(Duke Nerds sharing lab notes over Diet Cokes and pizza in Krzyzewskiville)
The students who attend Duke University basketball games are commonly referred to as the Cameron Crazies. Their zany outfits and outrageous chants mesmerize television viewers and intimidate visiting teams. These students camp out for months before home basketball games, just to get standing-room-only tickets. They love their Dukies and have created a trend that’s spread like wildfire through college campuses around the country. Students at schools like Texas, Michigan and Oregon have copied the intensity and choreography of the Cameron Crazies. Jumping up and down, jeering opposing players and painting school colors on your chest have become commonplace. So, I asked myself, who are the Cameron Crazies? How did this all start? What’s behind all that passion for Duke basketball?
Well, in reality, the Cameron Crazies are nothing more than a bunch of nerds taking a break from studying. Behind the blue face-paint and deafening cheers you’ll find a bunch of virgins drinking Red Bull sans vodka. These nerds get more excited about new chants than actually being at a nationally televised basketball game. Most of these nerds haven’t played organized basketball since grade school. While you and I were playing high school sports and drinking Natural Light with girls, these kids were putting in extra work on their senior thesis project. While you were watching Duke vs. UNC games, they were studying for AP classes.
Enter, Krzyzewskiville…
Roman Catholics have the Vatican, Muslims have Mecca and Duke-nerds have Krzyzewskiville. “K-Ville,” as the nerds call it, refers to a cluster of exactly 100 tents where Cameron Crazies congregate and bunk together. The tradition started in 1986 when Kimberly Reed, and her nerdy girlfriends, decided to camp out in line at Cameron Indoor Stadium days before the UNC game just to get tickets. Ms Reed set the bar 24 years ago and that single act forced students to get in line earlier and earlier until eventually it turned into it’s own temporary community.
Today, Krzyzewskiville is a formalized entity all its own. K-Ville has strict rules and is regulated by Duke Student Government. Only a bunch of nerds would create this much bureaucracy just for tickets to a home game (click here to read about K-Ville’s rules). The Duke Student Government rules Krzyzewskiville with an iron-fist. If you don’t pass a tent check or violate one of the other many rules, the “Head Line Monitor” can put you in the back of the line or even kick you out of K-Ville all together. Here’s a YouTube tour of K-Ville showing nerds just being nerds (including the nerdy Duke players).
Krzyzewskiville doesn’t sound like fun at all to me, it sounds like the opposite of fun. No showers, no kegs, no television, no attractive women? A bunch of smelly nerds talking about macroeconomics under flashlights in a Coleman tent sounds like hell. I can’t think of a group of fans in college sports who are bigger nerds than the Cameron Crazies. I can’t even think of a group of fans who are even in the same league. If I were a player visiting Cameron Indoor I wouldn’t be intimidated, I would just be thankful I didn’t choose Duke. I hate nerds, therefore I hate Duke Basketball. Go Tar Heels!
lol wow, you’ve unveiled my eyes to a whole subculture i never knew existed. this is like the time i watched that documentary, king of kong.
Hey, the founder of K-ville here. Wow, do you have this story wrong. I will only correct one thing, though — it was not a “bunch of my nerdy girlfriends” and me who started this. It was me (I was a tennis player at Duke and partied most nights a week for all four years of college) and seven guy friends, most of whom were military ROTC and athletes themselves. Today, I’m a corporate lawyer and political consultant and the seven guys are, respectively, two colonels in the military, one lt. colonel, two investment bankers, one consultant, and one sports agent. We didn’t turn out all that bad.
You have a lot of other stuff wrong in your article, but I just don’t care enough to correct it.
Kim Reed I don’t believe you…. I want to, just don’t. Do you have any proof of this???
What’s wrong with that story? Everybody knows Duke has the biggest nerds in college sports… that’s common knowledge.
Also, if this Kim Reed woman is really the same woman who started K-Ville does that make her the Queen of the Nerds? You dismiss the post and “don’t care enough to correct it” yet somehow you found the post, and spent time during work hours to defend yourself.
Nerd
I’m not sure how I’d prove that I’m myself – I graduated from Duke in 1986 with degrees in history and English, a minor in political science, went on to law school, most recently worked at the big law firm Hogan & Hartson before starting my own practice. The photos I took of the first K-ville are on the Duke Archives website, and I appeared in the HBO Sports special “Battle for Tobacco Road” last year (I think they’re still running it).
I’m amused by “Colonel Sanders”‘s comments and will say only that I found the post because an old Duke friend was trying to find me and googled me, and he found the post while doing the search and sent it to me. I just thought some might be interested in hearing from the original source. If anybody cares about the true K’ville story, it’s on numerous sources on the web, including Wikipedia and the Duke Archives.
Great function,webmaster,good style!
Interesting insight, amazed I never thought of that by myself
Hey – nice blog, just looking around some blogs, seems a pretty nice platform you are using. I’m currently using WordPress
I adore your blog posts, keep making more like this
Great post! Your style is so refreshing in comparison to most other writers. Thank you for posting when you get the chance to, I’ll be sure to return!
I was wondering if I could use this information in my website. I will provide a link to your blog, may I?