It's the moment we've all been waiting for since the night of March 27, 2003. After a nail-biting loss in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament, it's finally basketball season again. But something weird has been going on the last few years at Duke, and it finally came to the surface last year: the Cameron Crazies are starting to lose it. The undergrad student section wasn't always filled, the cheers weren't as creative, the passion wasn't there. It had been brewing all season, but when Coach K called out the Crazies after the FSU game and called the atmosphere in Cameron "horrible," it got serious.
I was at all 13 home games last year, not counting the two over winter break. My tent was #15 for the Carolina game and #12 for Maryland. I experienced the Cameron crowd from the tents to the walkup lines to the bleachers, and I think I know what's going wrong.
First of all, there's a lack of upperclassmen leadership in Cameron. The senior game against FSU was a disaster, and it was apparent that many of the seniors present hadn't been to a game in a long time. Maybe it becomes a little old after a while, I can't really say, but I do know that no matter how enthusiastic the freshmen are, it will take them a few games to figure what they're supposed to do when. Expecting them to be creative and get things going by themselves right off the bat is crazy, and that's why upperclassmen need to be more vocal. I know there are a bunch of really dedicated kids, but a couple talented Crazies can only do so much. I'm not asking juniors and seniors to wake up at 3 a.m. to get in line for wristbands, I'm just asking them to go to the games--even the supposedly 'bad' ones--and make some noise.
One excuse I've frequently heard when people decide not to go to games is that they think there's no chance of getting a good seat unless they start waiting in line super-early. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Pretty much any seat in the student section in Cameron is a good seat. If enough people show up, the areas behind the basket and on the non-TV side can be almost as good as the main area.
Also, the walk-up lines for non-tenting games are really not that big. Yeah, there are a bunch of people who were crazy enough to sleep on the sidewalk in freezing weather the night before the UVA game last year just to get in the front row, but that doesn't mean that there still aren't plenty of good seats available on gameday. I think a lot of people don't realize this. What we should have is a counter of the number of people already registered in line for the walk-up games. Line monitors know how many registered groups there are and how many people are in them. Add 'em up and keep the number updated on the DSG website--it can't be that hard. That way, people can know for sure that good seats are still available before they go over to a game, instead of just assuming it's already packed.
The final and most important problem is that in the last few years, attending the games and being crazy has ceased to be the primary outlet for basketball fans. Now, it's tenting. So much time is put into tenting, especially for blue tenters, just to get into the Maryland and Carolina games that many people don't have enough time and energy left to give for all the other games. Everyone's got to get their work done at some point (theoretically, anyway), and when it comes down to watching us beat up on Clemson or not failing physics, some people are going to have to take any chance they get to do their work.
The current system does ensure that the most dedicated fans get the best seats for the big games, but it's also very biased towards the people with the most spare time. While many of these people are great fans, it does exclude people that are huge fans who happen to have a busy schedule. I think the new tenting rules will help reduce this problem to some degree, but it may be time to reexamine the whole theory behind blue tenting. It's supposed to be so hard (eight people there each night) because the administration doesn't really want people to start tenting so early. But if enough people are doing it anyway, (50 blue tents last year for Carolina, somewhere in the low 40s for Maryland, I believe), why not just scrap the concept altogether?
The potential for brilliance by the Crazies is still there. Anyone who was at last year's Georgetown, Wake Forest or Carolina games knows that. The crowds in those games stick out in my mind as having outstanding emotion and being very involved in the game. As Coach K said after the Georgetown game last year, "Cameron was hungry tonight." Let's try to do that every night this year.
Jonathan Ross is a Trinity sophomore. His column appears every third Wednesday.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.