After a year in which students tenting for basketball games faced unusually harsh conditions, participants in a town hall meeting Tuesday night reviewed possible changes to improve the Krzyzewskiville tenting season--and they gained the support of men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who made a surprise appearance.
Suggestions for changes to subsequent tenting seasons included a lottery for juniors and seniors to receive season tickets, a shorter tenting period and increased awareness of the ease of finding last-minute seats for games.
Krzyzewski took responsibility for the many problems in K-ville as tenters and line monitors offered ideas for how to improve the tenting experience next year.
"I apologize for not getting on this sooner," Krzyzewski said, referring to the tenting situation. "I'm here to listen, identify problems and offer up solutions. I'm here to help."
To combat the problem of dwindling attendance and enthusiasm, Krzyzewski offered several suggestions, including a midnight practice the first day of the official season, a private scrimmage just for freshman students, public meetings with the basketball players and more showings of past Duke games.
Current Head Line Monitor Jeremy Morgan and next year's Head Monitor Donald Wine held the town hall meeting in the Hideaway, and about 40 students attended.
"Nothing is set in stone," said Wine, a junior. "Everything is open for discussion."
He outlined several new policies that could be added next year to help fill empty seats, including a shortened tenting period and a lottery for juniors and seniors to get season tickets on the non-television side of Cameron Indoor Stadium. The lottery would not replace either tents or walk-up lines.
Wine said the lottery would likely be similar to the one offered to graduate students, in which groups of students camp out for a weekend in order to have a chance to receive a limited number of season tickets.
Student reaction to many of the potential changes, including the idea of a lottery, was mixed. One tenter pointed out that students who received season tickets would be able to sell them to other students.
Others at the meeting, including Morgan, supported the idea. "The graduate campout is always a lot of fun," said Morgan, a senior. "[The selling of tickets] is not a problem."
Some of the students at the meeting, almost all of whom tented this year, questioned whether changes are needed in the tenting policy.
"Before we debate what to change, I want to explain the context," sophomore Steve Rawson said at the beginning of the meeting. "The schedule [this year] was unusual with the [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] and [University of] Maryland games three weeks apart, and we had the worst winter in 50 or 60 years. That's not gonna happen next year."
Many other students said the main problem was a lack of awareness of how easy it is to get into games. "People didn't know they could get in 30 minutes before the game," Morgan said.
Sophomore Aaron Dinin, who is currently researching the history of K-ville, said during the meeting that none of the potential changes were very new.
"I've been going through a lot of articles [about K-ville]," Dinin said. "Everything we've talked about has been discussed before. A lot of it has been vetoed because it hurt the spontaneity [of K-ville]. The spirit of K-ville can be hurt by over-regulating."
Krzyzewski agreed that the policy should be more simple. "More regulations lead to more confusion," he said. "I think there are too many rules. I hardly have any rules because I like to be spontaneous."
Other suggestions discussed at the meeting included more K-ville programming and explanations of the rules and strategy of basketball for less-educated fans.
After the meeting, Wine said he was pleased with the outcome. "It was great. The turnout was about what I expected, and [the students] offered a lot of great suggestions, many of which I hadn't thought of," he said.
Many of the tenters were also very positive about the meeting. "I'm really glad they did it," freshman Jeff Ackermann said. "It was really neat that Coach K and [vice president for student affairs Larry] Moneta came. It showed that people who make decisions here actually care. Coach K sounded like he's really going to do a lot."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.