Cameron Crazies
Encyclopedia
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
's basketball teams, named for Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Cameron Indoor Stadium is an indoor arena located on the West Campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is home to the Duke Blue Devils men's and women's basketball teams, the women's volleyball team, and the men's wrestling team....
. Crazies stand courtside in a 1,200 seat student section and begin cheering during warmups. Many Crazies paint their faces or bodies white and blue and wear Duke paraphernalia to represent their team.
Throughout the game, the Crazies jump up and down when the opposing team has possession of the ball and yell cheers in unison at focal points of the game. Over the years, Duke's Cameron Crazies "have earned a reputation as the rowdiest, wittiest, best-organized college basketball fans in the land." The number of fans painting themselves varies with the importance of the game, with games against the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
generating the most enthusiasm.
At the peak of their season games, up to 1,200 fans have set up a tent city outside Cameron Indoor Stadium. The makeshift city is referred to as "Krzyzewskiville
Krzyzewskiville
Krzyzewskiville, or K-ville for short, is a phenomenon that occurs before major men's basketball games at Duke University. In simplest terms, it is the line for students wishing to gain access to the designated tenting games. It is often mistakenly referred to as a ticket line...
", and has been a tradition since the 1980s.
Some other colleges and universities have used the Crazies as a model for their own cheering sections at basketball games, such as Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Indiana University
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...
, both of which recently printed a run of Crimson Crazies t-shirts.
Cameron Crazies created many now-famous cheers and taunts, the most widely known of which is the "air ball
Air ball
In basketball, an air ball is a shot that misses both the rim and the backboard.The usage may have an ironic subtext to it; "air" is generally used positively in basketball, often relating to jumping ability. The "air ball", on the other hand, is widely perceived as the opposite: a signifier of an...
" cheer, created in 1975. Cameron Crazies are mostly associated with Coach K's years at Duke.