Synopsis
Book by Menzer Joe
Extrait
CHAPTER ONE: THE BIG FOUR
It was just after one o'clock in the afternoon and already the temperature was soaring inside Cameron Indoor Stadium. Outside on this last day of February, it was sunny and mild. But inside the stone edifice -- one of those rare structures that possesses a soul according to Mike Krzyzewski, coach of the Duke Blue Devils basketball team -- the heat was on, literally and figuratively. Coach Krzyzewski saw to that. Legend has it that Coach K always turns up the thermostat when someone special comes to visit. It is a charge he has denied, but there seems to be something to it.
Despite the familiar heat, the legendary Cameron Crazies -- student fans who are either clever, rude, creative, or obnoxious depending on one's point of view -- jostled for position close to the court and began their pregame ritual. Someone very special was about to walk onto the court.
"Go to Hell, Carolina, Go to Hell!
"Go to Hell, Carolina, Go to Hell!"
These words, familiar to anyone who follows basketball in the Atlantic Coast Conference, would be repeated hundreds of times before the day was done. Sweat began dripping off the Crazies' chins almost as quickly as they settled into the rhythm of their favorite chant, yet that was hardly a concern. Even the bare -- chested ones could not possibly stay cool on such an afternoon, nor would they want to. It felt a little like hell must, and that is exactly how they wanted it.
But in reality the heat was on Krzyzewski and the Duke basketball team as much as it was on North Carolina or anyone else. That is usually the case when these two schools get together not so much to play a basketball game but to wage a war with everything they can muster. As the temperature continued to rise inside the arena, the tension level rose to match it.
It was a special day for Duke. It was Senior Day at Cameron, perhaps the most revered day at what is surely the most hallowed court in college basketball. At precisely two o'clock, four senior players on Duke's team would be honored before tipping it off against their most hated rival, the Tar Heels of the University of North Carolina. Aside from everything else, that is what made this game -- or any game when Duke and Carolina clashed -- different from all others during the basketball season.
It isn't a long trip up Tobacco Road from North Carolina to Duke, or vice versa. But it usually is a difficult and grueling one. Just ask former Carolina forward Mike O'Koren, who after one hard-fought battle at Cameron collapsed from heat exhaustion in front of his locker stall. This was after the Crazies commemorated O'Koren's obvious and sensitive skin problem by brandishing signs that referred to him as the "OXY-1000 Poster Child." Or ask former Duke forward Art Heyman, who once nearly incited a riot by brawling not only with several of Carolina's players but also with one of their cheerleaders. The latter transgression was witnessed by a Durham lawyer who happened to have graduated from North Carolina; he swore out an arrest warrant on Heyman for the alleged assault. Everywhere else in America former North Carolina star Michael Jordan was hailed as daring and stylish for his high-flying moves to the basket with his tongue wagging out in front of him; at Cameron they threw tongue depressors at him in disgust.
There is no place in America like Tobacco Road when it comes to college basketball. And there is no place on Tobacco Road like Cameron Indoor Stadium on a steamy afternoon when Duke is playing host to Carolina.
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At twenty minutes to two, the last holdouts from an overflow press corps filtered into Cameron and attempted to wedge themselves into seats on both sides of the court. Mark Crow, a former Duke player, sat next to the media contingent located directly behind the scorer's table near midcourt, shaded just a bit toward the seat occupied by Coach Bill Guthridge on the North Carolina bench. Crow had traveled all the way from Italy, where he now lived, to attend this annual event.
Guthridge had been coming to Cameron for these games for more than thirty years, but this was his first visit as a head coach, having taken over for Dean Smith prior to the 1997-98 season. Smith, college basketball's winningest coach, retired somewhat abruptly the previous October but still talked with Guthridge at least twice a week about strategy and team chemistry. But on this occasion -- which also happened to be Smith's sixty-seventh birthday -- Dean wasn't in sight. That really didn't seem to matter, though. There wasn't much the Dean could tell Guthridge about the pitfalls of playing Duke in this building that the current North Carolina coach didn't already know, or at least suspect.
Guthridge, a gray-haired, bespectacled gentleman sixty years of age, outwardly wears the image of an easygoing, good-hearted grandfather. He usually displays a calm that seems too serene to be real, even in the heat of the most intense battle. But on this day, he seemed unusually nervous as he paced the sideline in front of his bench.
Shortly before two o'clock, Cameron regular Frances Redding sang the national anthem. This was another Duke tradition that fed the Crazies' insatiable appetite. As she sang the last few bars, they went crazy -- there was just no other word for it.
Then, one by one, the Duke seniors were introduced. Todd Singleton -- a walk-on who rarely played but was a fan favorite -- went first. Roshown McLeod followed. Two years earlier McLeod was an unknown transfer from St. John's who had yet to play a single minute for the Blue Devils. Now, he was an undisputed star. The crowd roared as McLeod made his way to center court, waved, and then motioned toward someone in the stands. He jogged back over to retrieve his two-and-a-half-year-old son, Anthony, and held him high for everyone to see.
Next up was Ricky Price. Two years earlier he had been a star, averaging 14.2 points and earning third team all-Atlantic Coast Conference honors. Now, he was a forgotten backup, his career basically wrecked by his failure to take care of business academically. Krzyzewski had used him only sparingly since his return to the squad in December from an academic suspension.
Finally, it was Wojo's turn. This was the moment the Crazies had been waiting for. As Steve Wojciechowski's name was announced, it seemed as if the old building would burst at the rafters from the noise. The place exploded, or at least it sounded like it had. Wojo, as he was known to teammates and Crazies alike, hugged coaches, players, and managers as he made his way to center court. He would have hugged every Duke fan in the building if he could have. Tears streamed from his eyes as he turned and waved to each crevice and corner that made up this haven called Cameron. It was probably the only college basketball court in the country where Wojo was loved not loathed.
The cheers were deafening. The four Duke seniors embraced at center court.
Guthridge continued to pace.
As Wojo walked from center court, he tried to wipe the tears from his eyes.
"Stop crying, you baby," he thought. "It's time to stop crying and start playing basketball."
But at this moment, he wasn't in control of himself. He was bawling. Mark Crow leaned to a reporter and shouted that this scene was not good for Duke -- too much emotion, too many tears.
"It's too close to tip-off for that," Crow warned.
Guthridge sauntered over to the scorer's table.
"When are we gonna start this thing?" he asked.
"Thirty seconds," answered Steve Kirschner, the North Carolina director of media relations who was monitoring the television timeout leading up to the tipoff.
Guthridge turned and walked back to the bench, only to return about sixty seconds later.
"This is some thirty seconds. When are we gonna get going here?" Guthridge asked again, nervously.
Kirschner could only shrug this time. It was out of his control.
Finally, Kirschner gave the signal to the coaches and officials that the TV folks, including bombastic announcer Dick Vitale, were ready.
"What a surprise! Vitale wouldn't shut up," Kirschner announced with a laugh as play at last was set to begin.
It was two o'clock, and no one had yet scored any baskets. But the day's pace already was exhausting.
Precisely 10.6 miles of U.S. Route 15-501 separate the offices of Krzyzewski at Duke and Guthridge at North Carolina. Nowhere else in America are two schools with such rich basketball history and tradition located so close to one another. The proximity of two other ACC rivals -- North Carolina State and Wake Forest -- makes the situation even more interesting. In a state where college basketball is a serious religion, these four programs are known as the Big Four.
Born layups apart chronologically and geographically, these four schools have endeared themselves to an entire nation through the years. But while legions across the country follow each thundering dunk, every sweet jump shot, and all the gritty defensive stands, it is their local fans and loyal alumni who vicariously experience victory or defeat.
The schools grew up within a 34-mile radius of one another. To this day, North Carolina, N.C. State, and Duke remain situated a half-hour's drive apart. Wake Forest College, which had been located 19 miles west of Durham and 16 miles north of Raleigh in the tiny town of Wake Forest, received a large sum of tobacco money from R.J. Reynolds Company to move to Winston-Salem, a distance of only 110 miles due west, in the summer of 1956. Wake moved (and upgraded its name to Wake Forest University), but its fiercest basketball rivalries had already been set.
"There isn't another place in the country where four schools located so close to each other are the forces in college basketball that these teams are," said Terry Oberle, sports editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. "But it isn't just that these teams are close to each other or that they're usually very good every season. It's the way the fans embrace them -- and hate the other three schools.
"Either you're for Duke or you're not. If you're not, you hate them. Either you're for North Carolina or you're not. If you're not, you hate them. Same with N.C. State and Wake. The only other place in the United States that I can think of that might be similar is in Philadelphia, where you have Villanova, Temple, LaSalle, St. Joseph's, and Rutgers. But even there, fans aren't as passionate about those teams. They never have been. Part of it might be the pull of professional sports in that area. They've had pro baseball, football, and hockey for years, and even the New York teams aren't far away. Down here, there were only the colleges until Charlotte recently got pro basketball and football. And the only sport anyone gave a damn about for years was basketball."
Those who move to the area feel the force of the Big Four immediately. Krzyzewski, a Chicago native who arrived in Durham to coach Duke in 1980, certainly did.
"There is no other area like this in the United States," Krzyzewski said. "It produces situations and feelings that you really can't accurately express to other people on the outside -- because they have no understanding of it. They say they understand it, but they don't. You have to be around here all the time.
"So many times it's like Carolina's got this and Duke's got that. Or State's got this and Wake's got that. We should have gotten this and they should have gotten that. Those comments come from people all the time -- and from all the schools. That creates rivalries that are uncommon in sports and there's no way that people who haven't lived here could realize that."
Those who do live in the area understand that Duke fans wear blue, but not the Carolina blue the Tar Heels wear. State fans wear red. And Wake fans, who recently were awakened from a three-decade slumber to relive past glory, wear gold and black or whatever they can find that pays homage to Coach Dave Odom and Time Duncan, their program's two saviors.
Jim Valvano, a native New Yorker who coached at North Carolina State from 1980 to 1990, once told Barry Jacobs of The New York Times: "When I first got here I thought it was unusual...that colors could evoke such unbridled joy or wrath in people. I understand it now. I don't think I'll ever cease to be amazed by it."
Each of the Big Four schools and their basketball programs are unique, yet each one strives for the same ultimate goal. A championship in the highly competitive ACC is always near the top of the list. And so is winning a national championship. North Carolina, N.C. State, and Duke have combined to win seven national championships since 1957. Wake reached the Final Four in 1962 and the Final Eight in 1996, but has yet to capture that final prize.
Woody Durham, long-time radio broadcaster of North Carolina games and a native of the state, once explained it this way to Jacobs: "You live with the rivalries every day. We force you to choose sides. That's just the way we do it, and that's why we've got the tremendous interest we do."
In Chapel Hill, which the Fiske Guide to Colleges refers to as "the Southern part of heaven," the University of North Carolina occupies a 730-acre campus dotted with trees, manicured lawns, and thirty miles of brick-paved walkways. The campus was recently ranked among the top twenty in the nation for beauty by Thomas Gaines in his book The Campus as a Work of Art. The basketball team plays in the Dean Dome, named after Coach Dean Smith, and there is little doubt about their most feared and hated rivals.
"A game with Duke makes any Carolina fan's heart beat faster," the Fiske Guide says. "But N.C. State takes the prize as the most hated rival of all."
Duke fans might take exception to that observation based on their heated games with North Carolina during the 1997-98 season when both teams were for a time ranked number one nationally. While UNC is located on one of the most beautiful campuses in the country, both Duke and State have more of an urban feel about them. Duke's campus is still pretty -- buffeted by the 8,300-acre Duke Forest and anchored by the majestic Duke Chapel -- but it is located in Durham, where crime is a real-life, day-to-day problem. This could be why only 14 percent of the student population actually hails from North Carolina, with a large portion of the rest migrating from the northeastern states of New York and New Jersey. (At UNC, on the other hand, 82 percent of the student body comes from within the state.) Duke's basketball fans seem to reflect the rougher edge, earning a national reputation as one of the rowdiest, most innovative crowds anywhere in the college game. They enjoy poking fun at Carolina's supposed arrogance and N.C. State's reputation as a party school soft on academics. The feeling at Duke is that students there have the best of both worlds -- they know how to study and have a good time, too, and they don't look down their noses at anybody (except, of course, for the students and fans from UNC, State, and Wake Forest).
As for N.C. State, the school continued to fight the renegade image it first earned during shocking scandals in 1957 and again in the early 1960s. The scandal-ridden coaching stints of Norm Sloan and Jim Valvano did nothing to dispel that reputation. it has been a long, uphill fight for the Wolfpack. And as Les Robinson found out, you had better win while you're working on graduating student-athletes, or you'll be gone very quickly. Robinson improved on the academics after Valvano was forced out, but didn't win enough and eventually was asked to step ...
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