It's not just a rivalry. It's "The Rivalry."
And when the Duke and Carolina men's basketball teams met March 4 in Cameron Indoor Stadium before a sell-out crowd of 9,314 fans, it wasn't just the players who had to be prepared.
From the manager of concessions, to the volunteers who distributed statistics throughout the game, to the housekeeper who returned to clean Cameron at 3 a.m., scores of people work behind the scenes before and after each match up at Cameron. They may not be Cameron Crazies, but without them, games at Duke would not be the same.
"We've got so many dedicated people who help make Duke Basketball special," said Jon Jackson, Assistant Director of Athletics/ Communication and Media Relations. "Many of them aren't players or coaches and many don't ever receive recognition. They do it because they're passionate about Duke and want to be part of our program. They are, and we appreciate them."
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It was 8 a.m. on the day before the Duke-Carolina game, and Ken Blevins was already fast at work inside a garage near Cameron Indoor Stadium, preparing for the biggest college basketball rivalry of the season.
Oil sizzled as Blevins poured corn kernels into pans. The kernels hissed. Steam rose from the stainless steel machine.
Pop. Pop. Pop-pop.
Blevins tossed a popcorn bloom in his mouth. "I could live off the stuff," he said.
Duke basketball fans sure do. For the Duke-Carolina matchup on March 4, Blevins popped 110 pounds of kernels -- enough for about 800 personal tubs.
As manager of Blue Devil Concessions, Blevins is the game fare guru who sees to it that fans who pack Cameron -- and other Duke athletic venues -- have plenty of popcorn, water, soda, pizza, nachos, ice cream, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, barbecue and more.
"We're putting on a show just like the team's putting on a show," said Blevins, who is 56.
He joined Duke in 1993 from Macon, Ga., where he managed a Red Lobster. His first assignment at Duke was helping run a Burger King in the BryanCenter. For the last seven years, he has managed Blue Devil Concessions, a division of Duke Stores. He hires vendors, orders food, stocks inventory and ensures that on game day, Cameron's ten concession stands have what they need to put on a good show.
By The Numbers
Duke-Carolina Men's Basketball
March 4 @ Cameron
9,314 -- Number of fans in attendance
110 pounds -- Weight of raw corn kernels popped for game
2,500 -- Bottles of water ordered
10 -- Number of concession stands
29 -- Pages in a single "game notes" statistics packet
140 -- Traffic cones around Cameron
45 -- Staff to cleanup after the game
60 -- Trash bags for cleanup
3 a.m. -- Time cleanup crew started work
8 -- Miles between Carolina and Duke campuses
Imagine planning for a party with 9,000 guests. How does Blevins decide what and how much to order? How many Domino's Pizzas? How many Chick-fil-A sandwiches? How many bottles of Dasani® water? He decides after considering the day and time of the game and carefully studying a computer database of food and beverages sold at past events.
On the day of the Duke-Carolina game, one of 29 athletic events in March, Blevins had already worked two lacrosse games and a baseball game. And now, he was closing in on tip-off at Cameron.
Clipboard in hand, Blevins lapped the concourse surrounding the court, visiting each concession stand. He made sure the wireless handheld devices that track inventory and accept credit card purchases were operating. He found one concession stand low on ice and flipped open his Nextel and ordered 15 more bags. "I want to get them now, so we can beat the crowd," he said into his phone.
Cameron's concession stands are staffed by volunteers from community organizations, which receive a percentage of sales from their stands for charitable causes.
St. PaulUnitedMethodistChurch has worked in Cameron for 30 years. "It's given us the opportunity to do a lot of benevolent service for the city of Durham," said Gene Atkinson, whose church has donated proceeds to the Durham Rescue Mission.
Near St. Paul's concession stand, Blevins looked on as the doors of Cameron swung open on the Hall of Honor. Blue Devil fans streamed inside and took their place in food lines. A woman stepped up to a counter. "I'll take two popcorns."
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Tony Shipman unzipped his leather binder and pulled out a list of the Duke and Durham police officers working the game and their assignments. He paused, tilted his head and talked into a two-way microphone clipped to his shirt.
"Go ahead," said Shipman, a Duke Police lieutenant, who wore a tiny speaker that fit in his ear.
He learned the bus carrying Carolina's men's basketball team was running late. It had just pulled away from Chapel Hill to make the eight-mile trek to Cameron and was stuck in traffic. As Shipman waited for the bus to arrive, a half dozen people stopped and shook his hand or shouted greetings.
"Hey, Tony!" they yelled. "What's up, Ship?" others asked as they passed.
Shipman has worked hundreds of basketball games at Cameron during his 25 years with the Duke University Police Department. To some at Duke, he is more recognizable than some of the notables at the game -- baseball star Cal Ripken, ESPN announcer Dick Vitale, former Duke basketball standout Jason Williams, and Democratic strategist James Carville.
On the day of the game, Shipman started his beat at a Duke lacrosse game at 9:30 a.m. He called it a day well after midnight, once the last fans departed Cameron. In between, he put a few miles on his Rockport shoes, making sure officers were in position and the stadium was secure. Among his duties, he set up traffic cones and calmed irate students outside Cameron who could not get inside because the game was sold out.
Over the years on the beat, he has experienced the hilarious, and the bizarre.
"Three years ago, with about 28 seconds before the half of the Carolina game, we had a streaker come onto the floor from the student section," said Shipman, who is 49. "All he had on were his tennis shoes and a smile."
This year, the Carolina bus finally arrived at 7:40 p.m. Shipman directed officers to clear a path for the players and coaches. They walked into Cameron as Duke fans chanted, "Go to hell, Carolina! Go to hell!" Tasked with protecting Carolina Coach Roy Williams, Shipman followed the coach inside the stadium. A die-hard Duke fan, Shipman also must escort the opponent on and off the court.
"That's my job," he said. "People see my uniform. They know that I'm only working."
As Shipman escorted Coach Williams onto the floor before the game, they chatted about a common problem they both share after spending a lot of time on their feet -- how to deal with back and hip pain.
"We don't talk about the game," Shipman said. "I just wish him good luck."
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Of all the games, not this one, pleaded Jean Brooks as she stood at the copier in an office tucked inside one of Cameron's long interior corridors.
It was half-time. Just before 10 p.m. Reporters on deadline waited nearby in a media room for the first-half box scores, the lifeblood of their stories. But the copier flashed an error Brooks had never seen. She had to go to Plan B.
"All right, where's the nearest key to the business office?" Brooks asked. Soon, she and eight student helpers retreated to the business office and the copying began.
Several hundred sheets of statistics providing a breakdown of field goals, blocks, steals and other key game stats zipped out of the backup copier. Students ran the sheets out to radio and TV announcers, to TV trucks outside, to both locker rooms, to the media room, to the scorer's table, and even to Coach Mike Krzyzewski's wife in the stands.
Welcome to Brooks' world.
As a volunteer for Duke's Sports Information Department, she is in charge of ensuring that for every home basketball game -- men's and women's -- copies of game statistics, game notes and quotes, play-by-play action or, as she put it, "anything the press needs to write their stories," are delivered to the right places in lightning speed at half-time and after the game.
"They're like gold," Luciana Chavez, a reporter for The News & Observer, said of the statistics. Chavez culls the statistics for free-throw and rebound numbers to include in her stories.
Brooks' road from her native Maine to Cameron started when she was an undergraduate at Duke. She was a Cameron Crazie. A true blue, Blue Devil fan who slept in Tent 2 in Krzyzewskiville. After she graduated in 2000, she took a job at DukeLawSchool, where she is now assistant director of the annual fund.
Consider this statistic: Brooks has worked 100 basketball games as a volunteer.
"There's just something about Duke basketball," said Brooks, who is 27. "It's hard to stay away."
She sits closer to the action than most spectators on game nights. Her plastic chair is just off center court along Press Row, in front of the bouncing, screaming, painted Crazies and within arm's length of J.J. Redick and other players.
But unlike when she was a Crazie herself, while seated along Press Row, Brooks does not -- she cannot -- cheer for her favorite team. That's tough, Brooks said, especially during big games like tonight.
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About 26 hours had passed since the Blue Devils walked off the floor of Cameron for their last home game of the season. Carolina won 83-76. The lights in Cameron were on, and another Duke team had taken the court.
It was 3 a.m.
Ruby Murphy and 45 other university housekeepers and utility workers emerged from the early morning darkness shrouding campus to clean the stadium.
The screams from the Cameron Crazies had died. Their chants and cheers were replaced by what sounded like a librarian whispering "hush" as men and women pushed their brooms along the upper deck. A dozen other employees plucked trash off the lower level, where students usually stand.
Murphy began her work by plugging in a vacuum in the Hall of Honor lobby. A Durham resident and Duke basketball fan, she has worked at the university in different jobs for nearly 10 years. She has three sons who represent the full spectrum of the rivalry -- one a Duke fan, one a Carolina fan, and one who doesn't follow basketball. Murphy has worked the majority of the men's and women's basketball games during the last couple of years and has collected Duke memorabilia signed by players and coaches. She knows the rivalry and what to expect after a Duke-Carolina match.
"It's Duke and Carolina, so it's worse than usual," she said. "They said it would take about two hours, but I think it will take more than that to clean up this mess."
In the end, the cleaning crew filled and carted away more than 60 trash bags stuffed with popcorn, cups and bottles, an ESPN banner, pizza boxes (including a few cold pepperoni slices), bits of orange peel, the broken handle of a play sword, placards wishing the seniors well, statistic sheets, a happy birthday hat, and even a banana peel.
"You find everything but money," said Arnold Sudler, a utility worker, as he picked up two wool hats left on the bleachers.
As Sudler cleaned the bleachers, Murphy moved to the media room to restore order to a place that served as ground zero for dozens of media representatives who descended on Cameron to cover the game.
"I enjoy my job and the hours, but I don't think people realize how much we do," said Murphy, who is 42. "If people could only come out here and see, they would be surprised."
The clean up took about four hours. The crew that began at 3 a.m. returned Cameron to its splendor as most of campus was just waking up.