my first thought was duke but duke is coming to maryland and madhouse. check this out....
i was gonna bet duke and i'm a huge terps fan but i think i'll sit back and enjoy this one.
February 11, 2005
By Rick Snider
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The most hated man in College Park returns tomorrow.
J.J. Redick and No. 7 Duke will face bitter rival Maryland at Comcast Center, a venue at which the Blue Devils and their star guard have been loudly and vulgarly reviled in recent years.
Redick sealed a narrow Duke victory at the free throw line last season at Comcast, and Maryland students responded with a long, loud and obscene chant directed at him. It was clearly audible to a nationwide ESPN audience, embarrassing and angering alumni and school officials.
Many students claimed, however, they were merely exercising free speech. The debate went on for weeks in the campus newspaper and Internet chat rooms and has resurfaced in the last two days on the Terrapintimes.com Web site in a discussion about new ways to torment Duke.
University officials got a ruling from a state's attorney to help curb vulgar fan behavior. Maryland formed a student-driven sportsmanship committee and barred the popular song "Rock and Roll, Part II," which included a vulgar chant, from basketball and football games.
Students are encouraged not to wear T-shirts or carry signs that bear vulgar messages, though the new rules don't prohibit it. Coach Gary Williams has spoken repeatedly to students about sportsmanship, including a short video shown on the Jumbotron before each game.
"We're a major program, and we have to act like it," Williams said yesterday. "You can't have an obscene chant. There's no discussion about that, but to say Maryland is the only place it happens is completely wrong. We've heard everything as bad or worse on the road. That has to be kept in perspective. It's wrong, but it's not just Maryland."
Fans at Comcast have been a kinder, less vulgar group this season ? not a difficult task when the Terps are beating up on overmatched opponents like Liberty and Mount St. Mary's. Bringing in the Blue Devils is like tossing bread into an Atkins convention ? there's going to be a stir.
The Duke game has grown from just a winter homecoming for the Terps into a national event. ESPN's "Gameday" will bring its studio show to Comcast tomorrow, an event for which nearly 3,000 students requested passes.
ESPN2's "Cold Pizza" show is scheduled to arrive in College Park today for live interviews. The sports cable network has featured the rivalry ever since the Jan. 27, 2001, encounter was seen in 2.97 million households, an ESPN record for a college basketball game. More than 1.8 million households were tuned in for this season's first meeting Jan. 26.
The series is always bitter, but will acrimony once more overwhelm fans?
The Y factor
Generation Y has never known a time when Duke wasn't a national powerhouse. Many current students weren't even born when the Blue Devils re-emerged as a power in 1985.
Maryland has become Duke's biggest nemesis, though Devils fans deny the Terps are in the same class. "Not our rival," the crowd chants whenever the Terps visit Cameron Indoor Stadium. The disdain is returned by Maryland fans, who regard the prestigious, private school in Durham, N.C., as insufferably elitist and arrogant.
"There is this sense that Duke is better than all the other programs in the country," said Jeremy Gold, a 2004 MBA graduate at Maryland who operates terpsbasketball.mostvaluablenetwork.com. "The officials are afraid to make calls and are intimidated by the aura of what Duke is ? the altar boy of college basketball. They're supposed to be the team that wins, so the game is called that way."
Duke and Maryland largely have competed to rule the ACC over the past six years. The Terps have defeated the Blue Devils six straight years, though Duke still holds an 8-6 edge since 1999. Last season, Maryland ended Duke's five-year run in the ACC tournament with an upset in the final. The Blue Devils beat the Terps in the 2001 Final Four.
Duke has lost only six home games in six years, and Maryland is responsible for three, including last month's 75-66 upset. The Terps even started selling T-shirts that read "Cameron Indoor Stadium ? Maryland's home away from home" on Monday. More than 2,000 Terps fans watched the earlier road game from Cole Field House.
Maryland isn't alone in its disdain for Duke. Jealousy over the Blue Devils' ACC-leading 116 wins since 1997 (Maryland's 91 are second) often fuels opposing anger. Duke (18-2, 8-2 ACC) again leads the conference despite being picked fourth in the preseason poll.
"People in our society are happy for someone to have so much success, and then they want [someone else] to have success," Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt. "Duke has been a dominant program for 20 years. I don't think it's anything personal."
'Feverish'
Redick loves playing on the road more than at Cameron Indoor Stadium despite its legendary home crowd. He said there's nothing like silencing an opposing crowd with a big shot. Redick was so enraged over comments by Florida State fans last month that he converted eight 3-pointers in the blowout win.
"I think a few people crossed the line, I'll be honest with you," Redick said afterward. "And it got me angry. But there's nothing I can do to them, so I figured I might as well go out on the court and play hard."
Why does Redick inspire such hatred? He recently told Sports Illustrated racism plays a part because he is a white player in a predominantly black sport.
Whatever the reason, Redick gets the abuse. He changed his cell phone number three times last year because he was receiving so many vulgar calls from Terps fans.
But Redick isn't alone in facing abusive fans.
?Florida fans threw bottles and trash at Maryland players during the Terps' upset of the No. 1-ranked Gators last year in Gainesville, Fla.
?Maryland guard D.J. Strawberry often hears chants relating to the past drug problems of his father, former baseball star Darryl Strawberry.
?Terps forward Nik Caner-Medley was targeted by a Duke crowd ? fans conducted synchronized chants written and distributed on a cheer sheet ? for his role in a skirmish outside a Maine bar last summer.
?Wisconsin fans wore shirts with a vulgar message directed at the Terps during a nonconference game in Madison, Wis., on Nov. 30.
"College basketball is followed in a very feverish manner," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "In some respects, some of the fan behavior has gotten much more individually abusive. That's a sad thing."
'Rock and Roll' dead?
Nothing symbolizes Maryland's crackdown on abusive fan behavior more than the ban of "Rock and Roll, Part II," a song played in many sporting events nationwide. Fans in the student section would point to the opposing bench and shout a vulgar chant timed to the music.
Maryland football coach Ralph Friedgen requested the ban last fall, and Williams followed suit come basketball season. Still, the student section sometimes sings it without the band, though it lacks the same zing. Students clearly miss it, and so do many alumni sitting above them at Comcast.
"I wish they would sing it," said Bill Van Dyke, a Bethesda mortgage company owner and alumnus who attends games regularly. "I want the students to be rowdy as long as they're not throwing things. 'Rock and Roll, Part II' ? I like that."
Ultimately, Maryland's new guidelines are voluntary. Fans still can curse and wear anti-Duke shirts if they want. Officials will eject fans for physical acts like throwing objects or fighting. However, peer pressure has calmed the crowd to tolerable levels.
"Last year, the profanity was impossible to miss," said George Mavrikes, a Rockville sports agent and alum. "This year is much better."
. Glad to see those advertising dollars are going to something useful