As if the crazy towel guy were not enough inspiration at Duke men's basketball games, the student body has acquired a first-class fanatic of its own. Attending virtually every men's basketball game in the past two years in a referee shirt, blue cape and blue hair is Pasha Majdi, a truly energetic Cameron Crazie.
The sophomore, whose residency has been tent number one in the beloved Krzyzewskiville since Dec. 28, said tonight's game against the University of North Carolina is "one of the five top sporting events of the year."
For Majdi, the chief appeal of being a Cameron Crazie is the energy in and around him at the game. "For most of the game, everybody is together, unified and really passionate," said Majdi, who prefers being in the second row because he gets to stand on a bench rather than the first-row floor.
Majdi's fellow Cameron Crazies testify that it is easy to pick him out at games by his incessant cheering and dancing. Libby Ferlic, a junior who often sees Majdi playing basketball at the gym, described him as "energetic with a touch of the bizarre."
Majdi and his tent-mates actually constructed a house of tarp and PVC wire this year in K-ville--mainly to be funny, Majdi said--but a fire marshal made them take it down a few weeks ago. The house, Majdi added, was a perfect place to enjoy late nights of telling stories and "chilling" in K-ville.
He said he finds the entire process of tenting so fascinating that he is currently being paid by the Discovery Channel to tape footage for their television show, "Competition."
Tenting may be fun, but Majdi admits that it is not all that easy either, saying the process is often boring, cold and long.
"The killer part is every game in between [the tenting weeks]," he said. "We spend about a day to a day-and-a-half in line for each of those games, depending on whether it's a wristband game or a walk-up game," he wrote in an e-mail.
With eight men's games so far this year, not to mention the two days he waited in line for the women's game versus the University of Connecticut, Majdi has spent an excessive amount of time outside in the cold--but it's all worth it to him.
Majdi said he wishes he could attend more women's basketball games, but he realizes that he came to Duke for academics first, not just for basketball.
"I love going to [women's] games, I just put so much time and effort into men's basketball that I probably wouldn't be able to handle going to both without failing out of school," he said.
As a pre-med student, public policy major and philosophy minor, Majdi said he reserves plenty of time for work and class--which he never misses for basketball.
Still, like many other students, Majdi is unable to study in K-ville, so he said he tries to stay up all night working and sleep during the day when he is in the tent. "That's pretty atypical though," he said.
Majdi said he did not get really interested in college basketball until 8th or 9th grade, but since then he has always liked Duke's style of play. He started becoming more of a Duke fan when he realized the up-and-coming power of the University of Maryland, a school not too far from his Vienna, Va., home.
Basketball may not have been Majdi's main reason for coming to Duke, but it certainly has become a major activity for him. Next year, he even has hopes of being head line monitor; while monitors do not have to tent, he said he probably would anyway. And when he graduates, Majdi admits that coming to games will be much more difficult. But, he said, "I will always be a fan."
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