Lucas Hubbard: The Roar of the Crowd and the Ethics of Fandom

Coach K is lucky.  Seriously.

I know this may be blasphemy to the ears of some (if not all) Duke students, but hear me out.

I’m not saying that he’s fortunate to have won four national championships, to have secured twelve ACC regular season championships and twelve ACC titles, and to have qualified for eleven Final Fours.  He’s obviously unparalleled in the coaching arena.

Nor am I suggesting that he’s lucky to have gotten such great players over the years to carry him to these championships.  Success breeds success, and once he molded his first championship team, the seeds for the later ones had already been planted.

But one factor—unique to Duke—influences the game greatly, yet Coach K doesn’t realize its impact, even as this element helps him pile up the wins on a regular basis.

This factor? The Cameron Crazies.

The Crazies are to Duke Basketball what Kramer was to Seinfeld: sure, the show could’ve been successful with Jerry, George, and Elaine, but Kramer pushed it over the edge and turned it into a juggernaut.

Similarly, Duke basketball would be great without the Crazies, but the fans are the icing on the proverbial cake.  Eight of the past nine years Duke has either been undefeated at home or had only one loss, and every year their home record has smashed their away and neutral records.  Last year was a tremendous example of this phenomenon: at home, Duke was 17-0; on the road, they dropped to a middling 5-5.

Given these impressive statistics, it seems weird that Coach K would want to mess with a good thing, but that’s exactly what he may be doing with his request for “classier and more creative” chants from Duke fans.

I understand the principle behind it; after all, we are all scholars, and we shouldn’t demean other schools’ scholar-athletes (if people still believe that term holds any significance against a team like Kentucky’s 18-year-old mercenaries).  But I’ve been to multiple games in Cameron, and, although I haven’t yet witnessed the chants lobbed toward UNC players, what I’ve heard so far hasn’t crossed any moral boundaries.

My fear, strictly from a basketball fan’s point of view, is that any restrictions, however seemingly obvious or appropriate, on the “craziness” of the Cameron faithful will cause Duke’s supporters to lose their edge.  Think back to some of the famous moments in Crazy history: the origins of the “Airball” chant and the “Speedo Guy.”  To call these moments classy would be a slight stretch, yet they are arguably Duke’s finest hours of fandom.  They were effective, catchy, and now famous.

I’ve been to other big showdowns in hockey, football, and basketball, but I’ve never been a part of a crowd like the Crazies.  State championship football games? Nothing special.  University of Maine hockey games?  Barely white noise.  The Bobcats-Magic game last weekend? A funeral compared to Cameron.

Coach K, we have the passion for our great basketball team, so let us have our cheers.  We don’t need to swear, but we can’t censor ourselves unnaturally.  Let us yell, scream, complain, moan, harass, scold, and berate.  Let us cheer, support, exalt, erupt, and triumph.

You’ll thank us when you’re raising the next banner.