A First-Hand Account of Cameron Indoor

Augusta National. Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Lambeau Field. Yankee Stadium. Fenway Park. The Rose Bowl. Wrigley Field.

All of these venues are adored, historic landmarks of sports in the United States that are all at least half a century old. This list, of course, is lacking a venue in the most original of popular American sports, basketball.

Sure, there has been a building called Madison Square Garden in Manhattan for well over a century, but the current structure was built in 1968, which makes Oakland Arena (or Oracle Arena if you want to please sponsors) the oldest arena in the NBA.

So, by far, the most logical basketball arena to place in my rudimentary "Ancient Wonders of American Sport" is Cameron Indoor Stadium, a venue I was fortunate enough to visit this past Saturday.

I had never been to Cameron before last weekend, but the building has been a sort of unknown legendary family member for my whole life.

When my Dad went to his first Duke home game in late 1975, the Duke program was in a lean time of sorts, winning only about a third of its conference games in the first six seasons of the decade. After making the NIT in 1971, the Blue Devils were 14-34 in ACC play and 49-55 overall for the next four seasons.

By my Dad's junior year, Duke had made an unexpected run to the national title game by upsetting Notre Dame, before falling to Kentucky.
(John Feinstein's book about the 1977-78 Blue Devils, Forever's Team, is an excellent read for any Duke or ACC fan. You might have to look on eBay or the used section of Amazon, however, as the book probably went out of print long ago.)

Countless stories from my Dad's four seasons among the "Crazies" have been told to me, and with many of those stories being told five, 10, or more times over.

While it is not a story per se, my father had also told of how small Cameron is and that it only holds about 8,000. I have known this fact ever since I was five, but the compact nature of one of the most heralded basketball arenas in the world was still a shock.

Usually, when you visit a college or university, the school's basketball arena is very noticeable. It's usually the building that looks most like a gym, has a higher roof and may be a different color or architecturally foreign to the rest of the campus.

Not so with Cameron Indoor Stadium.

If signs right outside the campus buildings were not present at Duke, one would likely see it as a large-sized classroom or dorm building until they found the box office on the side of the building.

If you enter into Cameron at any of the non-student entry ways (which you would, obviously), you enter through a doorway. And by doorway, I mean a typical doorway like you probably have many of in your house or apartment.

You then head up a stairway, taking you to the level of seats above the students. And by a stairway, I mean something that is probably narrower than what you have at your home or apartment.

In other words, if there was ever a diametrically opposite sports arena to Staples Center, the American Airlines Center, or any other 20,000-seat NBA arena built from about 1991 to now, it is surely Cameron Indoor Stadium.

My Dad and I sat in the next-to-last row of seats. In fact, we were a mere 15 feet or so from the press box where you always see the TV guys broadcasting from when doing a live shot during pre-game, halftime, or post-game. If you have ever wondered why it looks as if Mike Patrick and Dick Vitale have just ran 5Ks before doing said live shots, it is because it is quite warm in that part of the arena.

Duke's official website says that air conditioning was added before the 2001-02 season, but I didn't feel it. Of course, with temperatures going from the mid-40s on Friday in Durham to what felt like the mid-60s on Saturday afternoon, the air conditioning was probably off in anticipation for another cool day.

Last month, I was able to meet up with super-awesome basketball buddy Kyle Whelliston (of ESPN and Mid-Majority dot-coms fame) during his one yearly trip to the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex. Lucky for me, he was at North Texas, my school, and at a game I would have gone to anyway against South Alabama.

Somehow during our halftime conversation, the minute detail of Duke getting RPI credit for a road win against UNC Greensboro last season at Greensboro Coliseum (despite the game being organized by Duke) came up. I mentioned my upcoming trip to him to which he said, "Make sure you bring seat cushions. The seats are really uncomfortable." Of course, I didn't and they were, as the guy who finds a way to go to 100+ college basketball games every season (now all mid-major games to boot) was clearly smarter than I. But this is not to complain, as I would rather have the atmosphere and uncomfortable seats than the other way around, as is often times the case at North Texas games (more on than later).

We sat in those seats about 50 minutes before tip-off, and of course, the students were almost all in place and cheering just about every three-pointer and flashy looking play that the Blue Devils made against their formidable warm-up opponent of air.

Obviously, the Cameron Crazies are the number one thing that makes the atmosphere so special. If somehow, the roles were reversed, and the season ticket holders and other paying customers got floor seats, while the students were relegated to the upper reaches of the arena, the atmosphere would likely suffer, but probably only slightly. Another factor that makes Cameron special is that the next to last row of seats in the entire building is a deceptively great seat. In contrast, going to Charlotte Hornets (I feel so old typing that) games in the mid-'90s and sitting in the next to last row of seats in a 24,000-seat arena was incredible, but not in a real good way.

Which brings me to the topic I teased a little earlier. At the school I attend, North Texas, the arena is 10,000 seats, which is way too big for a school that draws at a maximum 7,500 for a basketball game (and that's only when a basketball-conscious Big 12 team travels to play here). The school features a huge undergrad population of over 25,000 (although a fair portion of those are older, part-time students).

I know that every school can not be like Duke when it comes to passion for basketball, but for whatever reason, not a very big amount of my fellow students care about college basketball, or care about Sun Belt basketball in particular. Given, that number has grown since UNT went to the NCAA tournament last spring.

And being that I live in Texas, but am a transplant from the Carolinas, I guess I might never get why three or four times more people would show up for a football game between North Texas and Louisiana-Lafayette that truly means nothing in the grand scheme of Division I-A football than show up to see home basketball games against South Alabama and Western Kentucky, who both have good chances to be in the NCAA tournament come March 16.

Louisiana-Lafayette (or any other Sun Belt football team) will never have a chance to be in the BCS and play for a title, unless the talent level increases about threefold over the next decade (which it won't). But one Sun Belt team will always be six games from winning an NCAA Division I Basketball championship. And, uh, rant over.

You may have noticed that I haven't talked one bit about the actual game on Saturday. After two straight losses and facing a St. John's team that is one of the worst power conference teams in the nation, Duke was always going to trounce the Red Storm. I predicted a 25-point win, but the Blue Devils won by 30 in their yearly-misplaced late February non-conference game.

There were a few things, though, to notice about the blowout.

• Usually (but loved by the Crazies) inconsistent center Brian Zoubek pulled down 13 rebounds, but it came against a St. John's frontline that looked to be even smaller than Duke's oft-questioned forwards.
• Greg Paulus was absolutely awful in the first half. He was turning the ball over very commonly during Duke's first few possessions and picked up three fouls in the first nine minutes of the game. Even as a Duke fan (it chose me, not the other way around), I don't really like the guy that much. He is undoubtedly the most hated player in the country.
• Paulus' backup, Nolan Smith, could be a star as soon as next year if he, not coincidentally, cuts his turnovers down.
• Kyle Singler in person is a better basketball player than on TV, and he's definitely no slouch when watching him on screen. He is especially a better defender than people realize when he can move around the perimeter. Because Duke really only has Singler, Zoubek, and Lance Thomas over 6-foot-6, Singler has been forced to play a bigger opponent in many games.

To focus on some of the game's semantics would be to lose the plot, as the trip was not as much about the 40 minutes on the court than the three hours I spent inside of college basketball's greatest theater.