When I, THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE, learned I would be working for The Chronicle, I felt it imperative to begin by practicing the craft of a legitimate journalist. This would require some research. After polishing my AP writing style, learning from the work of great journalistic institutions like the Durham Herald-Sun, and studying reruns of Lois & Clark on TNN, starring Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher, I was ready.
I just needed a story. Fortunately, this one fell in my proverbial lap. I checked it out, and, calling upon the muse named Sy-(Snootles)-and-the-Ramblin-(Root-Beer)-Gnome, was able to pen this article. Here it is.
Carlyle Cup to Add New Categories
Duke's days of losing early in the Carlyle Cup may be over.
After another fall of Carolina superiority, there is talk of adding some new categories to allow Duke to get more wins and keep things close.
"It's time we start playing to our strengths," said Director of Athletics Joe Alleva. "We are looking at some events that Duke will be very competitive in."
One such event will certainly be the exercise machine competition, where anorexic women will compete to work their bodies down to the unhealthiest levels of fitness. "This event will really show how committed our students are to athletics," Alleva noted. "The hard work they put in to painfully destroy their bodies in blind adherence to a shallow, archaic, sexist objectification of women-it's a real tribute to this school." The competition will involve not just losing vital amounts of body weight while on the machines, but fighting for them when not enough are available. Wearing make-up while exercising will also be rewarded.
The rivalry competition could go down to the wire as well. Here, anti-Carolina paraphernalia and anti-Duke paraphernalia will finally go head-to-head. "This ought to be very closely fought," said UNC athletic director Dick Baddour. "I expect the battle between the T-shirt-with-the-old-photo-of-the-girl-kissing-the-boy-with-the-Duke-logo-and-not-the-Carolina-logo and the T-shirt-with-the-old-photo-of-the-girl-kissing-the-boy-with-the-Carolina-logo-and-not-the-Duke-logo, to be very competitive." Other matchups, like the clash between the "Hey Carolina-Up Yours" and the "Hey Dukies-Up Yours" T-shirts, will show the contrasting styles of the two schools. "I mean, both shirts might be using the same soft drink ad slogan, but the two use completely different fonts," Baddour said.
One of the more interesting events might be the sucking-up-to-the-men's-basketball-coach competition. Said Duke President Nannerl Keohane, "Admittedly, they got the upper hand when they named their arena the Dean Smith Center while Dean Smith was actually coaching in it, but we at Duke like to think that our naming of the court 'Coach K Court' was just as shameless and absurd. I mean, every home game Coach K coaches, he's going to have to look at that idiotic phrase 'Coach K Court,' right in front of his face. It's a real coup." Also helping Duke out is Coach K's "lifetime contract shtick," which according to Keohane includes clauses permitting him to only smile 16 times in a 20-year span, never change his haircut in a 31-year span and cuss like a soldier, in Krzyzewski's words, "whenever the f--- I G-dd--- want to."
The most controversial event might be the alumni competition. "The law school shouldn't count," Alleva asserted. When asked if the corruption of the Nixon administration had anything to do with his stance, he quickly changed the subject: "Um, they may have author Thomas Wolfe as an alumnus, but we got author Tom Wolfe on one of our 'Duke Reads' posters in Perkins. Take that, Tar Heels."
Keohane offered the following insight: "They do have Julius Chambers, who has done an excellent job as chancellor of North Carolina Central University, but any advantage that gives them will probably be nullified by the fact that they also have Dan Cortese-Class of 1990. It's tough to compensate for that." An anonymous member of the Duke Department of Athletics added, "Both Michael Jordan and Grant Hill have been excellent basketball players, but I'd rather spend a long, sweaty night in bed with Grant Hill."
UNC seems to be closing the gap in the Most Obnoxious Construction Projects category, working hard on several obtrusive and offensive undertakings involving superfluous building and digging. Duke holds the trump card here, though, by actually using inexplicable construction work to turn the thoroughfare of Towerview Drive into a one-lane road for a small stretch, causing drivers to stick their heads out their windows stupidly to slowly creep by the approaching vehicle from the other side.
The school whose mascot has the largest head will also win points, as will the university that makes better phallic puns out of its respective Aycock dormitory and comes up with cleverer fake names when turning in orders at its respective Armadillo Grill. Dining also features in the Subway Olfactory Challenge, wherein the extent to which each school's Subway restaurant stinks up the entire dining hall is measured.
In the simplistic Bryan Center contest, a school wins points for not having the Bryan Center. UNC is heavily favored in this event.
While this and other events actually seem to favor Carolina, Alleva is quick to point out a big advantage that Duke has: "James 'Skip' Herrod, manager of the Marketplace, can alter the course of any of these events just by his presence in campus. He's that valuable to our teams."
Some proposed events were rejected, however. Duke thought Carolina's proposed "largest number of students who aren't Yankee trash" contest to be xenophobic, while Carolina strongly objected to Duke's idea of a "largest percentage of the student body who talk normally and not with those ignorant-sounding accents" competition on the grounds that it was elitist and bigoted.
A proposed competition comparing the cities in which the two schools are located was also rejected, on the idea that, according to a spokesperson from Carlyle and Co., "Most Duke students have never even been to Durham. No, we're not counting Ninth Street or that stretch of restaurants on 15-501, you sissies."
THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE would like to encourage his/her fellow Durhamites to sing the body electric, a la Walt Whitman, in lieu of having any actual functioning electric devices.
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