Beat Duke Week 2014
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls, it's Beat Duke Week.
Among all the beautiful traditions at Carolina, there is none so magnificent as the annual event that brings the entire community together, united on a single purpose: hating dook. The week of the UNC-Duke basketball game, the entire campus floods with school spirit, and social media runs rampant with pictures of rat-faced Coach K and great dunks of years past. This year, in a matter of hours, Carolina fans nationwide were able to get #dookfans trending on Twitter, posting gems such as #dookfans don't want to build a snowman #dookfans don't like puppies, and #dookfans eat at the Chum Bucket.
On Wednesday morning, students will begin lining up for a game that does not begin until 9 p.m., and will wait for hours in the rain and snow before even beginning to enter into the sacred halls of the Dean E. Smith Center. Why? There are exams to study for, papers to write, and warm beds to sleep in. Why do we invest our hearts so fully in the outcome of this game each year, when we have suffered a few heartbreaks along the way? Why are we willing to put so much on the line for one basketball game? Because these games are never for one night. They are memories passed down from generation to generation. They are highlight reels in the making; the top plays (good or bad) of each game will resurface on ESPN forevermore. They are visions that dance in our heads every time we shout "Go to Hell Duke" at the end of the alma mater. We get four home Duke games in our undergraduate career, but these four experiences are enough to fuel a lifetime of hate, a bond of passion to share with the Carolina community forever.
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Mary Liz Entwistle '15 is a Journalism and Mass Communication - Public Relations major and a French minor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the director of the 2015 Carolina Class Representatives.
