Featherston: Wallace Wade Stadium Comes Alive

DURHAM, N.C. ? Hard as it is to believe today, Cameron Indoor Stadium was once judged to be a major handicap to the Duke basketball program.

Speaking to the Durham Sports Club in the spring of 1973 ? when Blue Devil hoop fortunes were at their nadir ? TV commentator Billy Packer called Cameron “the worst gym in the ACC” and suggested that Duke would not win again until the school replaced its aging facility.

Of course, we know now how wrong Packer was. Success on the floor transformed the dingy, old arena into a basketball mecca. Duke was recently rated by ESPN as the nation's best basketball program in the last quarter century and Cameron is now one of college basketball's crown jewels, routing ranked among the top five or ten venues in all of sports.

The arena has been renovated since Packer's harsh words, but what's important to remember is that the major cosmetic improvements were made in the late 1980s and occurred AFTER Duke basketball had revived ? first under Bill Foster, then even more spectacularly under Mike Krzyzewski.

What really transformed Cameron were not the polished brass rails or the wooden paneling, but the enthusiasm of Duke fans. Packed with 9,000-plus Cameron Crazies, the old gym didn't look so dingy when Mike Gminski and Gene Banks were leading the team to glory in the late 1970s or when Johnny Dawkins and company kick-started Coach K's glorious tenure in the mid-1980s.

Keep that transformation in mind when you travel to ancient Wallace Wade Stadium for Duke's next football game. The 79-year-old horseshoe has taken a lot of criticism during the Blue Devils recent football slump. Some of the criticism has been valid ? inadequate restroom and concession facilities, for example. But the real problem with Wade is the same one that plagued Cameron Indoor Stadium in the early 1970s ? lack of success had robbed the facility of fans and the enthusiasm they can bring.

That much was evident last Saturday night as Duke opened the David Cutcliffe era with a 31-7 victory over James Madison. Cameron ... er, Wade was not quite full, but the 32,571 fans who braved an 88-minute weather delay made it sound like it was. Their passion transformed the ancient facility into a wonderful football venue.

Afterwards, Cutcliffe quickly praised his team, then took time to praise the crowd, including the turnout for the team's pre-game walk from the Chapel to Wade Stadium.

“The inaugural Blue Devil Walk was unbelievable,” he said. “That set the tone. Then our students ? my hat's off to our students. They made it fun for our players.”

Since his arrival last December, Cutcliffe has worked almost as hard to generate enthusiasm for the Duke program as he has to coach the Blue Devil team. Last week, he admitted to begging for support, claiming that's all he could do at that point. He painted a beautiful picture of what he was hoping to achieve ? citing the atmosphere at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge before an LSU game as the ideal college football environment.

That kind of enthusiasm has to start with the students, just as Cameron's spectacular atmosphere starts with the Crazies. Yet, for all their fanaticism about basketball, Duke students haven't paid much attention to football in recent years. Student turnout has been embarrassingly low and home games have been overshadowed by an event known as “Tailgate” ? a raucous pre-game party that has become increasingly divorced from the game itself. Indeed, few students attending “Tailgate” have bothered to wander over to the stands to actually watch the Blue Devils play.

Cutcliffe addressed the ?Tailgate' issue head on earlier in the week. He told reporters that he had no problem with students enjoying themselves as long as they didn't “disrespect what I do.”

Saturday, Cutcliffe dropped in on “Tailgate.”

“It was just setting up,” he said. “I was on my way to the hotel [for the pregame meal] and I asked the police officer to drop me off there. I went walking out there and a couple of jaws dropped to the ground.”

The first-year Duke coach encouraged the students to have a good time, but once again asked them to give him and his team a chance.

“They were great,” he said. “A lot of those students came over and showed up on the walk. I really appreciated that. They should be festive. That's part of college life. [But] part of student life is athletics ? amongst many other things that they do. I want it to be a real positive experience for them.”

Other than the nasty weather just before the scheduled kickoff, almost everything that happened Saturday night was a positive experience. And even during the long delay, Cutcliffe interacted with the students patiently waiting in their newly re-located student section (moved back to their historic location on the home side of the field after several years on the visiting side).

His visit with the students during the break was a spontaneous thing.

“I had just come down the tunnel to see what the weather was like,” he said. “When I got to the end of the tunnel, I was amazed at how many students were there. And I just made an instant decision to go over and thank them ? I didn't want them to leave. I wanted them to be into it and stay there, because I knew how significant they would be in the ballgame. I just went over and kind of got cranked up with them and enjoyed that myself. That was a fun moment for me. I hope it was for them.”

The students appeared to enjoy Duke's surprisingly dominant victory. It was the first home win the majority of undergraduates had ever enjoyed. Many observers in the press box were waiting for the students to rush the field after the game and to tear down the goalpost. That's what usually happens after Duke's rare home wins.

It didn't happen this time ? thanks to Cutcliffe.

“I looked over at our goalpost and I saw that we had about 10 police officers and there were thousands of them,” he said. “I thought, ?This is pretty bad odds.' So I went over to that front row and I just asked them, ?Let's pick another game to take these things down. Spread the word up please and stay in the stands. Let's have our fun in the stands.'”

The students obeyed Cutcliffe's request and stayed in their seats until the final gun, then remained to celebrate with the team, which moved en masse to the student area, their helmets raised in salute.

“The students were everything you wish they could be as a coach,” Cutcliffe said.

But it was more than the students. The stadium was packed with thousands of ordinary Blue Devil fans. They were there for a number of reasons ? those lured by Cutcliffe's long, hard promotional campaign; those merely curious about the new coaching regime and those diehards who supported the team in its worst days.

The crowd was the third-largest at Wallace Wade in the 21st Century ? the largest since 33,002 showed up for the 2002 Duke-UNC game. But that crowd (and the 35,206 who attended the 2001 Duke-N.C. State game) included a large proportion of rival fans. There were a couple of thousand James Madison fans at Wade Stadium Saturday night, but it's pretty safe to say there were more Duke fans in Wade than at any time since ... since when? Maybe Nov. 5, 1994, when 33,941 mostly Duke fans attended the Devils' matchup with Virginia.

It's worth pointing out that the 1994 Duke team was 7-1 and ranked No. 23 in the nation when it faced the Cavs in 1994. The crowd that turned out Saturday night was there to see a Duke team that has won two games in the last three years.

Even Cutcliffe was amazed by the turnout.

“The fans really exceeded my expectations,” he said Sunday night. “I was thrilled. That sea of blue, surrounding the band, looked pretty awesome from where we were standing. And it looked like they were all having a good time.”

In the long run, Duke needs to make improvements to Wallace Wade Stadium. Improvements have been authorized and are in the planning stages. In a few years, the old horseshow will have all the bells and whistles of a modern athletic facility ? new restrooms and concession stands, luxury boxes, an improved concourse.

But Saturday night's atmosphere should remind us that it's not almost about the facilities. Mike Krzyzewski's basketball dynasty started with the fan support, then improved the facility. Florida State's football facility looked like a high school field when Bobby Bowden got there ? with the support of fans and success on the field, Doak Campbell Stadium was gradually transformed into a palace. Virginia's Scott Stadium was a small, dingy dump (far worse than Wade at its worst) when George Welsh got the Cavalier program off the ground ? now the Virginia facility looks like a Greek temple.

The argument for facility upgrades is that it helps recruiting. There's a lot of truth in that. But the passion a team generates is worth at least as much as a new weight room. It would be understandable for a top prospect to visit Duke in recent years and be turned off by the small, disinterested crowd. At the same time, any prospect who visited Wade Stadium Saturday night would have to be impressed by the excitement evident in the facility as Duke knocked off James Madison.

Of course, that was merely one night ... one game. By Sunday night, Cutcliffe was already at work, trying to pump up the crowd for this Saturday's home game with Northwestern.

“We've got good football to put in front of them ? a Big 10 football team coming in,” he said. “Everything here is improved, the concessions, the rest rooms ... I'm hoping we can exceed last Saturday night's crowd, especially if we get some friendlier weather.”

It would certainly help attendance if Cutcliffe's team keeps playing as well as it did in the opener. But it's a two-way street ? it will be easier for the Blue Devils to maintain their focus and enthusiasm if the stands are packed with focused and enthusiastic fans.

Featherston: Wallace Wade Stadium Comes Alive

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