A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

These four pictures accurately capture the culture of Duke University and their extremely school-spirited students. I have never seen anyone so passionate about a sport, especially basketball, because back home, basketball isn’t nearly as important as it is here…

Because those of us who are studying here at the marine lab this semester cannot wait in line as early as others do for a basketball game (since we’re 5 hours away from Duke’s main campus), we have to contact the “Line Monitors” at least two weeks in advance if we want to go to a game and they will try to save us a spot. (When I first heard my friends talking about the “line monitors,” I thought they were joking because that sounds like something you would see in a movie). When we arrived on Duke’s main campus for the Duke vs. Notre Dame game, I could not believe the amount of people that had been waiting in line for, not just hours, but days for this game. Students literally camped outside to wait in line for a few days before the game so that they could get in the student section. My jaw dropped. But “tenting,” as it is commonly referred to, for the Notre Dame game was not nearly as big of a deal as tenting is for the Duke vs. UNC game. (I didn’t know this at the time, but Duke and UNC are the biggest rivals in college sports history, so they despise each other.) The Duke vs. UNC game was scheduled for February 18^th, 2015, and students began tenting on January 8^th, 2015...PEOPLE HAD BEEN WAITING IN LINE FOR OVER 40 DAYS, JUST FOR A BASKETBALL GAME. I couldn’t believe the extent to which some people would go for a sporting event. The fact that they even have line monitors in the first place, as well as a whole set of formal rules and regulations for “tenting,” along with different levels of tenting (black, dirty black, blue, dirty blue, and white tenting, which are all different levels of “difficulty, per sé) just goes to show how different cultures value different things; I know back home, I wouldn’t even turn on the tv to watch a basketball game. But here, they wait outside for weeks on end for a chance to get into the student section of the basketball game.

In the student section at the Duke vs. Notre Dame
men's basketball game

My wonderful view from the student section at the Duke vs. Notre Dame game. I probably only got to see about 10% of the game because of how many people were in front of me.

Tenting that began on January 8th, 2015 for the Duke vs. UNC 
men's basketball game on February 18th, 2015. There are 
around 100 tents, varying in occupancy from 2-12 people.

A crowd of Duke students burning benches after winning the Duke vs. UNC men's basketball game in OT. Surprisingly, this is allowed by the school. In fact, the school even gets a permit for the burning of the bench(es). Appropriate personnel are on-site throughout the duration of this traditional post-game event.