An Eight Mile Thin Line Between Love and Loathe

I’m not the best early-riser… never have been, really.  As a result, when I was a child, an early bedtime was a necessity and therefore, when the greatest rivalry in sports played out at the 9pm slot on a weeknight, I didn’t get to see the end.  The next morning, I’d open my eyes, look at my mother and within five seconds, I knew the story.  Waking up to her standing there with a smirk on her face, I knew the kind of day I was up against at Hillandale Elementary School.  I’d throw the covers off and with a huff ask incredulously, “Did Carolina really win?”  I didn’t curse as a fifth-grader, but if I did, my breakfast would have been soap.  On the contrary, waking up to her pulling my covers off with a huff… well, it was better than a snow-day.  From as far back as my memory serves me, I have been in the thick of it.  I grew up in Durham, North Carolina.  I grew up in Rivalry Country. 

One of my first memories of the DUKE/UNC rivalry was from when I was about 6-years-old.  At the time, my Dad was not yet working for DUKE University.  And what’s worse - the man was (and he’s going to kill me for putting this in print)… he was a… wow, I can barely even type this... he was a Carolina fan, OK?  My Dad, the man who texts me during every play of every DUKE game these days, my point person for DUKE season tickets, was a Tar Heel loving-Dean Smith supporting-Rah Rah Carolina-lina-Hark The Sound-powder blue wearing-Carolina fan.  Think I’m lying? Think I’m exaggerating?  My brother’s name is Marc.  Correction:  my brother’s middle name is Marc.  My brother’s first name is Philip.  Philip with one “L”; named after the great Phil freaking Ford.  It’s not Johnny Marc Goswick or even Amaker Marc Goswick.  It’s Philip Marc Goswick.  So, next time you see him at the DUKE/UNC game in Cameron, it means he blocked me from tickets that year.  So please feel free to remind him that he’s named after a Tar Heel legend. 

Back to my point...My first memory is my Dad bringing home the player sheet for the Tar Heels that year.  I took it up to my room and looked at it.  I specifically remember seeing pictures of players including J.R. Reid, King Rice and Rick Fox and thinking, Wow, I can’t stand these guys.  It’s nothing personal, but I cannot go for this team.  It feels unnatural.  I didn’t care that my mother had worked for The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for about 20 years at that point.  I didn’t care that the hand-signed 1982 NCAA Championship basketball was sitting in our living room.  Oh and those soda bottles commemorating the title from 1982 that were in our kitchen?  Yeah, they weren’t doing it for me either.  None of that mattered to me - I just was not feeling it.  How could I when I was born with DUKE blue blood?

As luck would have it, very shortly after this realization, DUKE came-a-calling.  Dad took a position with DUKE University in the Alumni and Development Systems Department and despite his then-love for Carolina, Dad was glad to be a part of the DUKE community.  As for my reaction, "Glad" is not the adjective I would use to describe it.  Euphoric is more like it.  Euphoric and relieved.  Finally!  Finally we’re moving in the right direction here… the DUKE direction.  Shortly after this, we became season ticket holders.  (Thankfully, my Dad was hired in 1988 when it was just a smidge easier to become a season ticket holder at DUKE than, say, maybe three years later.  Just a hunch there).  At age 7, I had reached my destiny: I was going to Cameron… I was going home.

I will be honest and say that I do not remember my very first DUKE game in Cameron but I can share with you my very first memory of being at a DUKE game. Sitting in Section 12, Row Q, I had heard the noise before.  Unbelievable to me, fans were boo-ing Jeff Capel.  For the purpose of not allowing the legacy of the Cameron Crazies to be tarnished, I need to note here that these fans there that night were not the consensus, nor were they in the student section.  There were only a few of them, really.  And the only reason we heard them was because they were near us, not because it was coming from the masses whatsoever.  Nonetheless, after having watched their team win back-to-back titles a few years earlier, I guess these fair-weather fans had seen enough of the struggle.  Someone must have neglected to tell them that you don’t win every single year; that there are lulls during rebuilding years.  Yep, these fans came out in the thick of winter and chose to express their disdain for DUKE’s #5.  As bad as that memory was (the “fans" not Jeff Capel), there was a silver-lining; my father, the man who named his son after Phil Ford, stood up and audibly berated these people.  I can’t remember exactly what he said but he let them know what they were doing was (for the purpose of keeping it clean here) unacceptable.  He shut them up that night. And a few nights later, Jeff himself shut them up when he heaved a 40-footer at the buzzer to extend the game against the #2 team in the country: UNC.  We didn’t go on to win the game that night but I walked out of Cameron Indoor Stadium on February 2, 1995, with an even deeper conviction in what I had always known to be true:  I chose the right shade of blue. 

I have long said that if you introduce me to a person in North Carolina, I know within seconds which blue they root for.  We don’t even have to touch on sports, let alone college basketball; I just know. This ability is ingrained in anyone whose birthplace is North Carolina.  People up here in the 212 and surrounding areas don’t necessarily get it but that’s because they have a misconception of what the greatest rivalry is.  They think the greatest rivalry is Yankees/Red Sox. Really?  How can this be?  How can the rivalry between these two baseball clubs be so intense and so polarizing yet here comes Red Sox third-baseman Kevin Youkilis in pinstripes?  How can Yankees fans loathe Johnny Damon one year and then root him on when he gets his paychecks signed by Steinbrenner?  And the list goes on.  There’s also Roger Clemens and of course, Babe Ruth.  That would be like Michael Jordan leaving the Tar Heels in 1984 for DUKE rather than the NBA.  Or Coach K turning down the Lakers in 2004 and taking Krzyzewskiville to Franklin Street.  The Yankees and Red Sox were scheduled to play 18 games last year, not including playoffs.  Every time you turn around those two are playing each other.  Unless, of course, you happen to turn around during the World Series.  What kind of sporting event precludes the two marquee teams from ever matching up?  DUKE and UNC cannot meet for the NCAA title but not because of logisitics; because heads would roll. Remember how big of a deal it was in 2012 when Kentucky and Louisville met in the Final Four?  Well multiply that by about a kazillion. Then square it.  That’s DUKE and UNC in the NCAA Championship game.  Meeting for a division title?  Child’s play.  These people up here just don’t get it.

But people in the vicinity of the 8-mile stretch known as Tobacco Road certainly do get it. And what’s interesting about it is that you also get that sometimes, you just have to accept some cold, hard facts.  You have to accept that not everyone you love is going to love the same team as you do (ahem, Mom). You just have to file that away with things like politics and religion… it’s just who a person is.  You may have to walk down the aisle in a Carolina blue bridesmaid gown for your best friend one day.  But, you know what?  She’s going to be a bridesmaid too one day and DUKE blue makes quite a lovely wedding color.  You have to accept that there are two, maybe three, and God-forbid four days in which you will not speak to your counterparts.  You could even potentially fall in love with a rival.  But not me; I married a DUKE alum, whom I met at a New York City restaurant named Duke’s… I kid you not.  But, that’s the beauty in it.  That rivalry is what makes the world go round, at least for us.

You meet someone new and after going through the initial pleasantries like where they work and whom they know, you get down to what really matters: Are you a Blue Devil or a Tar Heel? Are we going to laugh about how UNC fans all had their cameras out ready to snap photos of the final score right up until Austin Rivers drained that three over Tyler Zeller? Or are you going to try to talk to me about Hansbrough Indoor Stadium?  Will you try to regale me with memories of Wallace, Jamison, Carter and Stackhouse?  Or will we find solace together in knowing that Coach K has won the same number of National Titles as Carolina’s last four coaches combined?  Remember that blow-out NCAA Tournament game that Carolina was a part of?  Wait, are you talking about 2008 with Kansas or 2009 with Michigan State?  Is this going to be an “I can’t believe Christian Laettner went to 4 Final Fours” conversation or an “I can’t believe Christian Laettner didn’t get ejected for stomping on Aminu Timberlake’s chest” type of discussion?  When we talk about the greatest, am I going to be talking about Coach K while you try to say it’s Dean Smith?  If I say 2009-10 are you going to celebrate with me how DUKE won the title or are you going to go cry in the corner thinking about how UNC went 16-16 in the regular season that year?  Is the ACC Tournament the DUKE Invitational or “just a great cocktail party”?  Are you going to start talking about how DUKE gets all the calls and pays the refs?  If so, please step to the side, Pack Backer, as this is about DUKE and UNC; the real rivalry.  The greatest rivalry.  And soon enough, on March 9, 2013, we get to do it all over again.  We’ll make new memories that will further fuel the fire for years to come.  So, here’s to my rivalry friends wearing either shade of blue.  Let’s show the world once again what we’ve all known since we were kiddos:  Ain’t nothing better than DUKE vs. UNC, baby.  And hey, look at that - it’s a Saturday night game… I just might get to stay up until the end.