Duke Blue Planet BLOG

Yesterday’s News & Observer questioned if Cameron and the Crazies have changed over the years (and gave a nice shout-out to DBP).  An expert on this matter is Kim Reed, one of the original founders of Krzyzewskiville back in 1986 and a current season ticket holder.  Kim shared her memories of K-Ville and offered her thoughts on the evolution of Cameron as well…

What was the policy like to get into games back then?
There wasn’t really a policy.  Basically, the first people who get here would get in first.  So people would start lining up a few hours before the game and there were kind of preferred seats.  At that time there was a fraternity-like organization called BOG, which stood for Bunch of Guys.  They were really loud and obnoxious and would sit right behind the visitor’s bench where there was no buffer at that time.  The visiting team had to take their team out on the court during their timeouts because of BOG.  That’s why the buffer zone was instituted.  The BOG guys would all get there really early so that they could take their place.  The students wanted to get center court.  When I first got here we got killed by Virginia my freshman year with Ralph Sampson.  Then every year we got a little better and a little better.  By my senior year, people were getting out in line for three and four and five hours for the big games.  Since there was no policy about waiting in line, you basically just got creative. 

So you guys decided you wanted to be first in line and that is why you started K-Ville?
Well my recollection of this (which I’ve checked with the other guys who were with me) is that the previous year, in 1985, a tent full of people had camped out for the Washington game because they had Detlef Schrempf who was a really great player.  We had heard about that, so a couple of days before the Carolina game we were sitting around playing quarters wondering, “When are we going to have to get out there?”  We though 6 AM or maybe 4 AM and then realized we might as well just go out the night before.  And someone said, you know “Why don’t we just go out now!”  So, we went up to the U-Haul store on Hillsborough Road in my car, rented as many tents as we could fit, and brought them back here.  We parked right in front of Cameron and unloaded the tents.  And someone, I think me, said “Shouldn’t we ask Dean Sue if we could do this” and someone else said, “Oh no, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.”  So we set them up and then Friday morning students would walk by Card Gym, people saw us.   Other students started thinking this was a great idea and asking us where we got the tents and it just kind of grew from there. 

Without any rules, did things get out of control at all?
No.  We had a sign that basically said “Don’t even think about cutting this line, we’ve been here since Thursday morning.”  And most of the people who were there in the front of the line were Air Force ROTC guys, muscular guys, so we really didn’t have any problems.  It was just such a new, novel thing and all of the people there in the front of the line knew each other. 

How many people were in that first group?
There were four tents of us who kind of knew each other.  I’d say there were probably 14, 15 people total in the four tents.  We got out there two days before the UNC game.  It was on a Saturday and we went out on a Thursday night.

How did you guys choose where to set up?
At first, we wanted to set up actually under the doorway of Cameron.  You know there’s the archway and a roofed area, and then there’s actually the inside of the building.  We wanted to set up there, because the weather was lousy.  It was really cold, we were afraid it was going to rain.  But then we thought that if we actually set up that close, we’re going to get in trouble.  So we set up literally right outside that arch, where the first shrub is outside the door.  Part of our tent was leaning up against the doorway of Cameron. 

How did you guys decide on the name “K-Ville”?
I can’t claim credit for that.  I frankly don’t know which of the tenters came up with K-Ville.  We just started calling it that and we made a sign out of the bottom of a case of beer.  Someone probably has that sign today but I don’t know where it is.  The sign was made on a Saturday morning when the whole student body started getting in line. 

Did you guys get any response or reaction from University officials?
The only response we had from University officials was from Coach K, when he sent out a bunch of pizzas to us on Friday afternoon.  He felt sorry for us because we looked really cold!  Later, he came by and brought Alaa (Abdelnaby) with him, who I believe was on a recruiting visit.  So he brought him by, and here’s us a bunch of crazy people in tents and I think Alaa just really didn’t know what to make out of it, but we got him so that’s a good thing.

Did you ever think Krzyzewskiville would ever make it this big?
It’s unbelievable.  I rarely talk about it or bring it up, but some of my friends, who know that I was involved in the first one, will bring it up to mutual friends.  The response I get is, you know everything I’ve ever done in my life doesn’t compare!  We didn’t have any expectations at all.  All we cared about was getting into the game and getting a good seat.  It never even occurred to us whether this was going to happen again next year or how this would work in the future.  It never occurred to us.  In fact, I remember coming back the next year when I was a first year in law school at UVA, coming back and visiting two of the guys that I had tented with.  I was just amazed that people were doing this again.  And now we look at this whole system, line monitors and DSG representatives, it’s just astounding to me what its come to. 

What did you guys do to pass the time?
We stayed in and around the tents pretty much the whole time for two-and-a-half days.  We had a keg.  We played a lot of cards.  We did homework.  A couple of these guys were ranked at the very top of the class.  I had tennis practice so I walked over to the tennis courts and played and came back.  We had a little hibachi, so we barbecued some hotdogs on sticks and we tried to barbecue marshmallows but that was a miserable failure.  We had a contest to see who could smash beer cans against their foreheads, and that also was miserable.  We just goofed around doing the same things they do now.

What was the national media coverage like for that game?
It had no impact at all on our decision to go tent.  It never occurred to us that this would be picked up by the media.  Only a couple games a year were televised back then. This particular game was televised by NBC Sports.  When the NBC van got there and pulled up between Cameron and Card Gym and saw us in these tents, they were basically like, “What are you guys doing?”  They came out and talked to us and showed us in the pregame and went down a whole line of students. 

How does the atmosphere in Cameron then compare to now?
I feel a lot of people who graduated in the 70’s and 80’s always say, “Oh, when I was here the crowd was so much better.”  And I don’t see that.  I think the crowd is always great.  One thing that has changed was that we used to be able to get away with a lot more in terms of risky chants, things that were really pushing the envelope, that Coach K just doesn’t put up with now. 

So the Crazies generally are still as loud but maybe not as “mean”? 
I think that’s right, and I think part of that has to do with Coach K drawing lines.  He decided we’re going to be classier and we’re not going to cross those lines.  There have been times when he’s been displeased with a cheer and he’ll just outright say “Stop it!”  But I can give so many examples back then when you would say stuff that would really get under someone’s skin.  On the other hand, though. we didn’t have “Speedo Guy.”

How many games do you usually attend each season now?
I probably come down to three games for the regular season and then we go to the ACC Tournament and we always go to the Final Four.  We flew from Russia to the Final Four twice!  

Gerald Henderson was named ACC Player of the Week on Monday after leading the Blue Devils to a pair of tough road wins last week.  In the two ball games at Maryland and at VA Tech, G averaged 20.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.0 steals.  He joins Kyle Singler as the second Duke player to earn Player of the Week recognition this season.  The PA native is averaging 20.1 PPG in ACC play on the year, ranking fourth in the league in scoring.