Since last year, I have grown and matured in many ways. One of those has been coming to the conclusion that I was completely wrong in my first assessment of Duke basketball. With a little bit of help from my friends, I too have been brought into the fold.
This year, basketball has become the center of my life, too. I have attended almost every home game (and, like last year, I'm going to the Carolina game-look for me in the buffer zone), I have learned all of the cheers (and insults) and I have scheduled my periods of exhilaration and depression to coincide with the wins and losses of "our" team (which finally puts me in sync with the rest of campus).
I have realized that basketball is what makes Duke special. Forget about academic excellence (I'm too tired from partying to study most of the time anyway), forget about one of the most beautiful campuses in the country (let's trash it by burning not only our benches, but maybe some furniture and a dorm or two as well) and forget about antiquated notions of individuality (or express them in original cheers).
Seriously, though: I do think I went over the top in my condemnation of the Cameron Crazies. I still don't see why other players' mothers need to be insulted, but I do understand that basketball is an integral part of University life.
A sense of community develops at the games-and even more in K-ville-which I haven't experienced anywhere else on campus. The community extends beyond undergrads to grad students and non-University visitors (unless they're from Chapel Hill, of course). People go to Cameron for one and only one purpose, so there is no debate or dissent (except for people like me, of course). This allows for a community of the pre-modern, pre-multicultural type that brings out feelings of nostalgia in most of us.
Life at Duke is fraught with all kinds of stress and anxiety, such as concerns about grades and careers and worries about social acceptance. There is no better place to not only momentarily forget these problems, but even briefly experience a happy alternative (especially when the team is winning), than Cameron. As long as you do the right thing (and woe to you if you don't), you will be part of the crowd.
As a matter of fact, all the University's problems are somehow related to-and could be solved by-basketball. Take money: If we could tap into our players' future salaries, imagine how much money we would suddenly have. After all, the University is enabling their careers!
Or take housing: The upperclass housing proposal (fortunately) becomes superfluous in light of the fact that about a quarter of the student body has been camping out for the entire semester-and experiencing all the commitment to co-curricular life, equity of access, diverse University community and Duke tradition the plan asks for. How about building an official K-ville theme house?
The same goes for the social scene: Basketball has enabled the Campus Social Board to come up with the idea of the foam party, finally offering an alternative to drunken orgies. If we actually had a facility for social events similar in size to Cameron, we could carry the Cameron spirit over there.
In short, Cameron represents a golden age, a little paradise, a place where things still are as they should be-good and bad are clearly defined, there are rituals by which to abide and everybody is a member of one big happy family. That's also why we tend to speak of the team as "our" team.
Why do we need a place like this? Perhaps we all need to feel a sense of belonging, and we take the path of least resistance-i.e., just follow the crowd-to find one. Personally, I think there are other ways we could find niches where we fit in, but if we choose to fit in with 9,313 other people watching five guys throw a ball into a basket (or miss), why not? So do I-at least this year.
Too bad basketball games have absolutely nothing to do with the world outside the walls of the stadium. Out there, we're back to the old anonymity, lack of care for the other, stress and anxiety and whatever else makes our lives hell (we're ahead of Carolina geting there, too). Maybe we should somehow try and carry our enthusiasm there and make the real world happy and whole again, too.
Norbert Schürer is a fourth-year graduate student in literature and is relieved not to be the most hated man on campus for this year's Carolina game.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.