The participants in the 2004 Randolph versus Blackwell feud have defined dorm benches as primary targets in expressing distaste for other dorms.
Maybe it’s the athletes. Or the air conditioning. Or maybe first-year advisory counselors condition their faclets to loath other dorms. Nobody really knows why the Randolph versus Blackwell dormitory rivalry rages on year after year, and no one knows why this year’s rivalry has been the worst.
Freshmen come to East Campus on move-in day without knowing much about dorm life, but every year, a new group of residents inevitably rekindles the feud between the twin dorms in the “Backyard Quad.”
The participants in the 2004 Randolph versus Blackwell feud have defined dorm benches as primary targets in expressing distaste for other dorms. “You can strike at the heart of a dorm by defacing the bench,” Blackwell resident Geoff Bass said. In prior years, a healthy dorm rivalry persisted, but attacks on benches were comparatively few and far between.
Taking out planks and spreading sticky substances over the benches have been popular vandalism techniques in mostly late-night assaults this year. “We tore each other’s benches apart. We put honey and baby oil on [Randolph’s bench],” Blackwell resident Carolyn Kent said, gloating.
But this year, the Backyard bickering reached new heights—literally. In the wee hours of Oct. 28, a dozen male Randolph residents marched over to Blackwell at around 3 a.m., armed with ropes—their eyes on their rival’s bench. After several minutes, the men successfully suspended Blackwell’s bench several feet off the ground, hanging it from a tree.
Duke University Police Department officers arrived and many curious onlookers scattered back into their respective dorms at about 4 a.m. “[DUPD] took our names down and about three weeks later we got written-up notices,” Randolph resident Konrad Dudziak said. “No one from Blackwell got in trouble. Its no longer bench wars, it’s all-out dorm wars.”
For freshmen this year, the benches—and the destruction of them—have taken on a whole new symbolic meaning within the context of the dorm rivalry. “I feel like the benches are a great source of unity,” said freshman Hannah Biederman, communications chair of Randolph’s House Council. “They are a way for dorms, especially for dorms like Randolph that don’t have central common rooms, for people to get together and casually catch up. So when they were destroyed people lost the opportunity to do that.”
Clay Adams, the residence coordinator for Randolph and Blackwell expressed similar sentiments in an e-mail to his freshmen. “Actions taken on the Randolph bench have also occurred,” the e-mail said. “Boards are now missing, artwork destroyed, and community spaces ruined. The actions of a few have now taken from the community as a whole.”
Gilbert-Addoms dormitory residents also confess to also participating in the Backyard quad bench battles. “We provoke a lot,” said freshman Will Connor, a GA resident. “We carried the Blackwell bench all the way across the Backyard.”
Freshman Sara Reynolds, a Blackwell resident, said Blackwell students once tricked Randolph by posing as GA residents. “Blackwell kids went to Randolph and said they were from GA. Randolph then beat GA’s bench with baseball bats,” she said, giggling. Several GA and Blackwell residents confirmed that pieces of Blackwell’s bench currently reside in secret locations within GA.
Many students offer differing opinions about this year’s dorm warfare. People living in Blackwell, like Bass, like to think that Randolph sparked the conflict. “Of course Randolph [started it],” he said with a smile.
But only 100 feet away, people see it a little differently. “Blackwell started it,” commented Dudziak. “Blackwell should feel responsible for all of this.”
A consensus among dorm residents about the true origins of the conflict remains unlikely, although specious theories continue to abound. Some, like Bass, blame the athletes. “Blackwell and Randolph have all the athletes, so they have an inbred competitive spirit,” he hypothesized. Some Randolph residents thought that the FACs were to blame, as they were the first to introduce the rivalry to them. Some GA residents, like Jeff Gullo, have more concrete motives. “I can tell you why we hate them,” he said. “They have air conditioning.”
Bench wars have not been isolated to the Backyard quad. Aycock and Brown dormitories were both victims to bench flippings earlier on in the year. Pegram’s newly built but unpainted bench was spray-painted on. “A couple days after [we built the bench], we woke up in the morning and people had drawn two huge phalluses on our beloved bench,” said freshman Ben Arendt, Pegram’s House Council president.
Recently an unofficial peace has been reached between the dorms in the Backyard. Some attribute the truce to the threat of punishment while others say that since the benches were just painted, students are less likely to attack them. “The stakes are higher because the bench looks so good,” freshman Sarah Marlay said.
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