Monday night, I stood on tiptoes in an oversized Duke blue T-shirt, surrounded by classmates on the floor level of Lucas Oil Stadium. We were all nervous. My entire body geared for battle, I chanted familiar cheers at the top of my lungs.
If noise was a contest, the other school was clearly winning. Judging by the different shades of blue, Butler fans outnumbered Duke fans at least five-to-one, giving them an automatic advantage. But that contrast only increased our sense of unity and urgency. Every Blue Devil’s voice mattered. We were a sea of solidarity in the ocean of opposition, and we moved as one.
With 13 seconds left in the game and the scoreboard showing 60-59 in Duke’s favor, the crowd was soaked in the thickest wave of tension I have ever felt. At three seconds remaining, Gordon Hayward launched his now-famous final shot… and missed. Duke fans went nuts. We jumped on seats, hugged everyone in sight and generally went crazy. The next minute was a euphoric blur—we absolutely could not contain our happiness.
It was a perfect moment.
As Coach K and the players were honored in the trophy ceremony, many onlookers, myself included, shed a few tears. Our team had come a long way. The occasion was significant because a few months ago, we could not have predicted that we would be standing here in this moment. We had needed this win—hungered for it, and finally gotten it. As the last game of the season, the championship served as a fitting cap for all that had come before—and for seniors, there could not have been a better way to end four years of Duke basketball.
I, like most Dukies, will look back and forever remember that night as something truly special. But the ironic part is that I never could have predicted that things would end this way for me personally.
I did not enter Duke as a fan of men’s basketball. In fact, I wasn’t a huge sports fan, period. While I ran track and played soccer in high school, I rarely watched professional sports and viewed basketball as a game that my brother was into—I had no desire to meddle in that territory. While I enrolled at Duke well aware of its reputation as an academic and athletic powerhouse, that dual-prowess was nowhere near one of the top reasons I chose to attend. Although it was a perk, I never imagined that a sport could become a defining feature of my college experience.
Freshman year, first under the influence of classmates and then increasingly of my own accord, I started watching men’s basketball games, invested in a “Go to Hell Carolina” shirt and decided to blue tent. In Cameron, I felt the painful sting of losses, the prideful joy of victories and the adrenaline rush of close games (as the Facebook group states, “I Will Never Forget the Night Dave McClure Beat Clemson”). I discovered blue and white face paint, lined up to purchase and get autographs for multiple copies of Coach K’s new book and began purging my closet of all things light blue. The transformation had clearly begun.
But the funny thing is that I never consciously acknowledged it. Even after four seasons of tenting and countless games attended, it wasn’t until the final moments of Monday’s championship game that I truly took ownership: “I am a Cameron Crazie!” I thought to myself as a chill traveled through my bones. I am a proud supporter of one of the greatest college basketball programs to ever exist.
Why was this realization so belated? What allowed things to change? And, what the heck—why does it even matter? Isn’t a Cameron Crazie just a label, just one component of a person’s identity?
It is. But for me, taking on that identity meant letting go of another one: that of the non-sports devotee I had cultivated for myself prior to college.
In a larger sense, it meant finally acknowledging that many things had changed in college, and that I am no longer the person I was in high school. Of course, growth for me has come in other forms that I had more readily acknowledged: through love and heartbreak, fallen friendships and fresh new ones, academic challenges and eye-opening summer experiences.
People change. You will grow while at Duke; this is the wonderful thing about college. And truly embracing that change requires being open to new identities: remaining true to your core self, but also staying adventurous and optimistic on the rocky journey of becoming Who You Will Be. It requires recognizing that things don’t always work out as planned, and that sometimes, the most valuable experiences are the ones you didn’t expect. In some cases, growth can even be painful.
But in the process, you just might become a Cameron Crazie—and that wouldn’t be all bad, especially now that we’re National Champions.
Ying-Ying Lu is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Thursday.
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