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WSJ
March 31, 2022
Duke vs. North Carolina Brings Doomsday to Tobacco Road
There are some people dreading Duke and UNC playing in the Final Four: Duke and UNC fans
By Ben Cohen and Andrew Beaton
The first time she met Andrew Yarbrough, a fellow University of North Carolina graduate, Jane Yarbrough figured she knew his favorite college-basketball team. But early in their relationship, she discovered something horrifying about her future husband: He was a lifelong Duke fan.
“Oh god,” Jane thought. “What have I done?”
After their wedding, where guests picked their preferred shade of blue and waved pom poms in their school’s colors, the newly married Yarbroughs made a vow to never watch a Duke vs. UNC game together. They wouldn’t text before the game or talk during the game. They definitely wouldn’t discuss the game afterward. They honored their rules in sickness and health, including one year when both had colds and couldn’t leave home.
“We still maintained our distance,” Andrew said.
“I watched it downstairs, and he watched upstairs,” Jane said.
Everyone around Duke and UNC could use a bit of space this week. For the first time in this bitter rivalry, the two schools are meeting in the NCAA tournament -- and it’s a Final Four matchup on Saturday, loaded with drama, history, begrudging respect, shared hatred and the makings of one of the most memorable games in March Madness history.
But there is one group of people dreading the biggest game ever between Duke and North Carolina: Duke and North Carolina fans.
This is Tobacco Road’s doomsday scenario, and the angst is overwhelming. Whatever they imagined a game of this magnitude would be like, this is worse: a showdown with a potential national title, eternal bragging rights and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement on the line.
Every aspect of life -- schools, offices, retirement homes, gyms, bars, theaters, Bojangles chicken joints and other houses of worship -- has been injected with fear and loathing.
At church on the Sunday mornings after Saturday night Duke-UNC games, when the losing fan base tends to stay home or slip in late, pastor Ben Adams reminds his congregation to love thy neighbors and enemies. “Especially if they’re both,” adds the North Carolina native and Duke graduate.
But this time is different. “This weekend’s matchup feels cataclysmic,” he said. “This game will wreak havoc on family and friends in our community and certainly stir up conflict in every Bible study, Sunday school class and book club.”
He intends to wake up early on Sunday to assess the damage. Then he will take the pulpit and preach about love and grace.
“It’s a shame that the intended audience won’t be there to hear it,” he says. “I’ll be left preaching to a room full of (North Carolina) State fans.”
Duke fans have already suffered this season. Less than a month ago, nearly 100 former players lined the court for Krzyzewski’s final home game, a date with UNC so highly anticipated that ticket prices rivaled the Super Bowl. It was billed as a party -- until the Tar Heels spoiled the punch. North Carolina fans savored every moment of their upset win, especially Krzyzewski gritting his teeth through an excruciatingly awkward postgame ceremony. Now they have the unexpected opportunity to ruin the storybook ending of his farewell tour.
The flip side is why Carolina fans are so freaked: Duke has a shot at revenge that nobody thought possible. The Tar Heels are on a dream run as a No. 8 seed in Hubert Davis’s first season, but this improbable matchup -- it had a 0.03% chance of happening at the tournament’s outset, according to kenpom.com -- gives Krzyzewski a chance to smirk right past them on his way to retirement.
Duke could end North Carolina’s season, and North Carolina could end Krzyzewski’s career, but many have long believed the downside risks are far greater than the rewards. Both schools fantasize about winning. But they’re completely, unspeakably terrified of losing.
The nerves are only intensifying as they enter uncharted territory for a rivalry grounded in body paint, bloody noses and broken sneakers. The last near miss came in 1991, when the Tar Heels and Blue Devils were in the Final Four on opposite sides of the bracket. While the basketball apocalypse was averted with a UNC loss, some fans surely preferred the world ending to Duke winning a championship.
Other great college sports rivalries are loaded with long histories, class resentments and deep psychological complexities. What sets Duke and North Carolina apart is sheer proximity: The two schools are separated by roughly eight miles. Their fans have to live, work, eat and pray with each other.
The schools managed to make 23 of the last 36 Final Fours without running into each other, but two regular-season games every year were enough to stoke the flames. It takes a day of indoctrination on campus for Duke students to learn that “GTHC” is shorthand for “go to hell, Carolina.” UNC fans prefer another four-letter word for Duke.
They didn’t want Saturday’s matchup, but they feel obligated to watch. Flights are scarce, however, and fares are insane. Many fleeing the Triangle are driving 13 hours to the Final Four. The few with the foresight to purchase refundable tickets in advance settled for connecting flights because there were no direct flights from Raleigh-Durham International Airport before this week.
But when Duke won last Saturday and North Carolina on Sunday, demand for flights to New Orleans jumped 110% from one day to the next, according to Hopper. In response, Delta Air Lines added two non-stops.
The fans content to watch on big screens are canceling plans, entering lotteries to reserve spots in local bars and rearranging their schedules. Even the Durham Performing Arts Center was inundated with requests to swap tickets for Saturday night’s performance of “Oklahoma!” So far, 348 of the 2,134 tickets have been exchanged, the most of any show this season.
Others had a different reason for hoping to avoid this particular matchup on this specific day: It’s their wedding day.
Kevin McHugh, who has a Ph.D. from Duke, and Charlotte Dunn, who earned a master’s from UNC, will be married on Saturday evening in Durham. It didn’t occur to them until very recently that a spring wedding might pose a conflict.
“Both of our moms are very concerned that everyone will care more about the basketball game than our wedding,” McHugh says.
Dunn is used to spanning the divide between the fan bases as a child of Durham who had one of Krzyzewski’s daughters as a high-school teacher and later went to graduate school in Chapel Hill. Her fandom is unusually flexible. “I hope both teams have fun,” she says.
Maura Farver grew up a Carolina fan, but she bleeds a deeper shade of blue after getting two degrees from Duke. She remained faithful to the team even after going to UNC for business school and falling in love with Robert Overman, who got his Ph.D at Carolina.
As they hunted for wedding venues in Chapel Hill, they kept seeing one available date. They quickly realized why nobody wanted March 5: It was Krzyzewski’s final home game. They, too, passed. But in a wedding season crunched by the pandemic, they felt safe rolling the dice on the Saturday of the Final Four. “What are the odds?” Farver says.
By the first round of the tournament, her mother joked that they should get televisions for the reception. “Not so funny now,” Overman says. When they sat down to watch games last weekend, their “nightmare scenario” was on the table. “I don’t think I’ve ever found myself rooting against Duke,” Farver told a friend, “but I don’t think I’d be sad if they lost.”
Unfortunately, her favorite team won.
The bride and groom are still trying to figure out proper wedding etiquette for this unique nightmare. Rather than ban chatter or confiscate phones, they’re considering ending the reception early, so people can watch the second half together somewhere else. “The worry always has been for Maura that our reception turns into a sports bar,” Overman says.
One thing the Yarbroughs have learned since their wedding is the power of compromise. Their 3-year-old daughter can wear a Duke shirt for part of Saturday, for example, but she’ll be in her UNC outfit by gametime when she watches at home with Jane, since Andrew will be at a friend’s house.
But some things aren’t subject to negotiation. Either Duke or North Carolina will play for the national title on Monday. Neither husband nor wife will be pulling for the other’s team.
“Absolutely not,” Jane said.
“Not a shot in hell,” Andrew says.
Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com and Andrew Beaton at andrew.beaton@wsj.com
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