Chansky's Notebook: Dukies Back At It

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I thought Duke had banned that crass behavior a long time ago.

I remember when Duke students were dubbed the Cameron Crazies by the late NBC broadcaster Al McGuire. Becoming national TV celebrities, the Crazies had no boundaries to the crap they would shout in unison and write on cruel posters that Dean Smith criticized openly after his games at Duke.

There was a Carolina player in the 1970s with some acne that the Crazies ridiculed ruthlessly. There was another sign about a Tar Heel of the 1980s, whom they said couldn’t read. And they trashed Smith and his assistant coaches mercilessly. It got better when Tom Butters became athletic director and ordered all signs and placards to be approved or would be removed along with their propagators. And all cheers in unison were cleared before the games.

The Crazies became just a raucous rooting section copied by so many student wannabes at other schools. Until recently when they got away with a malicious sign that parroted a rumor floating around on social media at the game against UNC on February 4.

It wasn’t original, just making fun of a published claim about two Tar Heel men’s basketball players and one on the women’s team.

Duke’s new athletic director Nina King might have seen the sign and confiscated it, but it was too late to keep it from smartphones snapping photos and being digitally shared all over the country. And this was a school that reacted strongly to racial slurs during a Duke volleyball match at BYU.

You know by now that gossip has been pushed out about Caleb Love and R.J. Davis, so much that Love tweeted a message with R.J.’s okay.

laughing at the BS😂we locked 4🤞🏽 @ariidavis_ pic.twitter.com/taykrbZiZc

— Caleb Love (@caleb2love) February 9, 2023

“Rumors, I’m sure y’all have all seen it,” Love texted. “And that’s just what it is. None of that was true, as far as me and RJ. That’s my brother, and I love him. We don’t have anything going on, no beef, none of that they tried to label us. And so I told him, just tune out the noise and let’s hoop.”

Love had his best game of the season in Saturday’s win over Clemson. And despite a nagging dislocation of a finger on his shooting hand, Davis continues to be UNC’s best all-around player on both ends of the floor.

As for the Dukies, why don’t you return to being the grown-up, blue-painted entertainers you’ve been since Butters put you in your place.

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Chansky’s Notebook: Dukies Back At It

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