Sneaking in: Maria’s story

By Jake Sheridan

This story was originally written as part of a feature story in the Duke Chronicle about students that snuck into the 2018 Duke-UNC game at Duke. That story can be found here ( https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2018/11/sneaking-into-cameron-indoor-stadium-duke-unc-game-duke-university-basketball). It was taken out of that story because “Maria” is my older sister, and writing about siblings is frowned upon. It has not been edited, and was never finished — it’s kinda rough.

Maria got up at 4:15 AM on Wednesday determined to get in through the walk up line. She thought she was on time — she had heard that if she was in line by 5 she’d be safe. Things looked good when she got there. She waited for a few hours, and then left her partner to go to swim practice.

After work, she checked her phone. Bad news. Her partner had texted her: they had lost their spot. A pack of boys had rushed the line and Maria’s partner was pushed back, way back. Dreams of Cameron were all but over.

Maria decided to try again after work anyways. After three hours of pushing and shoving, she realized there was “no way in hell” she was going to get close enough to the front to get a ticket. Group 418 wasn’t going to get into Cameron.

“Then I thought ‘there has to be another way to get into this game’.”

Maria wasn’t going to get in through the walkup line, but she was going to get in. She called a friend that had snuck in last year.

“How did you finesse the system?”

Her friend explained the loophole, and Maria decided she had nothing to lose. On gameday, she woke up, grabbed a multi-colored box of sharpies, and headed to K-ville. She went straight to the graduate student walk up line, presented her Duke ID and was handed a band. Then she walked back to K-ville and partied.

At 6 P.M. She returned to the graduate student walk up, where less than half an hour before the game began, the line monitors started letting groups in. In that line, Maria was in group 168. A line monitor had told her that would be good enough to get in, but the line seemed to be getting longer and the game was getting closer. Space was limited. 168 didn’t feel right. So Maria decided to cheat some more. She flipped her band over to its identical but unmarked underside per her friend’s advice, unsheathed her black sharpie — which matched the lettering of the group number on the other side — and wrote down a new number, 84.

But the line still wasn’t moving. She turned to her friend.

“I don’t know if we’re gonna get in.”

The line monitors continued to call small groups into Cameron, and Maria continued to wait anxiously. Then she caved.

“If we don’t try right now, we are not going to get in.”

Maria and her line partner stepped over the caution tape that formed the graduate walk up line outside of Wallace Wade stadium. They walked up the staircase that went to the Yoh Football Center as if they were leaving K-ville. Then, once they were out of the line monitor’s sight, they hooked a hard left and ended up at the graduate student entrance to Cameron.

A line monitor stopped them.

“Are you in group 40?”

“Yes.”

“Great.”

They walked past the metal fences that held back the line to a smaller line outside of the arena. Ahead, a fire marshall rigorously checked bands. Maria prepared herself for a final showdown. It never came. A leader from the student section came out and yelled that more people were needed inside, and the small line was rushed through.

Lost in a crowd, Maria, formerly in undergraduate walk up line group 418, then the 168th member of the graduate student walk up line, who next became the 84th member of the graduate student walk up line before finally evolving into the 40th member of the graduate student walk up line, ran into Cameron. The game had already started by the time she found her seat, but she was in. And it was good.

“It was the best night of my life. It was the best night I have ever had at Duke. We went to Shooter’s [Duke’s premier undergraduate dance club / sweaty saloon] and I ran into the graduate line monitor that didn’t check our bands and told him he was the reason we got in. He just fistbumped us and yelled righteous!’.“

Righteous indeed.