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long time ago in the South (sic), we used to argue among ourselves
about which was better, South Eastern Conference football or Atlantic
Coast Conference basketball.
Folks
took their positions on one side or the other of a fairly old cultural
divide. There were the hard types from the hills — Scotch Irish,
mostly — who believed in football. They would have believed,
also, in a man’s right to make whiskey (drink a little, too), a wrathful
God, and howling at the moon. Then, there were the gentlemanly, Tidewater
sorts. More English, Episcopalian, and in all things refined. It was
Nathan Bedford Forrest as opposed to Robert E. Lee.
Now the essence of sport is in the rivalries. This is the purest
expression, the Platonic ideal, the apotheosis and all the other
stuff. In SEC football, it is Alabama/Auburn. In ACC basketball,
Carolina/Duke. (If you have to ask which Carolina, go back
to remedial work; Fan 101 or something.) These are games that produce
enough electricity to jump start every pickup from Valdosta to Martinsville.
Last Thursday night, Carolina and Duke put on a show that would
have thrilled even the sort of righteous football fan who just can’t
get excited by a game where the players wear short pants and you
get penalized for hard hits. It was a game that lived up even to
the extravagant hype of the television boys who like to throw around
the phrase, “Tobacco Road,’ when they talk about the rivalry. None
of the golden throats, you can be sure, have read Erskine Caldwell
or are aware that the last cigarette factory in Durham (home of
Duke) closed down the other day.
Tobacco Road is shorthand (except among TV types) for white trash
southerners who are too lazy to
| “Tobacco
Road is shorthand for white trash southerners who are
too lazy to kill a snake.” |
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kill
a snake, meaner than a junkyard dog and randier than . . . well,
never mind. None of those people go to school at the University of
North Carolina or, God forbid, Duke. Which was, by the way, built
on a tobacco fortune. Carolina, of course, is a state school but one
that likes to think of itself as belonging to a better class than
those other state schools, one that includes the University of Virginia
and probably nobody else.
Duke, now, is a private school that considers itself “southern”
only by accident of geography. Strolling the grounds of the Gothic
campus, you are more likely to hear the accents of Westchester County
and Greenwich, Connecticut than the Tidewater, the Piedmont, or
the Smokeys.
But for all their pretensions, academic and social, when it comes
to basketball, these schools are the real deal and when they play
each other they genuinely get it on. Going into the game Thursday
night, Duke was ranked #2 in the nation; Carolina was #4. The game
was played at Duke in Cameron Hall, in front of 9,314 spectators.
It was, to say the least, a home crowd. Maybe the 314 were Tarheels
but that would be a generous estimate.
Adding to Duke’s pre-game, moral advantage was the fact that it
had won the last 5 games against Carolina and 7 of the last 10.
The only man on the Carolina team who had experienced a victory
over Duke in their house was the coach. Duke had lost only one game
this season; that to #1 Stanford.
But this is one of those rivalries where coming in favored just
raises the emotional stakes. And Carolina was no pushover, having
lost only two games this season and winning its last 15. The team,
under first year coach Matt Doherty, was more physical and aggressive
than recent Carolina squads. And, perhaps, mentally tougher as well.
It would have to be against Duke, a team that lived on lightening
offensive runs, as Maryland had discovered to its woe when Duke
came back from 10 points down with less than a minute to play and
win earlier in the week.
Carolina stretched out a 13 point lead early but, inevitably, Duke
came back. It was 41-34 at halftime and you could imagine the Duke
fans thinking, “Got ‘em right where we want them.”
When Duke took the lead, with 14:21 left in the 2nd half, it looked
like they were right.
There were 5 more lead changes. Duke tied it, 83-83, with 9.3 seconds
left in the game. There was no air left, by this time, in Cameron.
People watching on television were hyperventilating.
Then, with 1.2 seconds left, Shane Battier, the leader of the Duke
team, fouled Brendan Haywood, one of Carolina’s poorest free throw
shooters. Even so, it was not an especially smart foul. Haywood
was 20 feet from the basket. He made both shots.
Final score 85-83. Mike Krzyzewski (good Southern name) the Duke
coach did not, refreshingly, blame it all on the officials. Coach
K is one of those rare coaches who knows how to lose even though
he doesn’t have much practice at it. That it was Battier who committed
the foul that cost Duke the game was especially poignant. Duke basketball
routinely produces citizen-athletes worthy of Athens in the time
of Pericles and this season Battier fills the role. He is a Christian,
an outstanding student majoring in religion, a gentleman, and a
leader. Of the foul, Battier said, “I was just trying to make a
play on the ball like a defensive back would. I got called for pass
interference, I guess.”
Interesting that he should resort to a football metaphor.
After the game, the Duke fans went home depressed while 8 miles
away in Chapel Hill, they danced around bonfires but did not burn
the campus down. This was unlike the behavior of the Maryland fans
who, after Duke’s remarkable comeback, threw things the Duke fans.
Even the president of the university called his students’ behavior
“brutish and violent.” Sort of like the Clinton/Gore kids on their
way out of the Executive Office Building and White House.
Fans of Carolina and Duke acted with more dignity; perhaps because
they have been there before and know they will be there again. This
was the 207th game between the two schools. In 107 of those games,
at least one team was ranked. In 51, both were ranked. In 9, both
were in the top 5.
They do it again on Saturday afternoon, March 4 and it can’t come
soon enough.
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