Leading OFF
Fans spend, share, sacrifice to see Coach K’s last games
DURHAM, N.C. – Cameron Indoor Stadium has always been a destination for college basketball fans, but the success of one man over the last five decades has turned the 9,314seat arena into a mecca for those who worship a game as synonymous with the state of North Carolina as homemade biscuits and whole-hog BBQ.
After 42 years as Duke’s head basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski announced last June that this season would be his last, beginning a mad scramble for fans to see the NCAA’s alltime winningest coach live in action one more time.
Before the season began, four tickets and a weekend lodging for the March 5 home finale against North Carolina were won for $1 million at a Napa Valley auction benefiting the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer research.
That, of course, was on the absurd spectrum when it came to finding a ticket in Coach K’s final season, but Duke fans from across the country made huge sacrifices – physically and financially – to make their way into Cameron to watch Krzyzewski hold court for the final time.
These are their stories.
Kind words from K
J.C. Weber will never forget his interaction with Coach K.
Weber was a talented high school basketball player out of Dubuque, Iowa; maybe not destined to one day play for the Blue Devils, but enough to find himself at the same AAU tournament as Krzyzewski.
On this occasion, the then 16year-old was standing on crutches while watching his basketball team play when Coach K walked over and put his hand on Weber’s shoulder.
“He told me to keep my head up,” Weber said. “He was really positive with me, which was really cool. It was a great experience and it made me a Duke fan for life.”
Weber is now 35, and that conversation spurred him to travel with his wife, Lindsey, to Durham for the first time. Well, Lindsey actually deserves most of the credit for the trip.
She surprised J.C. with two tickets to the Feb. 7 home game against Virginia on Christmas morning.
“Oh, he was shocked,” she said, laughing. “It’s Coach K’s last season and I wanted to make sure he (J.C.) had a chance to be here for it.”
The two toured the campus the day before the game and both marveled at the Gothic architecture and the hordes of students camping out in Krzyzewskiville, located outside Cameron Indoor Stadium.
“It’s still pretty mind-blowing that I’m here,” J.C. said.
International travel
Like many North Carolinians, the Duke-UNC rivalry game creates a divided house for Mike and Tenille Woods. The one big difference is that Mike and Tenille live nowhere near UNC.
The couple traveled from the Canadian province of Alberta for a long weekend of college basketball – the first time in 21⁄2 years they had been able to leave the country amid the pandemic.
Their first stop was the Dean E. Smith Center, where Mike’s Blue Devils dominated Tenille’s Tar Heels 87-67 on Feb. 5 in Coach K’s final trip to Chapel Hill.
The price tag for those tickets? $600 a pop. Or as Tenille put it, almost 1,600 in Canadian money for both.
“It was amazing,” said Mike, who wore his Duke gear while surrounded by a sea of UNC fans. “I was pretty much hated by everyone in that stadium.”
Two days later, the high school sweethearts dropped another $300 each to see Duke at home against Virginia.
Mike had become an avid Duke fan as a teenager, watching the Blue Devils make the Final Four five times in the 1990s and twice more in the early 2000s. The two traveled to the 2010 and 2015 NCAA Tournament to see the Blue Devils play in the Final Four, watching Duke defeat Wisconsin on April 6, 2015, for Coach K’s fifth national title.
“I fell in love with the team,” Mike said. “I love the way they play the game, and, of course, the coaching is amazing.”
Love for Jay Williams
Ashley Johnson admits it wasn’t Coach K who turned her into a Duke fan at a young age; it was point guard Jay Williams.
Johnson was 13 when she joined her high school basketball team in Ohio after watching Williams lead Duke to a national championship in 2001.
“I wanted to play just like him,” she said. “It made me want to be a point guard and it made me follow Duke, well, for the rest of my life.”
She had hoped to one day play basketball for Duke’s women’s team, but it was her prowess in track and field that brought her to the Durham campus in college. Competing as a sprinter for the University of Toledo, Johnson participated in a track meet at Duke.
“It was a pretty incredible experience,” she said.
She returned to Durham on Feb. 7 to see Duke play for the second time this season. She was wearing her Duke jersey in the stands on Nov. 30 when the Blue Devils lost 71-66 at Ohio State.
Johnson, 35, shelled out $1,000 each for a ticket for her and her mother, Cynthia. The two drove eight hours together the night before to be in the stands at Cameron against Virginia.
“I’m just here for support,” Cynthia said. “She loves Duke basketball and I love her. It’s always a lot of fun.”
A Christmas surprise
It was always Kyle Reisinger’s dream to watch Duke play at Cameron Indoor.
Growing up in Waterloo, Iowa, he became a fan in 1994 when guard Trajan Langdon arrived at Duke. Kyle loved Langdon’s nickname, “The Alaskan Assassin.”
On Christmas morning, his wife, Kayla, made that dream come true. She surprised him with two tickets to the Feb. 15 Duke vs. Wake Forest game – which would also be the thirdto-last game for Coach K at Cameron.
“I had to fight back tears,” Kyle said as he waited in line to enter the arena. “Honestly, I’m still fighting back tears.” The couple has been married for seven years but never got a chance to go on a honeymoon. The 161⁄2-hour drive from Waterloo to Durham wasn’t that – Kayla made that abundantly clear – but this was their first big trip together.
It may not have been a honeymoon, but the trip came at a honeymoon price: $600 a ticket.
“He has done so much for our family, and I wanted to pay him back,” Kayla said. “I’m so glad I get to experience this with him, and I’ve also become a bandwagon fan in the process, mostly because it’s on our TV all season.”
Was it worth it? “Every penny,” Kyle said.
Business trip detour
Tim Werner made sure his trip to North Carolina was a mixture of business and pleasure.
The 54-year-old, who lives
right outside of Jacksonville, Florida, had already mentally prepared for the exhaustion he may feel the next morning for his meeting in Charlotte. This night would be worth it.
Werner had dropped $1,250 for a seat in Cameron for the Feb. 15 game against Wake Forest, the first time he’d been back for Duke basketball since graduating in 1989.
This would be the first time he would be allowed to sit while attending a game.
“I go back to all those times where I was standing down in those stands and all the fun that it was,” Werner said. “I couldn’t imagine not coming to see him (Krzyzewski) one more time.”
Werner had wanted to attend the final home game of the year, but the UNC-Duke tilt had been a bit out of his price range.
“Those tickets were starting at around 5 to $6,000. I couldn’t quite rationalize spending that, but I definitely thought about it,” he said, laughing.
“He was ordained”
Jamie and Samantha Price came to Durham two years ago for the chance to watch Zion Williamson play at Cameron.
They returned to St. Louis with a special story.
The two had a chance encounter with Krzyzewski before Duke faced Louisville on Jan. 18,
2020, and Coach K noticed that Samantha was six months pregnant. He wished them luck and asked permission to touch her belly – the baby kicked his hand.
“We know when he ends up playing for Duke that he was ordained,” Jamie said. “It’s a story I’ll get to tell the rest of my life.”
Their son is now 2 years old, but he was left at home for the Feb. 19 game against Florida State. When you pay $900 for each seat, you leave any possible distractions at home.
“We planned for this the entire year since Coach K announced he was retiring,” Jamie said. “I told my wife, ‘We aren’t missing a chance to see him.’ ”
A lucky fan in the bunch
For most fans at Cameron, whatever game they attended would and was their only opportunity to see Coach K this season.
Gray McCalley Jr. is among the lucky few to attend multiple home games this season – five to be exact – including Coach K’s penultimate contest at Cameron against Florida State.
“My father-in-law went here, my wife went here, I went here and so did my oldest daughter,” he said. “For me, Duke means family.”
A 1979 graduate of Duke University’s School of Law, McCalley now lives in Atlanta but is an adjunct professor at Duke. He won season tickets before the season began after donating to the athletic program.
That means he’ll be in attendance on March 5 for Coach K’s final game at Cameron. And yes, he’s aware of how much he could sell the ticket for.
“I guess I could leave my kids with a lot of money, but there’s no number that would make me give up this ticket,” he said. “This is a game that will be talked about forever; you can’t put a price on that.
How about $1 million? “Well, I mean, I’m not crazy,” McCalley quipped. “I suppose I’m open for offers.”