The crowd turned expectant when the p.a. system cut off the rock 'n' roll.
Cheerleaders ran to the corner of the court, pompoms waving. Security officers held back the fans at the entrance, and a man with official tags hanging from a lanyard around his neck shouted, "Team's coming in. Make some noise!"
The pep band struck up Duke's fight song as soon as the string of tall, extraordinarily fit players loped onto the basketball court and began dribbling and shooting. The swell of the clapping, stamping, whistles and whoops from the crowd filled Cameron Indoor Stadium. Not even the lure of an Indian summer Saturday afternoon could entice these ardent fans away from watching the Blue Devils trounce the Northeastern Huskies.
These weren't the Cameron Crazies you're used to seeing with Dick Vitale on ESPN. This was Cameron's other assemblage of enthusiasts -- those who cheer for Duke's women's team.
"It's a fast game; it's fun to watch," said Kristina Johnson, dean of Pratt School of Engineering and season ticket-holder for front-row seats underneath the basket. "It deserves to be sold out every game."
Duke is among a handful of universities whose men's and women's basketball teams both compete for national championships on a regular basis, and the rise of its women's team in recent years has been accompanied by an increasingly loyal set of fans. The crowds for the women's team typically feature fewer screaming Duke undergraduates but a diverse array of supporters from the campus and community.
"The fans are a big part of the game," says Rob Rabb. "It feels like a family. It's easy to see how you are making a contribution. The coaches appreciate the fans."
Duke's women's team reached the national championship game last year, coming within one heart-breaking shot of a victory. Coached by Gail Goestenkors and led by seniors Lindsey Harding and Alison Bales, this year's team was ranked fifth in the country in pre-season polls. Once again, its schedule is among the toughest in the nation; in December, the team hosts Vanderbilt and Texas, both of which are ranked in the AP Top 25.
Supporting the two Duke teams is not an either-or question for true fans -- plenty follow both. Dr. Henry Friedman, James B. Powell Jr. professor of neuro-oncology and deputy director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, has been to nearly every women's basketball game since his daughter first brought him in 1999. Also a fan of the men's team, he says the women play a "purer" game.
"They basically don't play above the net," he says. "You don't get a lot of the high-flying stuff. It is a game of true basketball fundamentals — passing, dribbling, shooting. It's beautiful to watch."
Friedman buys about 80 season tickets a year for family, friends and patients. But he does more than just sit in the bleachers. During his first season, he began mentoring Georgia Schweitzer, then a sophomore player who had aspirations of going to medical school. After a successful basketball career as a player and assistant coach -- she was 2000 and 2001 ACC Women's Basketball Player of the Year -- Schweitzer is now in medical school at Duke. That relationship prompted Friedman to organize a mentoring program for other student athletes interested in medical school.
"I'm invested in the kids themselves," Friedman says. "It goes beyond observing the game when you know the team personally."
Many of the regular fans feel a similar personal connection to members of the women's team, who often sign posters for fans after the game. Sarah Copley, 11, sat one row back behind the Duke bench at a recent game, sporting a Duke T-shirt and clutching a women's basketball poster. She said someday she'd like to play for Duke.
"Basketball is my favorite sport, and Duke is my favorite team," Copley says.
Jaime Schneider, 18, wore one of her 14 Duke shirts as she claimed a first-row seat near center court. She's not a Duke student "yet," she says, and harbors no hopes of playing basketball, but game after game she shows up to cheer on the women's team.
"The fans are more laid back than at a men's game, because there are not as many students," Schneider says.
Indeed, there was only one, lone painted face in the crowd on a recent Saturday. Young moms bounced babies in their laps in time to the tunes from the pep band. Older moms giggled with their grown daughters or were ignored by their teenagers. Kids played in the bleachers; men of all ages had room to sprawl across several seats -- a luxury unavailable when the women's team plays top opponents and sells out the arena.
Adam Hartstone-Rose, for the past eight years a regular in the stands along with his wife, Kelly Lynn Mulvey, concurred that more people from the community turn out for the women's games.
Hartstone-Rose said the atmosphere at women's games reflects the best of Durham. "It's an affirmative environment," Hartstone-Rose says. "Everyone has a positive feeling."
Rob Rabb stood the entire game on the top row of the bleachers. Husband of Duke alumna Merry Rabb ('77, grad school '80), he has been a women's team fan since the early '90s, when "they weren't very good," he said. He has a special machine that makes buttons from photos of the players that he gives to their friends and family and displays on a wide tie knotted around his collar.
Tipplynn Gilchrist, 15, rode in from Raleigh with her mother, Muriel, who has been following the women's team for at least 10 years. The two sat in their season-ticket seats underneath the basket, Tipplynn rarely taking her eyes off the action on the court. Tipplynn wants to play for Duke in a few years. Every year for the past four she has made a T-shirt promoting a different player.
Kristina Johnson, who sits a few rows away from the Gilchrists, also enjoys the intensity.
"I love the fast break, the no-look passing," Johnson says. She said that in last year's Final Four, the women's games were far better than the men's. "Even the most male-chauvinist basketball fans say that," Johnson says.