It seems some people down at Duke University have taken issue with many Terrapin men’s basketball fans’ constant antagonism toward their school. They don’t want us to call them our “rivals” because they don’t consider us their rivals: Their rival is the University of North Carolina. Clearly, they don’t realize we’re not necessarily looking for a rivalry, either; everyone knows UNC has historically been Duke’s rival in terms of mutual loathing. It’s not so much that we want Duke fans to think of us as their rival; it’s just that we hate Duke for being so good.
But even if we aren’t looking for a rivalry with Duke, a lot of people unaffiliated with this university call it just that. On Jan. 26, Duke’s own play-by-play announcer, Bob Harris, told The Charlotte Observer in clear language: “It’s a rivalry.” ESPN.com’s Andy Katz recently made up a list of his top 10 “new rivalries,” and Maryland/Duke is right at the top. It’s also highly suspicious that ESPN is holding one of its eight live College GameDay broadcasts this season at Comcast Center when Duke visits Maryland Saturday. I wonder why the channel would deem that game important enough to televise nationally?
About four years ago, during our ascent toward the triumphant 2002 championship season, the Terps seemed to have a vacuum in the rival department. We needed a Darth Vader figure we could see as the obstacle between us and victory, and that’s when Duke fell right into our laps by defeating us in a game Jan. 27, 2001, in which we led by 10 points with one minute left. Then in the NCAA tournament semi-finals that same year, they did it again, springing back from a 22-point deficit to snatch the victory from our grasp.
For a Terp fan, it was hard not to hate Duke after those two blows to our collective ego, and the truth is we didn’t really seem to have a real basketball rival with which to enjoy a long history of animosity and tit-for-tat wins and losses. With the 2001 season, Duke lit the fuse that would eventually ignite many a mattress and unfortunate tree in downtown College Park and spawn a cottage industry of homemade T-shirts comparing Duke to Middle Eastern dictators and terrorists. As far as most Maryland students were concerned, Duke was now Public Enemy No. 1, and the hatred has continued unabated ever since.
But how did this animosity on our part mature into what is now widely considered a true college basketball rivalry, seemingly right under the Blue Devils’ turned-up noses?
The reason is every school needs a rival. Being part of a community like a university almost demands the existence of some antagonistic force on which everyone can focus their bad vibes. So who really cares if Duke fans think we’re their rival? Having a school such as Duke that we can consider our archnemesis helps bring us together as a university community. It’s a good thing in that way. I was high-fiving every stranger in my building after we beat Duke Jan. 26, and I probably won’t talk to any of them again until this Saturday’s celebration.
Ours is an age of personal alienation in which the Internet, cable TV and AOL Instant Messenger make it easy to never physically associate with other students you don’t already know. While on the surface these technological amenities seem to aid communication, in reality they isolate us into smaller and smaller social groups. That’s why we jump at the chance to have a rival like Duke and an excuse to be united once in a while.
The riot after our 2002 NCAA championship win involved some stupid behavior but the stupidity was limited to only a few of the people who packed downtown College Park like sardines. Everyone else was there simply to participate in a mass gathering with fellow students and enjoy a rare opportunity to be part of the student community in a real and physical way. Our rivalry with Duke is a positive thing for us and will continue to be, whether the Blue Devils care to recognize it or not.
Alex Dzwonchyk is a senior linguistics major. He can be reached at alexdz@wam.umd.edu
