Graduate students bond over basketball, beer

From the depths of the Blue Zone, the first echoes of bass creep up the hill, flying on the back of Frisbees and footballs and scattered wisps of smoke. As the cars start to thin out, a caravan of RVs appears on the horizon. Next, the grills and Beirut tables come into view. Then, finally, there are the students--1,250 in all, hailing from the Fuqua School of Business, the Nicholas School of the Environment, the law school, the medical school, the divinity school and the graduate school. As the sun sets on summer, basketball season has come at last to Duke.

For three days each year, graduate and professional students brave life outdoors to enter a lottery for season tickets to men's basketball games. While the grads may lack Krzyzewskiville, they make up for it with this long weekend of barbecue, bands, beer and a whole lot of bonding.

When the puddles of Bud Light finally dry up on Sunday and the grills go back into the shed, about 1,000 of the 1,250 original tenters will remain, all vying for the chance to buy one of 600 season tickets.

The numbers are slightly down this year, but that hasn't stopped the fun.

"It's colder, but calmer with less people," says Molly Miller, a second-year law student and registration head of the basketball committee of the Graduate and Professional Student Council. "I'm as surprised as everyone, but we're having just as much fun. The weather has been gorgeous."

Forehand stands amid a bandstand, U-Haul trucks and some Winnebagoes in the main tenting section--the part dominated by Fuqua and Law students. Rumors are swirling about Jello wrestling in the night to come, he says, and there's already been a great dance party Friday night with about 400 people in attendance.

Rob Gallagher, Trinity '98 and a third-year law student, says the weekend isn't as amazing his time at K-Ville, but it's not far off.

"It's like a compressed version of what the undergrads do," he says. "And the Fuqua kids are only here two years, so they're really ready to party."

The two are pooling their spots in the lottery with the rest of their U-Haul group, a common practice whereby if one person wins tickets, everyone gets to go to at least one of the games.

Around the blacktop, there's some pick-up basketball at a portable hoop, grads reading magazines and pulp fiction and a lot of drinking. The band sounds like a faster-paced Pat Benatar, with the sounds of Garbage pumping out of a quick guitar and powerful female vocals. Pizza boxes from Papa John's litter the ground along with bags of Doritos and cases of beer.

Kevin Kessler, a fifth-year mathematics student, relaxes with friends over a beery game of chess.

"It's the only real party for the grad students," Kessler says.

Students who don't win tickets this year, he explains, get double odds the next year. If they don't win tickets then, the odds go up to five-to-one.

Down the hill, a group of law students hailing from Australia, Canada, England and Germany huddle outside their tent, the boombox blasting techno and a clean-looking grill nearby. An expectant 32-ounce summer sausage sits defrosting on a table.

Pierre Abinakle, the Canadian, says he has a tragic story to tell.

"I broke my glasses and missed a check," he begins. "Then I realized I needed to get them fixed and couldn't get an exemption, and so I missed another check. I'm just hanging out here now, but I'm gone."

"They're hard asses!" interjects Paul Biumpton, the Briton.

One group of divinity students isn't so enthused about the whole experience.

"It's been all right," says Curtis Goforth, in his fourth year in the program. Goforth, bitter, says he hasn't gotten tickets the previous two years and did not camp out his first year. To top things off, last year, he got turned away from the Duke-Carolina game for unclear reasons.

"I'm just glad it was a girl that turned me away, because if it was a guy, I would've punched the S.O.B.," he said. "I'm doing it for the principle. I'm tenting in hopes of getting Carolina tickets."

Noise from a rowdy group at the bottom of the hill spreads throughout the area, as one drunken student races up the slope, circles a tree and comes back down to his companions. Part three of the "Beer Olympics," explains Marc Adler, a first-year chemistry student.

"It's not very often you get people of high intelligence in a small area to do stupid s--t just for basketball tickets," Adler says, puffing on a cigarette. The teams are coed, he says, and the competition spans Friday and Saturday.

Onlooker Raj Juwarker, a second-year chemistry student, explains that he is the reigning champion but has retired, at least for now, undefeated. "I almost forget that we're camping for basketball tickets," he says.

Despite the abundance of beer-fueled antics, not everyone is there to get sloshed. As her blonde toddler runs around with an orange makeshift sword, Joni Glass explains that her husband, Shane, a second-year business student, has been camping out in a Ryder truck.

"It's more difficult; you've just got more priorities to manage," Shane says of camping out as a father. "But we're only out here a few days, so it's manageable."