Streak of 118 Straight Coming to an End

By Bill Brill, Blue Devil Weekly

DURHAM, N.C. - A couple of days before Duke and North Carolina were to play for the first time in 1961, I was called into the office of the executive editor of The Roanoke Times. Barton Morris was a huge sports fan, and he suggested to me, “Why don't we cover the Duke-Carolina game?”

I had been the sports editor of the newspaper for barely one year, and until that promotion occurred, The Times scarcely covered any basketball at all.

Our managing editor, Bill Atkinson, loved football and hated basketball. He also was a Virginia Tech fan and had no love at all for the ACC.

But by '61, Atkinson had been replaced as the editor, and I had been installed as the sports editor while my predecessor, Harold “Soup” Wimmer, gratefully was placed in charge of the daily production.

Actually, Soup didn't get out of the office much. He had gone to the Tech-Kentucky basketball game the previous year, but that was a rarity. I had just been at the newspaper for four years, and I was still learning the business. I did care, however, and I wanted us to expand our horizons.

Eventually, that led to a smallish paper like The Times (a little over 100,000 circulation) staffing not only the ACC Tournament and whatever conference the Hokies were playing in at the time, but also the Final Four, Masters, U.S. Open, World Series, Kentucky Derby and Super Bowl.

We did all that with a handful of reporters and some very long hours. But we all were young and enthusiastic, except for Soup, and he did buy into the expanded coverage.

When I had come to Roanoke in 1956 - after spending three-and-a-half years following Duke graduation at the little paper in Covington, Va., learning the trade from scratch, including hunt-and-peck typing that continues to this day - The Times did not cover a single college basketball game although we were very close to Blacksburg and Lexington and two hours from Charlottesville.

Washington & Lee had a very good team at the time, although shortly thereafter they dropped athletic scholarships and went to what today would be Division III. However, their last year with scholarship players, including superstar Dom Flora, the games with far larger Virginia Tech became important on the national scene.

I requested that we at least cover the two games between W&L and VPI (this was in the pre-Virginia Tech days) and I won that argument.

It was the start of what became the most extensive basketball coverage by any paper our size in the nation. The next year, VPI sports information director Wendy Weisend called me with a proposal. Would I agree to cover all the Hokies' games, home and away, if the school paid the bills?

That sort of thing would never occur today, but in 1960, it was greeted with enthusiasm by my bosses. Not only did I go everywhere with VPI, including some legendary road trips, but we also reported on all Virginia home games and most of the games involving VMI.

But we had never staffed an ACC game in North Carolina and, to be honest, I doubt that it ever had crossed my mind. I was just happy to have been allowed to cover my first ACC Tournament in 1960, when it snowed like crazy and my company car got stuck in a snowbank just as we turned onto Rt. 70 just north of Hillsborough.

Fortunately, when I made that turn with my companion, Roland Hughes, sports editor of the afternoon paper, we immediately came upon the Wake Forest bus, also snowbound, coach Bones McKinney and the great Marvin “Skeeter” Francis, then the Deacs' SID. Francis later would work in the ACC office, where he became one of the best-known people in all of sports.

Skeeter offered to let Hughes and me ride to Raleigh in the Wake bus. We left the car in the snowbank. It was still there when we returned four days later.

This was the first year that Vic Bubas coached at Duke, and the Blue Devils pulled off two stunning upsets to win the conference championship, beating UNC in the semifinals and topping Skeeter's Deacons in the title game.

Carolina had beaten Duke three times that season by 22, 26 and 25 points, and Wake had won easily twice by 17 and 19. It remains one of the biggest ACC Tournament shocks of all time.

Still, we had not covered any ACC regular-season games not involving Virginia, a regular last-place contender. That all changed when Morris told me we needed to go to the Duke-Carolina game in Durham.

I was scheduled to attend a game at UVa, so I sent one of our three reporters, Dick Thompson, to Durham. Thompson later became the fulltime publicist at the Martinsville Speedway, remaining there until retirement.

The date of that game was Feb. 4, 1961. It became famous, or infamous, if you wish, in Duke-UNC and ACC history. Duke, led by All-America sophomore Art Heyman, was ranked fourth nationally, just ahead of UNC. The Tar Heels had outstanding players in Larry Brown and Doug Moe.

This was the famous fight game. A brawl broke out, initially between Heyman and Brown, in the final minute. Moe then got involved, and at one time it looked like Heyman was taking on the entire Carolina team.

Coach Frank McGuire protested the lack of security in Cameron, and hard feelings continued for a long time. Duke won the game, 81-77, but both Heyman and Brown were suspended. Later, referee Charlie Eckman would say that after seeing the film, Heyman did not throw the first punch. But that was the accusation at the time.

Heyman was allowed to play in nonconference games the rest of the regular season but not any ACC contests. Duke had been 15-1 going into the game, and the loss had been to the Tar Heels in the finals of the Dixie Classic in Raleigh, which was the real reason why Morris suggested we cover the rematch.

Duke lost momentum with Heyman in and out of the lineup and finished the year 22-6. Carolina beat the Blue Devils in Chapel Hill and I was there. Then McGuire said he wasn't going to let his team, which was 19-4 and had won the regular season title, play in the ACC Tournament because of the suspensions. Wake Forest, with Billy Packer as a key performer, whipped the Devils in the finals.

I bring all this up because I have not missed a Duke-Carolina basketball game since Feb. 25, 1961, a total of 118 consecutive games.

Until now.

My wife and I are joining five other couples on a cruise around South America and to the Falkland Islands that will begin on Feb. 3. We get back to Durham on Feb. 23. The first meeting between the Devils and the Heels this year is Feb. 7 in Cameron. As I am cruising on the Insignia somewhere off the coast of South America, I'm certain that I will feel some angst.

But, at my age, the chance to make these kinds of journeys doesn't come up all that often, and so we have decided to go. I will have access to a computer and the Internet, so I should be able to read about what happened when Coach K's youthful squad meets a UNC team that is not only equally young, but generally conceded to be the most talented team in the land.

Readers of this column may recall that I missed the 2004 ACC Tournament for another cruise, this one to Mexico with many of these same acquaintances.

That came about because I was unhappy with ACC expansion and decided I didn't want to attend the league tournament, breaking a streak that went back to that 1960 snowfall.

Maybe I was a jinx. Duke had won five consecutive ACC tournaments before blowing a 12-point lead against sixth-seed Maryland in the title game and eventually losing in overtime. Since then, the Blue Devils have won two more, including '05 as a third seed, to continue the greatest domination in league history.

This time, however, although the trip is longer, it is during the regular season, which most experts have conceded to the deep Tar Heels ever since the beginning. I will be back for the tournament which, unhappily, will be played in Tampa, not exactly an ACC hotspot. I am, of course, never going to write anything good about expansion.

While Duke and Carolina have been bitter rivals since 1920, I believe that the 1961 fight game was the actual start of what has now become the nation's best collegiate sports rivalry.

Until then, it was rare when each team was even a regional power when they met, and more often than not, one program or the other was somewhat diminished when the teams met.

But now it is a surprise when both teams aren't in the Top Ten and most often in the Top Five. UNC and McGuire won an NCAA title in 1957 with an undefeated team. The next time they won, in 1982, it was the first for Dean Smith, who also won in 1993. Roy Williams won his initial championship in 2005.

Mike Krzyzewski, of course, has won three titles, in 1991, 1992 and 2001, and played in the championship game in 1986, 1990, 1994 and 1999.

The rivalry shows no sign of slowing down and, frankly, there's nothing else quite like it anywhere, as much because of the proximity of the schools as anything.

Here's what I have seen in the 118 games over the past 46 years:

Carolina leads, 65-53. The Tar Heels won that '61 rematch without Heyman in the Duke lineup. The Blue Devils took the next seven.
Beginning in 1972, when Duke was struggling to find its way after Bubas retired, the Heels won eight in a row, lost one in an upset, and then took eight more.
Coach K's mark against Carolina is 31-30. He's 15-10 in Cameron, 9-16 in Chapel Hill, and 7-4 on neutral courts. His breakthrough victory as a Duke coach came when the Blue Devils with sophomores Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, David Henderson and Jay Bilas, stunned No. 1 UNC in the ACC semifinals, 77-75, in 1984. However, the next day the Devils lost to Lefty Driesell and Maryland for the championship.

How they have done against each other never has been a great predictor. Duke lost by 22 to UNC in the '91 ACC finals and went on to win its first NCAA championship, a Final Four in which Kansas and Roy Williams eliminated the Heels in the semis. The next year, the Devils won the ACC by 20 over Carolina and again won the NCAAs.

I've seen all but four Final Fours since '62 and 130 Duke-UNC games. My college record in the series was 5-6, with four wins to close it out in '52. The only game after that I saw was that ACC semifinal in 1960 until the start of the streak the next year.

I hope to start a new streak in Tampa and prefer that it be for the championship, but in this wacky 12-team league, you never know. But when my column is missing for awhile, you'll know that I'm watching from long distance.

Streak of 118 Straight Coming to an End

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