Todd Gurley loves Duke basketball

[flyingdutchdevil]

Yup. And that's awesome given, a) he spent time in North Carolina and is a Duke fan rather than an UNCer, b) he played in the SEC yet loves ACC ball, and c) he's a likable and extremely talented future pro-bowler.

URL: http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/23204/todd-gurley-is-a-left-handed-fan-of-duke-basketball-and-jolly-rancher

[sagegrouse]

Yup. And that's awesome given, a) he spent time in North Carolina and is a Duke fan rather than an UNCer, b) he played in the SEC yet loves ACC ball, and c) he's a likable and extremely talented future pro-bowler.

URL: http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/23204/todd-gurley-is-a-left-handed-fan-of-duke-basketball-and-jolly-rancher

Quotes on the St. Louis Rams rookie star. Fair use, of course:


1. He's a fan of Duke basketball. Gurley went to Georgia, so he roots for the Bulldogs too -- but his Duke allegiance has been around much longer.

Gurley split his youth between Baltimore and tiny Tarboro, North Carolina, two places with plenty of ACC fans who root against Duke. Even after moving to Tarboro, Gurley didn't know what or where Duke was. But he played the March Madness video games as a kid and liked using the Blue Devils on the game. Then he learned that Duke was located in Durham, North Carolina, just an hour-and-a-half from Tarboro.

"I was like, 'Oh snap, that's pretty cool,'" Gurley said.

Gurley quickly adopted Duke as his favorite team and made it a point to catch as many games as he could. The first team he really remembers watching was the 2003-04 Blue Devils, led by J.J. Redick, Luol Deng and Shelden Williams.

"We lost to Connecticut in the Final Four," Gurley said of that Duke squad. "But, we got two [championships] after that."