The Duke basketball Line Monitors announced Sunday that they would be enacting a “holistic application” for those wishing to gain admission to the walk up line for the men’s basketball game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Feb. 9 in Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Line Monitors, who had declared this year of Cameron Crazies “unprecedented” in Duke basketball history, had been searching for more comprehensive application for admission to the coveted game.
Tenting policies have already seen a shift this year given the high volume of interest due to the record short tenting season. 840 black tenters gained admission on Jan. 11 via a grueling trivia test to decide who would get to torture themselves and sleep out in the cold for four weeks. Another 360 white tenters gained admission to Krzyzewskiville on Jan. 25 via a “race to the secret spot” for a seven-day long tenting period that past tenters and President Richard Brodhead have declared “utter bull****.”
“In all my years as Duke president I’ve never seen a tenting period this short,” the outgoing president noted. “Students these days are so spoiled. I remember in my time at Yale, once I camped out for 9 weeks in the New Haven winter cold to get my hands on a newly annotated copy of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night.’ There were so many of us in line, the local bookstore had to develop a rules system similar to that of the modern Line Monitors.”
Line Monitors, however, are thrilled about the surge in interest. “We always want to reward the most committed Cameron Crazies for their devotion to Duke basketball, and we think this new application process is the best way to do that,” Monday Monday overheard a particularly chirpy Line Monitor say at a 3:45 a.m. tent check. “We’re really excited about this new review process, which we think will cultivate the most annoying student section for a Carolina game since J.J. Redick played.”
The Line Monitors have reiterated that walk-up line tenters are not guaranteed a spot in the student section, but they have to sleep outside without a tent for the three days leading up to the game regardless of whether or not they are going to get in. They are hoping that the new evaluation process will weed out those individuals only marginally interested in Duke basketball and will bring them the rowdiest crowd possible.
The actual evaluation process itself is still under wraps, but an anonymous Duke basketball assistant coach who contacted Monday Monday via the House Party video chat app says that the new application will be “grueling.”
“I get it that Duke students refuse to do anything less than 110 percent,” he said under a black cloak, his background eerily similar to that of the Cookout on Hillsborough Road. “I mean, kids start the weekend on Wednesday and turned what should be a casual and fun basketball game into a multi-month ordeal. But this is just too much.”
He reported the Line Monitors had been having secret meetings with head coach Mike Krzyzewski and interim head coach Jeff Capel at Krzyzewski’s private underground war room at his home in Durham. Coach K is reported to have told Line Monitors they should “calm down” and “let the Crazies have fun for once” but the Line Monitors fired back with a mock-up of their walk-up line admissions test (WULAT) that rivals that of the MCAT and GRE.
The WULAT, as it’s become colloquially known, is said to require potential admittees to recite the alma mater both backward and forwards, as well is in Portuguese and Mandarin. It will evaluate each Crazie’s range of motion from fingertip to fingertip when hexing, the decibel they can reach when yelling “You Suck!” or “Let’s go DUKE!” and the lowest octave they can hit when enunciating “Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuke.” WULAT participants will be required to recite every player’s Instagram bio, Justin Robinson’s entire course schedule (with bonus points being awarded for those who can recite his father, NBA legend David “The Admiral” Robinson’s junior spring course list from the Naval Academy) as well as a rapid-fire round of “Who tweeted that Bible Verse, Luke Kennard or Grayson Allen?”. The test will also feature a grueling trivia section that covers everything from Nan Keohane’s dog’s name all the way back to demographic statistics from when Duke was still called Normal College, over a hundred years before its basketball program was even enacted. Some Line Monitors were overheard dropping hints that intermediate level calculus would even be required to solve the “angle of Amile Jefferson’s average missed free throw” equation.
Potential tenters will also need to submit multiple letters of recommendation—one of those generic ones from a professor they probably just inserted their name into noting their “academic excellence” as well as one detailing their experiences as a Duke basketball fan, including the likelihood of if they’ll paint their entire body to look like an d*****bag on national television and scream in the background of any shot Jay Williams is featured in.
The New York Times has already done an expansive demographic survey of the potential tenters, noting that their median ACT score was a 34, their median family income was $186,000 and that less than 1 percent of Crazies would ever be able to move out of the income bracket they were born into.
Line Monitors are expecting “record-low admission numbers” for the walk up line towards a 4 percent to 6 percent admission rate and are hoping to use the new test in future years to cultivate the most diverse and craziest classes of Crazies.
“We’re really excited about the incoming class of walk-up line Crazies, and we really think they have a lot of potential to piss off America’s sports commentators. I’d say it’s our best class yet,” said the small student section babydoll who enjoys being shaken and slapped by particularly maternal female Line Monitors.
Monday Monday crafted this comfortably waiting in the Women’s Center on East, not the softball field.
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