In the upcoming weeks—all the way up until the Duke-North Carolina game on Mar. 6—staff writer Chris Cussack will blog from inside Krzyzewskille as he lives through the tenting experience. Stay tuned for regular posts, photos and inside information covering Duke Basketball’s most famous student tradition. (Earlier posts: “Inside K-ville: Entry 1? “Inside K-ville: Amazing Grace" and "Inside K-ville: High Morale")
In my last post, I asked people to send in their best anecdotes from the tent: anything exciting, horrible, funny, incredible, would be accepted and posted on the blog for all to read. I waited for days, hoping someone would let me in on an inside joke or early morning tent check experience or wind storm disaster story, but no one stepped up. After some serious soul searching, I got to the root of the issue.
We’re never actually in K-ville. What stories could there be?
Night after night we’ve had grace for a whole variety of reasons, some legitimate, but most not. I appreciated the night we got off after the “big” snowstorm, but did we really need three more after that? Did we need a full night of grace because of a forecast low of 23 degrees? In an attempt at full disclosure, I have not felt any reason to complain until now. Hell, with a spot in Tent #3 secured, I didn’t much care how many nights we got off because I was so close to the front.
But, Sunday night was the final straw. We got a night of grace for no conceivable reason. The low temperature was 29 degrees, no rain was anticipated until the morning and we had just received grace two nights before after the dusting of snow. White Tenting starts this Saturday—meaning tenting will get even less difficult—and on average each member of our group has spent 3-4 nights in the tent since Blue Tenting began.
I’m all for camping out for this game for six weeks. In fact, I looked forward to it. But I feel forced to add a caveat every time I explain this process to family and friends, because it’s not fair to advertise K-ville as a dedicated line of students hoping to see a victory over North Carolina. A member of a nearby group was recently boasting that he was on a grace “hot streak,” which had kept his rotation out of the tent for 10 nights. 10 nights?! Why bother even setting up at all.
Before I keep ranting, I’d like to make it clear that my intention isn’t to place all the blame on an overly benevolent group of line monitors—they are simply products of a broken system. My point is this: If students are not dedicated enough to line up for six weeks and deal with the weather systems, tent collapses and academic shortcomings (sorry Mom!) that follow, the line should not start that early.
Tenting is not itself a broken art. Over the past 25 years, schools across the nation have emulated what our forward-thinking alumni began back when waiting in line for basketball was a novelty, not the rule. But, even then, the outdoor experience was short-lived. Over the last few weeks, I’ve asked a number of alumni about their experiences tenting, and I invariably get the response: “Man, we had fun for a few days, but you guys are crazy to be doing this.”
Is it really that reasonable to assume we are 5 and a half weeks more dedicated to Duke basketball? I think “carried away” is the term that best describes our current system, and this year’s debacle just highlights that.
Next year, I hope the head line monitor will perform the following experiment: Eliminate all the colors of tenting, standardize one set of rules for the duration, and let people set up tents whenever they feel inclined. I bet there would still be a few tents worth of true Crazies who would show up in January, but the majority of us would join in two weeks before game day, if even then.
It’s a purely merit-based system for entry, and eliminates many of the problems that K-ville faces today.
Duke students have a reputation for being the best student section in the nation; now is time to prove it.
See you at the next tent check,
Chris
Check out The Chronicles of K-Ville full website here.
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