For all Duke’s success/splendor/snootiness, the great school with the great coach conducts its daily business in the shadow of its greatest rival. A Duke fan cannot turn around in North Carolina’s Triangle without seeing two or three or 10 Tar Heel backers. Duke has produced one U.S. president – Richard Nixon – but only two North Carolina governors. UNC Chapel Hill, as it’s sometimes known, has seen 32 of its attendees become head of the Tar Heel State.
In 1986, Duke reached its first Final Four under Mike Krzyzewski. The moderator for NCAA press conferences was the arch UNC publicist Rick Brewer. A questioner mentioned that Duke’s lovely campus sits 8 miles from Chapel Hill. Brewer, to whom the question was not directed, nodded to the Duke contingent and said, “Imagine how much nicer it would be if you were only 7 miles from Chapel Hill.”
Under Krzyzewski, Duke became the nation’s biggest program – bigger than Kentucky and Kansas, bigger even than Carolina. In the Triangle, though, the Heels are forever the people’s choice. (A much larger school generates many more alums.) As grand as Coach K has been, even he hasn’t made Carolina disappear.
