Re: Cameron Crazies

Dear ESPN,
Okay. So you're not famous people, but you are a famous channel. Today you get the honor of being a single famous person. Yay for you.

At the risk of showing my bias in sports, I will proceed to tell you why your trip to Durham for College GameDay will be in vain.


So I'm eating dinner, ESPN. I'm watching your crappy Around the Horn show and wondering why the hell smug-ass Jay Mariotti is still on the show when you advertise the UNC/Duke game on ESPN, and I'm like, "Awesome! The Game is going to be on ESPN instead of CBS this year! I can't believe it!"

Then all of a sudden you mention you're introducing a "Cameron Crazy Cam," whatever the hell that is.

ESPN, I really think that you're a bit deluded on thinking that the Cameron Crazies are the "country's best sixth man" only because they don't want to waste money attempting to make their stadium bigger to accommodate more fans, let alone students. (They're increasing tuition soon at Duke. They can really afford a new stadium, but they like that unbearably hot stadium so much, they'll keep it until people can't safely walk around in it.) Hell, everything but the vanity trophies and plaques and whatnot all over Cameron and the bathrooms need to be made over. You have to go to the concession stands one day, ESPN, and see what kind of hell-hole Cameron really is. Either there or the horribly-carved, broken and unsturdy student bleacher section. ESPN, the best seats in the house at Cameron are actually anywhere but Cameron.

And ESPN, you should see the Crazies. I just went over there for the women's basketball game, and, like every other women's game, there were less student fans Crazies there as opposed to a men's game. But their stadium behavior struck me as...zombieish. It was like looking at all the rejects from the "Thriller" video attempt to watch a basketball game. As usual, the Crazies typed up their stupid cheer sheet for the game (and the freshmen, I presume). I guess they put at the top of the sheet in bold caps DO NOT LET THIS SHEET GET IN THE HANDS OF THE MEDIA OR WE WILL BE RIDICULED BY EVERYONE EXCEPT DICK VITALE, and I guess they put this sample cheer on the sheet:

Whenever the Tar Holes start chanting "Let's Go Tar Holes" and we're in the lead, point to the scoreboard and say "Scoreboard, scoreboard," etc.

Lo and behold, those Cameron Crazies did that for the women's game around halftime.

Lo and behold, the Duke women's basketball team have now lost five in a row to my Tar Heels.

The Crazies' material is so fresh, ESPN! Maybe you can give the Crazies a new nickname. How about the Cameron Cornies! Now that's a name that describes the Crazies perfectly.

ESPN, do you think their game attire is "clever?" Ooh, the opposing team is scared by some morons that are dressed up like Ronald McDonald (for a Georgia Tech game last year) or the characters from The Wizard of Oz (the UNC men's game three years ago) or the Blues Brothers after our band skit (the UNC men's game last year) instead of dressing up in their school colors! Please! It is not that hard to dress up in Duke blue and white to support your school.

Okay, okay, so I was at the UNC home game this year where some wackos dressed up in Hawaiian shirts and life preservers for Miami. Other than than, most everyone that gets in the risers at UNC men's games wears Carolina blue and white.

At this year's women's game, I saw some of the lamest signs, shirts and makeup jobs known to mankind. Two girls with signs: "Our women's team/Can defeat your men's team." (N.B.: No one cares about men's basketball at a women's basketball game.) A girl with a shirt reading "I'm with the cheerleaders" with a makeup job inspired by The Ultimate Warrior.


(Okay, I've had some lame makeup jobs on my face, too. I should let that go. But the Ultimate Warrior is a crazy motherfucker.) A guy with a shirt: "Not our rivals" (no comment--it would be too lengthy to print, and this post is already too long).

The cheers were also lousy as well: The band has invented a drum beat for the cheer "Go to hell, Carolina, go to hell." There was the inane cheer for the Duke alumnus known only as "Crazy Towel Guy" because he gets up and waves a towel around, yay. There was the complete lack of jumping coherence during a cheer that may or may not have been done to that song "Devil In A Blue Dress." And--this is the best part--all the students fleeing the stadium instead of staying to sing their alma mater, "Dear Old Duke" after a loss. ESPN, we can put in a bet on how many students at Duke know their alma mater!

In closing, ESPN, I know you probably won't share in my general hatred of the Cameron Crazies. They're just a bunch of hopeless students that feel their only chance of fame is to go to a Duke game; I think a handful of them are there for the team exclusively. (Granted, every sports team on any level has its share of posers, but at Duke there must be several thousand of them that are willing to act like zombies to get on TV.) You probably won't share in other people's hatred of the Crazies--inside and outside the Duke community. All I ask is that you outfit that unlucky sap (probably a frosh at Duke) that has the misfortune of being outfitted for the UNC/Duke game and capture the moments that America's been dying to see from the Crazies: attempting to hide the UNC cheer sheet from your cameras, forgetting what was on the cheer sheet, the sap screwing up everything he/she remembered from the cheer sheet, and, if Duke wins, watching the sap throw your camera in that pathetic painted bench-burning exercise they call "making bonfires."


Penny Woods

(P.S.: America, I'm sorry if I offended your sports sensibilities here--I don't mean to offend fans of Duke that don't act like the Crazies, but I felt the need to rant about the Crazies and the "great" enviroment they cheer in.)

(P.P.S.: Love, I'll be the first to send you a picture of a gay man rockin' Duke blue, best believe that.)

(Pics: ESPN, Wikipedia, MS Special)