Duke Basketball Campout!

So here at Duke, basketball isn't just a sport, it's life! For grad students to be able to purchase season tickets, they have to attend a 36 hour campout at Duke. The campout starts on a Friday at 7pm and ends on a Sunday at 7am. The students must be present at ALL times. They ring a siren randomly (and at all hours of the night) and the students hoard to the checkpoint and sign in to prove they were there. At the end of the campout, all the students get their names thrown in a lottery. If their name is drawn, THEN they can PURCHASE season tickets to the Duke basketball game. Crazy huh? Well, Jared decided that he was gonna do it! Luckily, they have a lot of activities going on during the campout to keep the students occupied, but thanks to the siren, they don't get much sleep the whole weekend.

There were about 1500 grad students that turned out for this year's festivities. The tents were everywhere and the beer and music was rampant. Jared teamed up with a few of his friends from the Econ Program, and ended up getting 1 set of tickets for the 5 of them. So, they get to attend 4 games each. Jared's pretty excited, but unfortunately I have to wait in the standing line before EACH game to MAYBE get to go with Jared to any of the games. But, at least I got to sleep in my own bed in my apartment. I did visit the fun on Saturday, and we actually had a great time. Go Blue Devils!

Here's a view of the tents packed to back. Also, a lot of groups rents moving trucks and bunked out in the back. It was madness!

This is the boys' area. They luckily found a spot next to the fence. They didn't have a tent and instead attached a tarp to the fence, draped it over them, and had a nice little sleepover on the air mattress. :)

I think this is dinner. They brought in TONS of pizza and fed the masses.

On Saturday night, Coach K and the basketball team showed up and he made his annual speech to the grad students.

One of the fun things they had was a guitar hero competition. Of course, Jared was stoked for the opportunity to show off his mad skills. He made it through to the finals, and they put the game on a huge projector screen so we could watch. In the semi-finals, Jared quadrupled the other guy's score. Then in the final game, Jared doubled the other guy's score. He completely dominated the competition. He won a $25 gift certificate to a pizza place, and of course the respect of all his fellow classmates. My little guitar hero...

They also had Karoke. Jared and our friend Mike jumped at the chance to sing (or shout) some Billy Idol - Rebel Yell. Here's a clip from their stellar performance. (FYI-they're totally sober!)