An outsider's take on Duke-UNC rivalry...

In talking to a classmate today about the Duke-UNC rivalry, I think I've finally figured it out...

1. Nobody likes Duke fans. Academically, Duke is the best school in the ACC and one of the best schools in the country, and their fans make sure you know it. Watch a Duke-UNC or Duke-NC State game and you always hear "First place, safety school!" chants and see signs that say "You'll be serving us fries one day!". I went to Georgetown, and Duke fans held up signs saying how our players couldn't read when we played in Cameron. I'm not saying that this isn't an effective psych-out strategy, but it sure does make everybody hate you. Another reason fans of other teams in the conference hate them so much is that the ACC is made up of predominately southern schools attended by people from the surrounding area (obviously this is less so after BC, Miami, etc. joined in early 2000's). When a bunch of dudes from rural NC that cheer for State look at Duke fans, they see a bunch of future-lawyers from NJ/NY/FL/etc. cheering against them. Making it worse, Duke grads have high level jobs in just about every industry all over the country, which means that when Duke comes to your hometown to play your school, there will always be a bunch of Duke fans there cheering loudly in seats that are better than yours. How could you not hate them? At the end of the day though, Duke fans are extremely passionate about their teams and really no different from any other fans...

2. UNC fans hate everybody. In my opinion, UNC fans think that Chapel Hill is the center of the universe and that UNC is best at everything. This doesn't surprise me - Chapel Hill is a great town, UNC has had success in MANY sports, and the school is probably one of the top 5-10 best state schools academically. Carolina fans hate every other team in the ACC, every conference that's not the ACC, and any other university that is good at anything, period. When half of the Big East teams lost in the first round of the tournament this year, UNC fans were overjoyed. "GO ACC! Screw the Big East!" When half the ACC teams lost in the first round the year before, Big East fans were like, "Huh? ACC teams lost? Who cares... screw _insert rival Big East school here___!" If you say to a UNC fan, "Man, Stanford's women's volleyball team is unstoppable", a UNC fan would probably be like "SCREW STANFORD!" They really just don't like anybody but UNC having success at anything.

3. Southern schools care a lot more about college sports than everybody else (although the Midwest is probably a close second; also, I'm counting Texas and OU as southern schools). Fans in places like Philadelphia definitely love college basketball, but if Temple or Villanova lost in a huge basketball game, it would hurt, but it wouldn't be the end of the world (not true for the Eagles or Phillies, though). It's totally different with SEC and ACC fans though - if you talk trash to one of their fans about their team/school, you have to be willing to fight them. No, they probably won't throw punches, but they might. These fans take their sports more seriously, get more excited when they win, and are more distraught when they lose. If Duke and UNC ever faced each other in the tournament finals, there would probably be riots in the Triangle, no matter the outcome. If Georgetown ever lost to Syracuse in the tournament, we'd be upset, we'd shed some tears, and we'd go home pretty bummed out. If UNC ever lost to Duke in the finals, people would probably flip over cars, light them on fire, and then drive to Durham with baseball bats looking to rip some throats out. You gotta respect that level of fandom.