K-ville Origins

[CEF1959]

I think this, from Wikipedia, is an inaccurate description of the origin of K-Ville. Camping out from Thursday for a Saturday game in 1986? I don't think so. I think it started years before with camping from earlier in the week. Comments? Alternative claims to origins?

"While lining up hours before games (the UNC game in particular) had always been a regular practice, every now and then a group of students would be ambitious enough to get their sleeping bags out and sleep in line the night before in order to ensure their front row seats. In 1986 Kimberly Reed, a resident of the Mirecourt selective living group, took the practice one step further and decided with a group of her Mirecourt friends to line up even earlier for the UNC game and sleep in tents.[1] Showing up on Thursday for the Saturday tip-off, the fifteen friends set up four tents and prepared to sleep outside of Cameron Indoor. They were quickly noticed by the rest of the student body, and by game time there were 75 tents in line to see Duke battle their long-standing rival UNC. The NBC news crew put them on the evening news, and they made the front page of USA Today. Their dedication was rewarded with a 85-72 Duke victory, and tenting in K-ville would be forever immortalized as a Duke University tradition."

[Welcome2DaSlopes]

It's wikipedia, if you dissagree change it.

[blazindw]

I think this, from Wikipedia, is an inaccurate description of the origin of K-Ville. Camping out from Thursday for a Saturday game in 1986? I don't think so. I think it started years before with camping from earlier in the week. Comments? Alternative claims to origins?

"While lining up hours before games (the UNC game in particular) had always been a regular practice, every now and then a group of students would be ambitious enough to get their sleeping bags out and sleep in line the night before in order to ensure their front row seats. In 1986 Kimberly Reed, a resident of the Mirecourt selective living group, took the practice one step further and decided with a group of her Mirecourt friends to line up even earlier for the UNC game and sleep in tents.[1] Showing up on Thursday for the Saturday tip-off, the fifteen friends set up four tents and prepared to sleep outside of Cameron Indoor. They were quickly noticed by the rest of the student body, and by game time there were 75 tents in line to see Duke battle their long-standing rival UNC. The NBC news crew put them on the evening news, and they made the front page of USA Today. Their dedication was rewarded with a 85-72 Duke victory, and tenting in K-ville would be forever immortalized as a Duke University tradition."

This is pretty accurate, as this same story has been told to me several times by independent people who were among the first K-Ville residents as well as from several Mirecretians who were around back then, including Ms. Reed (I was in Mirecourt as well).

[CEF1959]

Well, the reason I ask is that I think I have Chronicle evidence from 1979 that people started camping out at Cameron as early as Tuesday-Wednesday for Saturday games. But before making any claims (or changing Wikipedia), I thought I would check in with this crew.

[El_Diablo]

Well, the reason I ask is that I think I have Chronicle evidence from 1979 that people started camping out at Cameron as early as Tuesday-Wednesday for Saturday games. But before making any claims (or changing Wikipedia), I thought I would check in with this crew.

Post it here then...

[airowe]

There's a world of information here:

http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17225

[heifer]

If it was 1979 then it would've have been K-ville as K was not yet at Duke.

[CEF1959]

Hmm. Good point. Though I think the Elgin Marbles existed before Elgin came and took them to Britain and gave them their popular name, no?

[Duke1986]

I think camping out in K-ville really got started in 1986 before the UNC game (senior day for Dawkins, Henderson, Alarie, Bilas and Weldon Williams). I was a member of the Class of '86 but graduated in December 1985, and camping out had not been going on while I was there from 1982 through 1985.

[DU82]

Well, the reason I ask is that I think I have Chronicle evidence from 1979 that people started camping out at Cameron as early as Tuesday-Wednesday for Saturday games. But before making any claims (or changing Wikipedia), I thought I would check in with this crew.

People did sleep overnight in front of Cameron then (my first season was 1978-79, and I lived across TowerView in House CC all four undergraduate years) however I never saw any tents. There were occasionally sleeping bags, but that was it. No Fosterville. Not even a paved parking area for the coaches (read "Forever's Team" for an explanation of why that was important.)

I would concur that the 1986 tenting for the Carolina game is the first documented case and the start of Krzyzewskiville.

[DevilHorns]

http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/issues/030404/depret.html

[CEF1959]

A page 1 feature in the Friday, February 23, 1979 Chronicle entitled, "Basketball line forming already," reports that people started lining up for the Saturday night 2/24/79 UNC game on Tuesday afternoon. The first people slept in sleeping bags in the portico of Cameron. [What that Friday am Chronicle article didn't report was that by Friday night, there were a dozen or so tents outside the portico for the next day's game. The local Durham newspaper came out to cover the event on Friday night, and so did a local TV station. Friday night was a party/circus. I know because I was there.]

The article includes great quotes, such as, "Why does anyone in their right mind camp out for four days to see a basketball game?" Answers from those camping out included:

"We don't like Dean Smith, and we want to get a good seat so we can let him know it Saturday" and

"Because we love Duke basketball" and

"We plan to yell Mike O'Koren out of the place and carry on a lengthy one-sided dialogue with Dean Smith" and

"We hope to weed out the undevoted."

Of course, no one put up a sign that said, "K-Ville" (K wasn't coach yet). The practice apparently became moribund following the down years that came after, to be revived in 1986.
But the practice was not invented in 1986. That much is documented.

By the way, that game was 7-0 Duke at halftime (no shot clock; Dean got the opening tip and went into the 4-corners offense) and ended 47-40 Duke. I don't know of another game in the past 70 years in which a major college team was shut out at halftime. Sweet that it was Carolina.

[DukieInKansas]

A page 1 feature in the Friday, February 23, 1979 Chronicle entitled, "Basketball line forming already," reports that people started lining up for the Saturday night 2/24/79 UNC game on Tuesday afternoon. The first people slept in sleeping bags in the portico of Cameron. [What that Friday am Chronicle article didn't report was that by Friday night, there were a dozen or so tents outside the portico for the next day's game. The local Durham newspaper came out to cover the event on Friday night, and so did a local TV station. Friday night was a party/circus. I know because I was there.]

The article includes great quotes, such as, "Why does anyone in their right mind camp out for four days to see a basketball game?" Answers from those camping out included:

"We don't like Dean Smith, and we want to get a good seat so we can let him know it Saturday" and

"Because we love Duke basketball" and

"We plan to yell Mike O'Koren out of the place and carry on a lengthy one-sided dialogue with Dean Smith" and

"We hope to weed out the undevoted."

Of course, no one put up a sign that said, "K-Ville" (K wasn't coach yet). The practice apparently became moribund following the down years that came after, to be revived in 1986.
But the practice was not invented in 1986. That much is documented.

By the way, that game was 7-0 Duke at halftime (no shot clock; Dean got the opening tip and went into the 4-corners offense) and ended 47-40 Duke. I don't know of another game in the past 70 years in which a major college team was shut out at halftime. Sweet that it was Carolina.

I don't remember tents from that game. I was in line an hour or two after midnight - so early Saturday am and pretty close to the front of the line. It was cold and rainy. Uncle Terry came by and they ended up opening the doors 4 hours before tip instead of 2 hours.

My remembering may be off.

[CEF1959]

I don't remember tents from that game. I was in line an hour or two after midnight - so early Saturday am and pretty close to the front of the line. It was cold and rainy. Uncle Terry came by and they ended up opening the doors 4 hours before tip instead of 2 hours.

My remembering may be off.

That's right: Terry Sanford did come by. I'd forgotten that. But it wasn't rainy; it was SNOWY. The Chronicle article recalls people in line throwing snowballs while others tried to sleep. And they didn't just open the doors early for the game; they let people who didn't have tents camp inside the Cameron hallways (and use the bathrooms) Friday night. Then they threw people out Saturday morning to wait for them to open the doors later.