For the first time in many years, the Duke Student Government head line monitor is himself a hard-core tenter. But senior Norm Bradley has also crafted this year's policy focusing more on the interests of what he calls "moderate" tenters than any line monitor in recent history.
"I care a lot about Krzyzewskiville," said Bradley, who has been in one of the top five tents for each of the past three years. "I realize I am a hard-core tenter; I also realize that not all students are like me. We need to make room in Cameron for the hard-core fan as well as the moderate fan."
Bradley's new policies include tiering bracelets in walk-up lines so students who wait to get bracelets at night will get the first seats. Only 50 tents will be allowed to begin camping out more than 10 days before each tenting game and line monitors will wake campers if it appears they are sleeping through their checks. Also, Bradley, senior associate sports editor of The Chronicle, is planning an on-site K-ville community service project to capitalize on the "potential energy" the engineer sees in the campers.
"There is an emphasis on balancing the needs of all the undergraduates," said sophomore Emily Grey, DSG vice president for facilities and athletics. "There are so many different levels of Cameron Craziness, so I think that's great."
This year's policy, released this weekend, tweaks much of last year's policy and adds a few new catches designed to make line monitoring more student-friendly.
Tents will return to their pre-Wilson Recreation Center-construction capacity of 12 people and will go up for the Feb. 1 men's basketball game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Feb. 27 game against the University of Maryland.
For the remainder of the weekend games and for some of the early season games, admission will be given on a first-come-first-served basis. But for several weekday games, students will be able to go to Cameron Indoor Stadium starting at 7:30 a.m. to get bracelets guaranteeing admission to the day's game. Bracelets will be distributed in color groups of 200-300 so that students first in line for the bracelets will be guaranteed one of the first 200-300 seats later on that evening, and so on. This policy, Bradley said, demands more early morning time of fans instead of forcing them to stay in line all day.
"Some majors require more classes or labs that you need to attend, and students who have work-study jobs do not have the option to just skip work," Bradley said. "[This] pushes the time you need to commit into the early morning hours-between 4 and 8 a.m. No student has a job, a lab or a class that meets at those times."
For the two tenting games, a two-tiered registration policy will be in effect again this year, with "blue registration," or early tenting, beginning as soon as 10 tents assemble in K-ville. But, Bradley explained, only 50 out of the 100 K-ville tents will be allowed to participate in this registration. "My system ensures 600 seats will be available only 10 days before tip-off," Bradley said. "It also allows the hard-core tents to set up as early as they wish to procure the best seats."
For the Carolina game, early tenting registration could take place as early as 10 p.m. Jan. 7 and could continue until 7 a.m. Jan. 20. During the period between blue registration and white registration, or regular tenting, one member of each blue-registered tent must be present in K-ville between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. and eight members must be there between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
White registration will begin at 7 a.m. Jan. 22 for the Carolina game and 9:30 a.m. Feb. 17 for Maryland. Bradley will post a registration location online at the time registration is set to begin. At both registrations, tent captains will only need to present their names and social security numbers. Then, DSG officials will post the information on an online registration database so that the captain can complete the remainder of the tent list within 24 hours.
After Jan. 22, for the Carolina game, one member of each tent must be present at all times. Personal checks will work as they always have.
Between the two tenting games, each tent must be taken down and then re-erected after registration. Early registration will allow Carolina tents to resume their places in line. Bradley hopes this will allow tenters to recover and others to better gauge their chances of getting in. "Usually, between games, nobody knows what tents are up or down," he said. "Hopefully this will minimize the amount of early tenting for Maryland."
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