Post by Bornthrilla on Mar 3, 2009 14:12:22 GMT -5
www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/story/1426216.html
Have the Crazies lost their edge?
DURHAM -- North Carolina senior guard Bobby Frasor was hoping for something more clever from the Cameron Crazies. He knew they had dangled a McDonald's Happy Meal bag to tease Sean May about his weight and dressed in orange jumpsuits to make fun of Rashad McCants for comparing college basketball to prison.
But over four years, they rolled out the same, bug-eyed "Beaker" character from the Muppets to make fun of Tyler Hansbrough.
"That kind of got old," Frasor said, "so they kind of need some new material."
Duke's students traditionally have been famous for embarrassing opposing players for their shortcomings with witty chants from the stands. But some longtime followers of Duke basketball say the atmosphere at Cameron isn't what it used to be. Critics say the Crazies' seldom live up to the hype anymore.
Cameron might still be the best and loudest atmosphere in college basketball. The Web site Dukeblueplanet.com reports that a meter at the Feb. 22 game with Wake Forest measured the noise at 116 decibels after one Gerald Henderson dunk.
That's as loud as a chain saw.
"[Cameron] is definitely what it's cracked up to be," N.C. State senior Ben McCauley said. "It's so small, and when they're all cheering together in sync, it's so loud."
Nonetheless, author John Feinstein, the Duke alumnus and Washington Post columnist, said the students have lost their verve. He misses the clever spontaneity of the Cameron Crazies from years past.
The current Crazies are too preoccupied with painting themselves and dressing in costumes in hopes of getting on TV, he said.
"When I was in school, the students were great and the team was bad," Feinstein said. "Now it's the other way around."
Orchestrated chaos
It's probably best that Duke students don't attempt some of the stunts that made them famous in the 1980s.
Students threw record albums on the court during a visit from N.C. State and Chris Washburn, who had stolen a stereo. After Maryland's Herman Veal was accused of forcing unwanted sexual attention on a woman, students welcomed him by tossing condoms and panties on the court.
Duke students today try to keep it clean when fans at other schools get dirty. On Wednesday night, Maryland fans serenaded Duke forward Kyle Singler with "[Bleep] you, Singler," after he got tangled up with the Terps' Sean Mosley.
If one of the Crazies at Cameron swears today, one of the 30 or so student "line monitors" often tries to stop the bad language. That's part of an organized student effort to maximize support while minimizing abusive behavior.
There even are rules for cheers:
* Chant slowly to make the cheer last the duration of an opponent's possession.
* Making fun of family situations or health problems outside an opposing player's control is off limits.
* Opponents' own mistakes are fair game.
The Crazies delivered their strongest shot this season at North Carolina guard Ty Lawson, who was charged in June with driving after consuming alcohol.
"Ty fought the law, and the law won," they sang in a song suggested by the cheer sheet.
But some suggest that orchestration has stifled the students' creativity.
Camera Crazy
Duke historian Bill Brill said the Crazies no longer display the same spontaneity as they did when they supposedly invented the chant of "Airball" after a miss by North Carolina's Rich Yonakor in 1979.
"I hear that [complaint] all the time," he said. "I think in a sense they're right, because it's so much more orchestrated today. But that's all television-driven from my perspective."
Before the Jan. 24 game against Maryland, it was easy to see how the students could feel like stars in a reality TV series. Long before tipoff, a camera crew aimed microphones at them and ran half the length of the sideline trying to get them to scream as the camera moved.
Have the Crazies lost their edge?
DURHAM -- North Carolina senior guard Bobby Frasor was hoping for something more clever from the Cameron Crazies. He knew they had dangled a McDonald's Happy Meal bag to tease Sean May about his weight and dressed in orange jumpsuits to make fun of Rashad McCants for comparing college basketball to prison.
But over four years, they rolled out the same, bug-eyed "Beaker" character from the Muppets to make fun of Tyler Hansbrough.
"That kind of got old," Frasor said, "so they kind of need some new material."
Duke's students traditionally have been famous for embarrassing opposing players for their shortcomings with witty chants from the stands. But some longtime followers of Duke basketball say the atmosphere at Cameron isn't what it used to be. Critics say the Crazies' seldom live up to the hype anymore.
Cameron might still be the best and loudest atmosphere in college basketball. The Web site Dukeblueplanet.com reports that a meter at the Feb. 22 game with Wake Forest measured the noise at 116 decibels after one Gerald Henderson dunk.
That's as loud as a chain saw.
"[Cameron] is definitely what it's cracked up to be," N.C. State senior Ben McCauley said. "It's so small, and when they're all cheering together in sync, it's so loud."
Nonetheless, author John Feinstein, the Duke alumnus and Washington Post columnist, said the students have lost their verve. He misses the clever spontaneity of the Cameron Crazies from years past.
The current Crazies are too preoccupied with painting themselves and dressing in costumes in hopes of getting on TV, he said.
"When I was in school, the students were great and the team was bad," Feinstein said. "Now it's the other way around."
Orchestrated chaos
It's probably best that Duke students don't attempt some of the stunts that made them famous in the 1980s.
Students threw record albums on the court during a visit from N.C. State and Chris Washburn, who had stolen a stereo. After Maryland's Herman Veal was accused of forcing unwanted sexual attention on a woman, students welcomed him by tossing condoms and panties on the court.
Duke students today try to keep it clean when fans at other schools get dirty. On Wednesday night, Maryland fans serenaded Duke forward Kyle Singler with "[Bleep] you, Singler," after he got tangled up with the Terps' Sean Mosley.
If one of the Crazies at Cameron swears today, one of the 30 or so student "line monitors" often tries to stop the bad language. That's part of an organized student effort to maximize support while minimizing abusive behavior.
There even are rules for cheers:
* Chant slowly to make the cheer last the duration of an opponent's possession.
* Making fun of family situations or health problems outside an opposing player's control is off limits.
* Opponents' own mistakes are fair game.
The Crazies delivered their strongest shot this season at North Carolina guard Ty Lawson, who was charged in June with driving after consuming alcohol.
"Ty fought the law, and the law won," they sang in a song suggested by the cheer sheet.
But some suggest that orchestration has stifled the students' creativity.
Camera Crazy
Duke historian Bill Brill said the Crazies no longer display the same spontaneity as they did when they supposedly invented the chant of "Airball" after a miss by North Carolina's Rich Yonakor in 1979.
"I hear that [complaint] all the time," he said. "I think in a sense they're right, because it's so much more orchestrated today. But that's all television-driven from my perspective."
Before the Jan. 24 game against Maryland, it was easy to see how the students could feel like stars in a reality TV series. Long before tipoff, a camera crew aimed microphones at them and ran half the length of the sideline trying to get them to scream as the camera moved.
