DURHAM, N.C. | It was coming from all angles and every possible way —the random kick in the back of the chair, a hand accidentally swatting the back of your head, a student catching themselves on you to keep from falling.
And the spit. For the love of all things holy, the spit.
I’m talking about sitting on press row in front of the Cameron Crazies, the Duke student section that takes pride in how close they can get to you without turning into your proctologist, which, by the way, I’m confident some will go on to have a fine field in. There is no buffer, no ropes, no personal space. It’s just you and a thousand screaming fans who want to make life a living hell for the opposing team.
And, for the most part, they do a good job at it. I’ve never been to a meeting of longshoremen on the docks of Brooklyn, but I can assure you that those behind me on Wednesday night could hold up in a cursing contest with every one of those in the Manhattan borough. One girl seemingly already had her PhD with her thesis titled “Use of the F-Bomb and How It Relates to Duke Basketball.”
I get it, though. Well, I assume I do. These kids have likely worked for years to get into this highly respected institution with pressure coming from all sorts of people: their peers, parents and, of course, themselves. Now, that pressure is even more intensified by being among the best of the best. A Duke basketball game is likely one of their few, if not only, outlets for relieving stress and getting away from the rigors of their academic studies even if, as The Auburn Plainsman’s Grace Heim reported, one was finishing up her physics homework prior to tipoff.
However, considering these are some of the finest young minds from all across the nation and world, one thing was lacking: their cheat sheet, which had information on each Auburn player that they could use for “clever” chants. Some were bizarre, like Johni Broome’s quote tweeting Zep Jasper back in 2022, saying he needed to do better, too. Others were just lame, like Denver Jones, who doesn’t have many connections on LinkedIn. Burn! Bring out the aloe vera because the guard will never recover from that one.
I was hoping the Crazies could do better than what I saw on the cheat sheet, but when they were on, they were definitely on, and no cheating was necessary. When Auburn took an early 13-3 lead and the thousands of fans wearing orange and navy blue were making a ruckus in their own gym, I heard some say that they had never seen that many opposing fans in Cameron before nor making that much noise.
Once the Blue Devils got their feet underneath them and went on a run, all hell (pun intended) broke loose. And, as the final buzzer sounded, the band struck up “Devil with the Blue Dress On,” and the Crazies let out a giant sigh of relief.
As a sports reporter, it was a bucket list item to cover a game at Cameron, and thanks to this job, I was able to check that off. So, if I were to leave a Yelp review for the experience, it would go like this:
Five stars. Great atmosphere. I would probably never do it again — too much spit.
