DUBAI — There isn’t one recipe for the sort of Duke fan that would shell out $13,465 and take out two weeks to accompany the Blue Devils on their round-the-world excursion to China and the United Arab Emirates.
Meet Bert Alexander, Trinity ’59, who started in the savings and loan business and ended up owning 42 Waffle House restaurants in Arkansas and Tennessee. There’s also Dr. Jai Parekh, Fuqua ’08, and Dr. Swati Parekh, a couple of eye surgeons from New Jersey who brought their three children along. Not to mention Bill Webster, a former political strategist for gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns in Maine and Massachusetts. And don’t forget Ken Woo, the owner of a production company, who is working on a documentary about the trip.
The voyage to the Friendship Games was a truly unique opportunity for these hardcore Duke fans, who filled the seats not taken by the usual Duke entourage: the team, coaches, trainers, doctors, student managers, public relations and sports information staff, cheerleaders, travel agents, faculty and administrators. Together, attendants and spectators combined to number 141 people when the plane left Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
“It’s a very congenial group,” Webster said. “There’s a lot of knowledge here, a lot of people with interesting backgrounds. So, for someone like me, that’s half the fun.”
Saturday, the group returns to the United States after working its way west around the entire globe. In 13 days, they watched four Duke games in four cities and gained a behind-the-scenes look at what is arguably college basketball’s most storied program.
Plane problems
The passengers’ plans hit a serious hitch prior to departure, but a short speech by head coach Mike Krzyzewski provided all the reassurance they needed.
The charter plane was first late arriving in Durham, and then it failed its mechanical inspection. After a 10-hour wait, the downpour started and there were whispers that the team and coaches might travel ahead of everyone else commercially to stay on schedule. That excited few of the fans, who had paid top dollar to travel with the team.
That’s when, according to Alexander, Krzyzewski saved the trip. The coach brought the entire group into a huddle in the empty terminal and shared a simple message: Everyone on the trip—everyone—made up a team that was embarking on a journey together. No one would be leaving anyone else behind.
Krzyzewski had no good news to report, but the emotional appeal did the trick.
“Coach K saved this trip,” Alexander said. “When he said what he said, I knew some way it would work out, and it did.”
The flight was ultimately delayed by a day, and the replacement plane was less roomy and required two extra stops: one in Japan on the way to China, and another in Thailand on the way from China to Dubai. But after Krzyzewski’s message of inclusion, even those inconveniences couldn’t bring back the formerly palpable sense of disappointment.
Ken and his son Charlie, who he brought along to help film, captured it all on camera. It was a scene powerful enough that it seemed scripted, except it was not.
“It showed a master’s touch,” Webster said. And after a career as a political strategist, Webster would know.
Inside access
The Duke team has interacted far more with fans than is typically possible during the regular season, when the pressure is high and trips are short.
“Since I’ve been here, this has by far been the most fan-friendly and most access [given on a trip],” said associate head coach Chris Collins, who joined the coaching staff in 2000.
Webster, who lives in Maine, said he was interested in talking to freshman forward Alex Murphy, who also lives in New England, about why he decided to forgo his last year of high school and head directly to Duke. He also spoke with Nolan Smith, the Plumlee brothers, and Celtics head coach Doc Rivers, who has attended the entire Duke trip to watch his son, Austin.
Swati Parekh got to watch her young son, T.J., share a light moment with freshman guard Quinn Cook after climbing the Great Wall of China. As the T.J.’s legs shook from the countless steps, Cook arrived at the bottom, exhausted as well, and put his arm on T.J.’s shoulder.
“We [said to him], ‘You probably went much farther than us and did more.’ And he [replied], ‘No, man, this was just hard!” Swati said.
For the Parekh parents, the trip has gone beyond basketball, as it has exposed T.J. and their older two children, Bela and Sima, to two countries with vastly different cultures from the one they experience in New Jersey. Swati said she was hesitant to have the whole family attend the trip until she realized how special the opportunity would be to give her children firsthand knowledge of China and the U.A.E. Had the Duke team simply been playing games in Montreal and Mexico, Jai said, some family members likely wouldn’t have come along.
The 13 days have been tightly scheduled, leaving just enough time for players and fans alike to visit important sites in Kunshan, Shanghai, Beijing and Dubai. Highlights for the travelers included a visit to Duke’s new campus in Kunshan, tours of Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall in Beijing, and a lecture at a mosque in Dubai followed by a private tour of the city with views of the tallest building in the world.
Beyond mere tourism, though, Jai said the trip has combined everything from the recognition of role models in the form of student-athletes to the discovery of opportunities for networking.
And though there isn’t one blueprint for the sort of fans that chose to go on this trip, the combination of world-class basketball, unprecedented access to the team, unforgettable sightseeing and new cultural learning provided enjoyment for all of them.
“This really connects all the dots,” Jai said.
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