up is.
Many years ago, some floormates and I held court in a cramped dorm room.
We were new to college and new to being neighbors. And we were going through the getting-to-know-you routine.
At some point, the conversation turned to what other schools we had applied to. Where else might we have been, if circumstances were different?
One of my floormates exclaimed that he’d been accepted to Auburn University. But he cautioned that you only need to be able to sign your name to get in there.
It was a joke, I thought. But I wasn’t completely sure.
After all, I had applied to a university with a somewhat similar arrangement. Maintain a certain high school Grade Point Average or get a certain score on a standardized test — and you’re in automatically.
I cleared both bars with ease. Only to spurn that institution for the one I now sat in.
To this day, I have no idea if the admissions qualifications for Auburn University were ever as simple as signing one’s name on a piece of paper. But the truth only matters so much.
Indeed, this perception of Auburn University as a cupcake school is what’s so damning. It limits the horizons of those who graduate from that institution.
Their four years might have been spent doing far more than drinking beer and tossing rolls of toilet paper into oak trees. They might have spent much of that time in the library or the research lab, molding themselves into young professionals.
But to attain the future they were striving for, they’d need to fight uphill. Auburn’s reputation – unfair as it might be – was sure to cast a long shadow over these graduates. A shadow that didn’t exist at – say, Yale.
This is why I was so troubled by the dueling underdog stories of the Oakland University and Yale University basketball teams. It wasn’t just that Yale held a level of prestige that Oakland never would attain. It was also that this narrative took away the one thing that institutions between the two on the prestige scale could claim.
If getting a job on Wall Street or Capitol Hill was so much tougher for an Auburn alum or a Kentucky alum than a Yale alum, couldn’t they enjoy athletic glory? Or at least not get mocked as the toppled giant when they fall short?
Was that too much? Apparently so.
Make no mistake. Yale University is no David with a slingshot. It’s Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
It is inevitable. And it’s time we recognize it as such.
Back in that cramped dorm room, I recounted my own would have journey.
Yes, I qualified for that one school by meeting two of its standards. And I had clearly gotten accepted to the university I now attended.
But I’d applied to plenty of others. All with nationally recognized sports programs. And all with campuses on our nation’s southern tier.
I was entering college as a student, not a student-athlete. But I still wanted to attend an institution with a host of school spirit. And somewhere without snow.
In March Madness terms, I was aiming more for an Auburn than a Yale. (In reality, I applied to neither of those schools.)
It was only later that I learned the cost of this choice. It was only later that I understood the value of prestige. And how the collegiate culture I sought would leave it out of reach.
It was a bitter pill to swallow. But that experience helped me grow into the man I am today.
I don’t rely on prestige to open doors in my life. That option is off-limits to me.
I must work four times as hard as those twice as fortunate. I must be magnitudes better just to get my shot at achievement.
I’ve made my peace with this arrangement. For it reflects the way the world is organized. And that setup is beyond my control.
So, let’s not feign ignorance.
Yes, we can celebrate when a square-faced sharpshooter outshines a gaggle of future NBA pros. Yes, we can bask in the glory when the alma mater of presidents earns a rare NCAA Tournament victory.
But that’s no excuse for getting carried away.
We must stop acting as if power dynamics have shifted on the wings of two nights in March. We mustn’t pontificate about prestige flowing in new directions.
That hasn’t happened. And if past is pretense, it won’t happen.
It’s high time we govern ourselves accordingly.