Bill St.Clair, MD, MACR, says one of the most exciting and proudest moments in his life wasn’t earning his medial degree or seeing his first published article on arthritis and rheumatology. Not even close. It was the 1991 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball semifinal. Specifically, the basketball game between Duke University and the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV).
Click here to listen to Dr. St.Clair’s interview.
Dr. St.Clair, a professor of medicine and immunology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., still speaks about the last few seconds of that game as if he were watching it for the first time. UNLV came into the game with a 45-game winning streak and had walloped Duke at the NCAA tournament the previous year. Although UNLV was a huge favorite, Duke won, making it one of the most sensational games in NCAA history.
If you haven’t guessed it by now, Dr. St.Clair is a Dukie—a loyal, passionate and arguably addicted fan of the Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball team. He buys season tickets, has attended hundreds of games (even some out of state) and throws parties to watch championship games on TV or celebrate Duke’s victories. Maybe it’s Duke’s culture that converted him or the game’s fast pace, strategy and the extraordinary skill of the athletes. Either way, the team has no bigger supporter than
Dr. St.Clair, who says Duke basketball has added a dimension to the quality of his life.
Dr. St.Clair in his home office, showing off his Duke memorabilia.
Dr. Bill St.Clair and his wife, Barb, at the 2015 NCAA basketball championship game in Indianapolis.
Loyal & Devoted
Dr. St.Clair grew up in Charleston, W.Va., and graduated from the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown, W.Va., in 1980. He then completed his internship, fellowship and residency at Duke University School of Medicine in 1985 and joined the faculty that same year.
He was introduced to rheumatology during his third year in medical school. “I was rotating through pediatrics and came into contact with a patient, a young boy who had a blood clot in his leg,” he recalls. “It turned out he had lupus. I took the opportunity to write that up as a case report. That got me interested in rheumatology in general.”
During his internship, he spent four weeks in rheumatology and later completed his fellowship in the specialty. After all these years, he says he still enjoys the challenge of treating autoimmune disorders.
But underneath his white coat, you would probably find the letter D on his chest. He routinely talks about Duke’s players with patients and colleagues, in the exam room, in the hallway or by the coffee machine, and at home, with his wife Barbara and two grandchildren, 9-year-old Cole and 7-year-old Brooke.
“It’s always good to talk about something with patients other than what’s wrong with them,” Dr. St.Clair says.
Dr. St.Clair is also creating Duke’s next generation of fans. He explains that Cole has been a Duke fan since he was 18 months old, has attended team practices and taken pictures with many of the team’s players and the head coach, Mike Krzyzewski. Both of his grandchildren also compete in ESPN’s NCAA Tournament Challenge Bracket, in which contestants predict which basketball teams advance and ultimately win the NCAA’s annual end-of-season tournament. He says Cole is in the contest’s 93rd percentile, and Brooke is in the 96th percentile. Translation: Only 7% and 4%, respectively, of contestants across the country are better at predicting winners.
At home, Dr. St.Clair created a Duke shrine of sorts in his office. Posters of Duke basketball players adorn his walls, along with framed newspaper articles about the team winning the NCAA championships. Even autographed basketballs by Duke players over the years are proudly displayed, adding to the overall ambience of the room.
“Being a Duke basketball fan is a pretty big part of our family and culture,” says Dr. St.Clair. “The current program has been excellent for so many years and really just adds to the excitement and quality of the game. It gives us an opportunity to see some of the best college basketball players, some of whom go on to the NBA (National Basketball Association) and have careers in professional basketball.”
‘It’s always good to talk about something with patients other than what’s wrong with them,’ Dr. St.Clair says.
Fandom Lifestyle
Dr. St.Clair and his wife attended Duke’s NCAA championship games in Indianapolis in 1991, 2010 and 2015. They are also, for the first time, considering traveling to Maui for the 2018 Maui Invitational, an early-season event that will feature Duke and seven other Division I NCAA teams.
The couple practices diversity when it comes to sports. They attend home games for Duke’s women’s basketball team, and Dr. St.Clair’s wife—a retired physical therapist who’s also good friends with the team’s coach, Joanne P. McCallie, or Coach P—sometimes travels to the team’s out-of-state games.
Whether they’re attending men’s or women’s basketball games, “We yell, we scream, we clap and end up standing most of the time,” he says. “We shout, ‘Go Duke!’ But I can’t repeat our slogans for the opposing teams.”
Over his medical and teaching career at Duke, Dr. St.Clair says basketball has often served as the centerpiece of his family’s social life, creating many great times and memories.
“We all work hard in our profession,” he says. “Duke basketball has given me something outside of my life as a physician to really enjoy with friends and family. More than anything, what you remember about these games is not so much who wins, who loses, but why you were there, whom you were with and how much fun you had. It’s created a lot of value for me and the rest of my family.”
Carol Patton is a freelance writer based in Las Vegas.
