Princeton fans outclass Crazies at Cameron

By Gregg Doyel
Dec. 18, 2003 (from CBS SportsLine.com)

DURHAM, N.C. -- This was a class war, as it usually is at Cameron Indoor Stadium, but with a twist: Duke was the lower class.

Princeton was in town.

No. 3 Duke has the better basketball team but Princeton has the better academic reputation, and on these points people seemed to agree Wednesday night. Duke would launch a 10-2 run to build a double-figure lead and get the Cameron Crazies going, and Princeton fans would wave a sign reading, "Dook = safety school."

The Crazies would pipe down, avert their eyes.

While the game was going on beneath them, Princeton fans waved orange blowup Tigers and taunted their Duke counterparts by chanting, "S-A-T!" It was a pretty good game, Duke winning 69-51 but never getting comfortable until the final two minutes, yet the real game was being played by the people who didn't have to sweat. And the visitors were winning.

Visiting fans aren't supposed to condescend to the home folks at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Condescension usually belongs to the Crazies. These are fans who camp out for weeks at a time for big games, pitching tents with coffee pots and high-speed Internet access.

Inside Cameron, this is the building where Clemson fans are invited to "start the tractor" in the final minutes of big losses. Where N.C. State fans are tormented by chants of "Big ... high ... school -- big high school!" Where Wolfpack fans are further badgered by the chant, "If you can't go to college, go to State."

Not on this night. On this night, Princeton fans out-Jerseyed the New Jersey refuges who call Duke home. As the game was going on, various Princeton fans would pull out a cell-phone camera and take pictures.

This is me at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Here's another. And another. And ... .

The Cameron Crazies were getting outgeeked in their own gym, and the television cameras were noticing. Coming out of timeouts, cameras beckoned for the Princeton fans to show off their cub-scout orange shirts and those ridiculous little Tigers. Duke fans booed. The cameras ignored them.

Still, the Crazies had their moments. Their best came after a Princeton fan waved a sign that read, "P.U. -- Duke stinks." The words were written in black ink on a dingy piece of brown backing that looked like a broken-down cardboard box from 1997.

"Ghetto poster!" the Crazies would chant.

And then the Princeton fan would turn the sign around and reveal the other side, silencing thousands of Duke students:

"Sorry you didn't get in."