100 Things Duke Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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100 Things Duke Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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Overview
100 Things Duke Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource guide for true fans of the Blue Devils. Whether you're a die-hard booster from the days of Mike Gminski or a new supporter of Jahlil Okafor, these are the 100 things all fans needs to know and do in their lifetime. It lists figures from the Vic Bubas era to the current Coach K era—with stories on each of his four national championships and the players involved. The book also features the places all Duke fans needs to visit, such as the Angus Barn, and provides background on the university, including how it was founded and what makes the famed chapel such a special structure. Every essential piece of Blue Devils knowledge and trivia is here, as well as must-do activities, and ranks them all from 1 to 100, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist as you progress on your way to fan superstardom.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633193543 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2015 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 8 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
100 Things Duke Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
By Johnny Moore
Triumph Books
Copyright © 2015 Johnny MooreAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63319-354-3
CHAPTER 1
Cameron Indoor Stadium
A classic venue and the crown jewel of college basketball, Cameron Indoor Stadium originally opened in 1940 as Duke Indoor Stadium. Heading into the 2015–16 season, it has been the site of 832 men's basketball victories. More than a few of those victories have been influenced by the electric atmosphere within its Gothic halls.
Well before $2 million renovations in the 1980s, legend has it that it all began with a book of matches. For a town and a school founded on local tobacco fortunes, that seems a fitting way to start. On the cover of a matchbook, Eddie Cameron and Wallace Wade first sketched out the plan for Duke Indoor Stadium in 1935. The story may be a myth (the matchbook has never been found), but then the Indoor Stadium that emerged from those first scribblings lends itself to the propagation of myths.
For seven decades, spectators, players, and coaches have understood the unique magic of the Indoor Stadium. The building was dedicated to longtime Duke athletic director and basketball coach Eddie Cameron, a legend in his own right, on January 22, 1972. Then an unranked Duke team upset third-ranked North Carolina 76–74 after Robby West drove the length of the court to hit a pull-up jumper to win the game.
It's the intimacy of the arena, the unique seating arrangement that puts the wildest fans right down on the floor with the players. It's the legends that were made there, the feeling of history being made with every game. And it's something indescribable that comes from the building itself. No one who has experienced it will ever forget it.
Whether or not the matchbook story is true, it is a fact that the official architectural plans for the stadium were drawn up by the Philadelphia firm of Horace Trumbauer, a self-made man, a poor boy who left school at 16 to apprentice himself as a draftsman to a local architect. In 1890, at the age of 21, he opened his own office and quickly rose to prominence in the Northeast. His designs for the mansions and estates of wealthy northeastern magnates brought him to the attention of James Buchanan Duke, the North Carolina tobacco baron. Duke commissioned the architect to design his New York town home during the early part of the century. In 1924 when Duke created the $40 million Duke Endowment that turned Trinity College into Duke University, he called on Trumbauer to design the new university campus. In recent years it has come to light that the plans for the campus, as well as designs for later buildings, including the stadium, were drawn up not by Trumbauer himself (although his name appeared on all the blueprints) but by his chief designer, Julian Abele, one of the nation's first African American architects.
The original design for the Indoor Stadium was significantly less grand than the one from which the building was actually constructed. That first plan called for 5,000 basketball "sittings," and even that number was considered extravagant, at least by Trumbauer, who originally had proposed 4,000 seats. In a letter to Duke president Dr. William P. Few, Trumbauer said: "For your information Yale has in its new gymnasium a basket ball [sic] court with settings for 1,600 ... I think the settings for 8,000 people is rather liberal ... the Palestra at the University of Pennsylvania seats 9,000." The original building was a domed structure with 16-feet steel ceiling spans and a 90-foot by 45-foot playing court.
As important as the size of the stadium was its external appearance. It was vital that the building be aesthetically integrated with the original West Campus buildings. For this reason stone was taken from the Duke quarry in nearby Hillsborough, where all the stone for the original campus had been found. The stone had to be laid in temperate weather. (In extremely cold temperatures, the mortar would freeze.)
Building on the stadium proceeded quickly and finished in nine months before it was officially opened on January 6, 1940. The final cost was $400,000, which Duke finished paying after the football team won the Sugar Bowl in 1945. Touring the building before the evening ceremony and subsequent game, local city officials were "speechless." Said Chamber of Commerce president Col. Marion B. Fowler, "It is so colossal and so wonderful ... This building will not only be an asset to the university but to the entire community as well." Chamber secretary Frank Pierson concurred, "There are no superlatives for it."
But Duke's Indoor Stadium was a structure of superlatives. The arena measured 262 feet long by 175 feet wide and was the East Coast's largest indoor stadium south of the Palestra in Philadelphia. Nine fixed steel frames spanned the ceiling at 26-foot intervals. Seating for 8,800 included 3,500 folding bleacher seats on the floor designated, then as today, for the exclusive use of undergraduates. Maximum capacity was 12,000. It was, according to the program issued the opening night, "one of the most modern and complete physical education buildings in the country."
The building was dedicated before a crowd of 8,000, the largest ever in the history of southern basketball. President William P. Few and Dean William H. Wannamaker presented the stadium to the university. Dean R.B. House of UNC-Chapel Hill, representing the Southern Conference, also spoke. Aware of the tensions his presence as a member of a rival institution might cause, House affirmed, "I am a Methodist. I aspire to religion, I endorse erudition and I use ... tobacco ... Hence, I claim to have good personal grounds for being a friend and well-wisher of Duke University ... here will be on parade not only Duke University, but also ... youth ... education ... [and] the values of a great and democratic people. Modern games preserve for us the athletic glory of Greece, the executive efficiency of Rome." To the greater glory of Greece, Rome, and particularly Duke University, the Blue Devils beat the visiting Princeton Tigers that night 36–27.
Originally the largest indoor arena in the South, Cameron is today one of the smallest in the nation. Nevertheless, its stature grows from year to year. Sold-out crowds, top 25 rankings, and championships of every variety have become the norm. The "creative harassment" of student spectators has given Duke the honor of being known as "one of the toughest road games in the USA," according to USA TODAY and any visiting team that has ever played in Cameron. In its June 7, 1999 issue, Sports Illustrated rated Cameron Indoor Stadium fourth on a list of the top 20 sporting venues in the world in the 20th century, ranking ahead of such notables as Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and Pebble Beach.
CHAPTER 2Coach K
He stands as the first Division I college basketball coach to amass more than 1,000 wins and the winningest coach in the history of Division I men's college basketball. But when he first arrived on the Duke campus, Krzyzewski not only spelled his name to everyone in attendance at his first press conference, he also tried to teach everyone how to pronounce his name. Was it with a silent K, like "shu" or was it a hard K? He wouldn't be called "Coach K" for a number of years. "Special K" was the first promotional material put out on the former Army player and coach.
But the people within his inner circle at Duke came up with the most appropriate nickname available — Captain. Since he was a captain in the Army, Captain just fit him. So for years he was called "Captain" or "Mike." Being "Captain" or a leader has always been a natural fit for the kid from Chicago. "Growing up I was always the leader of my group. There were just instinctive things you do as a leader," he explained. "Looking back, the people I admired were leaders — whether it was my coach in high school or my college coach. I gravitated toward wanting to know what leaders did."
Krzyzewski also grew up with a love for the game of basketball. He played at all-boys Catholic Weber High School in Chicago. "I loved playing basketball from the time I was in the seventh grade," Krzyzewski said. "I fell in love with basketball and I played all day with my buddies. I shot a lot by myself and imagined that my team always won. My high school coach, Al Ostrowski, made me better. He pushed me to be a better player and he helped me to understand the nuances of the game."
During Kryzyzewski's junior season, Ostrowski had to light a fire under Krzyzewski to get him to shoot more in the game. He finally told him he would have to run laps every time he didn't shoot the ball, so in the next game, Krzyzewski lit up the scoreboard for 30 points and he ended up leading the Catholic League in scoring that year, getting an early taste of what leadership and belief can do for a player. "I always thought the basketball was my friend, and it would never let me down," he said. "It's been my friend my entire life."
After high school Krzyzewski headed off to the best leadership school in the world at West Point, the United States Military Academy. "You take that desire or instinct to lead and now you are taught how to lead," Krzyzewski explained. "After West Point being in the service you are around a lot of leaders — good leaders, medium leaders, and not-so-good leaders. So you start developing your own leadership style."
During his military service, he coached service teams and served for two years as head coach at the U.S. Military Academy Prep School at Belvoir, Virginia. After resigning from the service with the rank of Captain in 1974, Krzyzewski worked as a graduate assistant to his old Army coach, Bob Knight, at Indiana University.
Krzyzewski always wanted to teach. His ambition in high school was to be a high school teacher and coach. "The thing I loved the most — and still love the most about teaching — is that you can connect with an individual or a group and see that individual or group exceed their limits," he explained. "You feel like you've been a part of them. You become something bigger than yourself."
He got his first head coaching job at his alma mater and served there from 1975–80, putting together a 73–59 record and one trip to the NIT. Those weren't very impressive credentials to take over a Duke basketball program that played for the national championship in 1978 and spent the majority of the next three years ranked among the top five teams in the nation. But here he was, working to recruit players to play against two of the top programs in the nation in UNC and N.C. State and not making much progress as he missed on several top recruits before hitting the jackpot with his freshman class that entered Duke in the fall of 1982 and included Johnny Dawkins.
In those days he wasn't known so much for being a leader, he was a defensive coach — a belly button-in-your-face, help-side defensive coach. This was a world of change for most of the players and all the fans who had gotten used to zone defenses in this area of the country. North Carolina was one of the top zone defensive teams in the country with their coach Dean Smith being one of the great teachers of zone defensive play.
It took time and a lot of mistakes to get this defense down, but following his first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1984, the Blue Devils' man-to-man defense was part of the fabric of college basketball. One of the strongest rules in teaching this man-to-man, help-side defense is belief, and Krzyzewski with his leadership background was able to use belief as the lightning rod that made his defense effective.
In taking that leadership and teaching mantra to heart, Krzyzewski has developed into one of the finest college basketball coaches in the history of the game. A 12-time National Coach of the Year, he has also been voted the ACC Coach of the Year five times, second on the all-time list. In 1991 he was inducted into the National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame. The (Raleigh) News and Observer named Krzyzewski the best coach in ACC history in celebration of the league's 50th anniversary in 2002–03. In a postgame ceremony on November 17, 2000, the Cameron Indoor Stadium court was named Coach K Court in Krzyzewski's honor.
As part of a joint venture, Time magazine and CNN named Krzyzewski "America's Best Coach" in 2001. "No college hoops coach has won more in the past two decades, and Krzyzewski has accomplished all this with a program that turns out real-deal scholar-athletes — kids who go to class, graduate, and don't mind telling everyone about it," Time's Josh Tyrangiel wrote. On October 5, 2001, Krzyzewski was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He became the youngest recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Award at the United States Military Academy in 2005 and in September 2009 he was inducted into the Army Sports Hall of Fame. In 2011, along with Tennessee women's coach Pat Summitt, he was named the Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated.
His success has also made him a very rich man — with reports of his salary exceeding the $10 million mark and annually averaging well over $7 million. Beginning in 2005, his success led to a slew of commercial endorsements, including spots for Chevrolet, an endorsement deal with GMC, Allstate and State Farm Insurance companies, and an American Express commercial shot in Cameron Indoor Stadium that looked more like a commercial for Duke than a spot for Amex. "I don't look at myself as a basketball coach," he said in the commercial. "I look at myself as a leader who coaches basketball."
The commercial was part of the "My Life, My Card" series, which has also featured Ellen DeGeneres, Tiger Woods, Robert DeNiro, and Laird Hamilton. American Express spokesperson Rosa Alfonso said the commercial was not a pitch for Duke, but rather that the university is a central part of Krzyzewski's story. "It's the reflection of his life and the story he has to tell, as with all the individuals we feature," Alfonso said of the commercial. "The reality is that he is an inspiration to many people and he affects a lot of people personally off the court."
His leadership plan is simple. "The single most important quality to be a leader is to be trustworthy, he has to be believable," Krzyzewski said. "He has to have the courage of conviction and the courage to do the right thing at the right time — forget about the consequences — do the right thing. A leader has to have energy, you need to be enthusiastic, you can't show weakness, you have to be strong."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 100 Things Duke Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Johnny Moore. Copyright © 2015 Johnny Moore. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Mike Gminski,Introduction,
1. Cameron Indoor Stadium,
2. Coach K,
3. The Shot,
4. Upsetting UNLV and K's First Title,
5. Johnny Dawkins,
6. 1992 National Championship,
7. Cameron Crazies,
8. 2015 National Championship,
9. Christian Laettner,
10. 2001 National Championship,
11. Bobby Hurley,
12. Danny Ferry,
13. 2010 National Championship,
14. Shane Battier,
15. Grant Hill,
16. Jason Williams,
17. J.J. Redick,
18. Art Heyman,
19. Go Camping at Krzyzewskiville,
20. Jeff Mullins,
21. Bill Foster,
22. Duke Chapel,
23. How the Blue Devils Got Their Name,
24. Eddie Cameron,
25. Smell the Flowers at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens,
26. Dick Groat,
27. Dukies on TV,
28. The Legend of Fred Lind,
29. The Dominating 1999 Team,
30. Coach K and USA Basketball,
31. Gman,
32. The Fight,
33. The War of 1989,
34. Dennard and Banks — So Long and Thanks,
35. Wojo's Senior Day,
36. Washington Duke,
37. The Duke Brothers,
38. Dedication Day,
39. The 7–0 Game,
40. Duke vs. Shaq's LSU Tigers,
41. Black Sunday,
42. Siler City — The Beginning of the Carolina Hatred,
43. Dine at Angus Barn,
44. The Missoula Mountain,
45. Bill Werber, the First All-American,
46. Capel's Shot,
47. Austin Rivers' Game-Winner and the One-and-Dones,
48. Cap Card,
49. The Architects of Cameron,
50. C.B. Claiborne,
51. Ferry Scores 58,
52. Miracle Minute,
53. Red Auerbach,
54. Duke-Carolina Pranks,
55. Renovations to Cameron,
56. Gerry Gerard,
57. Harold Bradley,
58. Visit the Nasher Art Museum,
59. Visit East Campus,
60. Stay at Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club,
61. Jay Bilas,
62. Read "The Chronicle",
63. Madison Square Garden and the Meadowlands,
64. Early All-Americans,
65. Visit the Duke Basketball Museum,
66. Attend Countdown to Craziness,
67. Johnny Dawkins' Epic Weekend,
68. Boozer's Injury,
69. K's First Win Over No. 1,
70. Wallace Wade,
71. Bucky Waters,
72. Coach K and the Legacy Fund,
73. Wojo,
74. Jon Scheyer,
75. Nate James,
76. Jeff Capel,
77. Chris Collins,
78. Tom Butters, the Man Who Hired Coach K,
79. Make a Fist,
80. Billy King,
81. Snow Day,
82. Jim Spanarkel,
83. Tinkerbell,
84. The Alaskan Assassin,
85. Bob Verga,
86. Jack Marin,
87. Just Say No to L.A.,
88. Randy Denton,
89. Elton Brand,
90. The Landlord,
91. Carlos Boozer,
92. Mark Alarie,
93. Kyle Singler,
94. The Lost Season of 1994–95,
95. Tate Armstrong,
96. Chris Duhon,
97. Steve Vacendak,
98. Tommy Amaker,
99. Mike Dunleavy,
100. Chris Carrawell,
Acknowledgments,
Sources,