There is “growing sentiment” that Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke Univ. “has lost some of its craziness, and there is definitive evidence that it has lost some of its Crazies,” according to Adam Himmelsbach of the N.Y. TIMES. About 1,200 seats “are earmarked for Duke’s undergraduates, but this season students have filled about 700 a game while classes are in session.” Over the last three years, the university “has filled the gaps by regularly selling hundreds of student-section tickets to nonstudents, giving the famed Section 17 an unusual look” by opening some student seating “to donors and season-ticket holders.” Himmelsbach notes it is “unclear why the Cameron Indoor Stadium experience is shifting.” Many students blamed “a mixture of academic pressures, Greek life and long lines, but those factors existed during boom times as well.” About 10 days before each nonmarquee game, Duke Dir of Marketing & Promotions Mike Forman and student reps “agree upon an estimated attendance figure” and the remaining tickets “are then sold for $65.” About 400 “were sold for the Jan. 19 game against Wake Forest.” Duke G Austin Rivers said, “The students that don’t come out anymore, I wish they would come back.” Himmelsbach notes with coming home games against rivals Maryland on Feb. 11, N.C. State on Feb. 16 and North Carolina on March 3, there “is likely to be a considerable surge in attendance” (N.Y. TIMES, 2/2).
