Cold Cocked

Bizarre day last Saturday at the Duke-Carolina game. I already posted about the episode where the Parking Attendant, upon entry to the lot, referred to son Chris as a Sheila. But that was just the start of things. While I was tending to the grill during the tailgate, we were treated to an appearance by this creepy middle-aged lady dressed up as a clown who was parading through the parking lot creating balloon structures, all the while never saying a word to anybody.  (Billy Crystal in Spinal Tap: Hurry Up, Mime is Money!). She snuck right up beside me at the grill and crouched down, staring up at me while creating her balloon art. I paid her no attention and was focused on the grub – take your crazy somewhere else please - while everybody else (thanks Lora!) conveniently did the SplitsVille routine and left me on the island with her. Weird. She eventually moved on, but Lord, that was awkward.

While the lot was filling up, we witnessed high drama and noisy conflict between several of the Parking Attendants as they disagreed over the strategy to employ to park the vehicles (PAWA - Parking Attendants With Attitude?) Then this young girl who was parked next to us decided to leave the lot when it was packed with tailgaters and canopies. Classy brother Rich provided expert navigation support for the young women, but it still took her two or three three-point-turns to get out of there.

At the game itself we were fortunate enough to sit around an interesting cast of characters in the two rows in front of us. None of them were more interesting than a guy I will refer to as Really Intense Dude (aka Ned Flanders), a forty something gentleman who apparently takes Duke football way too seriously. This dude was totally amped for the Carolina rivalry game, which I totally understand, and Duke really needs passionate fans to make up for the lack of numbers, but this guy was way over the top. I honestly couldn’t tell if he was playing a part, or he was keeping it real. A bit player in this act was Innocent Acquaintance, a twenty something fan sitting directly in front of me, who has some relationship to Really Intense Dude (maybe father-son?). An otherwise completely normal young man, Innocent Acquaintance is called out here since he was the direct recipient of each outburst during the evening from Really Intense Dude. For some context, here was the seating arrangement.My nephew Sam, in this post from his new blog, has some interesting thoughts regarding the reasons so many fans today are so eager to place culpability for their favorite team’s failures on the performance of referees and officials, instead of on the well-paid executives, coaches, and players who have much more of a direct impact “on the bottom line”. It occurred to me throughout the evening that Really Intense Dude might be Exhibit One for that line of thinking.

The first outburst from Really Intense Dude came following this bizarre episode in the 2nd Quarter (highlighted in the video below), where a reserve Carolina linebacker running onto the field knocked over Duke stud WR Conner Vernon during a dead ball. (The Carolina reserve was suspended by the ACC for a game for this incident.)

While Vernon was being attended to by the Duke training staff, Really Intense Dude ambles slowly back to the row behind him and lines up squarely in front of Innocent Acquaintance (4 feet in front of me) and stares at him in the eyes for a couple of awkward moments before  s-l-o-w-l-y enunciating:

He…..cold cocked……Vernon!  He…..cold cocked……Vernon!

I don’t have adequate writing chops to convey the earnestness, fire, and rage with which these pronouncements were made by Really Intense Dude. Rich mustered all the self-control he had not to burst out laughing, but my immediate thoughts after witnessing this first explosion were:

1. There are at least eight shades of crazy in that dude’s eyes that I have never before encountered.
2. This guy is wound way too tight to be a Duke football fan. How the hell did he get through the last 24 years of home losses to the ‘Heels?
3. I hope to God he isn’t carrying a firearm this evening – collateral damage and all of that.

I thought momentarily about offering a vocabulary lesson to Really Intense Dude, since Vernon was clearly conscious and I didn’t think he was even struck in the head at the point of the collision – but decided against engaging such an emotional character. Really Intense Dude laid pretty dormant for the next two quarters or so – Duke was controlling the game quite nicely during this time. But when Carolina started to take control of the game in the 4th quarter, back-to-back “controversial” calls put him over the edge again. From the game log, here were the two plays:

1st and 10 at DUKE 32 Bryn Renner rush for 6 yards to the Duke 13, DUKE penalty 13 yard Personal Foul on David Helton accepted for a 1ST down.

1st and 10 at DUKE 13 Giovani Bernard rush for 8 yards to the Duke 5.

The first play was one of those where the quarterback (Carolina QB Bryn Renner in this case) is flushed out of the pocket and running for yardage and then decides to get down quite late in the play as the linebackers and secondary converge for their sampling of red meat. A similar play with Duke quarterback Sean Renfree doing the running the previous week against Virginia Tech had resulted in an injured Duke QB - and no defensive penalty. The second play was one of those sweeps where the wide out has to successfully engage and block the cornerback. At the time while watching the game, I thought both plays could of been bad calls, but I certainly wasn’t %100 sure. Our seats aren’t the greatest, and even with that action being at the end of the field closest to our seats, I certainly didn’t think they were slam-dunk calls. But Really Intense Dude didn't have such doubts.

Commence Act Two. At the next stoppage for an injury, Really Intense Dude again migrates over to Innocent Acquaintance in the row behind him and squares up to him with that same crazy-ass stare he used after the Conner Vernon incident.

That was the same exact play as Renfree at Blacksburg. No penalty was called. That…..was…..the…..same…...exact…..play!

Whoa. He wasn’t finished though and decided to get physical. He grabbed Innocent Acquaintance by the shoulders and shook him, mimicking the hold he thought the Carolina receiver had employed at the point of attack to the Duke corner on the second play. Through it all, the Innocent Acquaintance just chilled and took it all in stride – something tells me this is not the first time he has had to endure Really Intense Dude. No wonder he was sitting as far away as he could. While I am really happy that Duke won, part of me was sort of rooting for an Act Three.

Here is a Flickr Slideshow of a couple of shots that my son Chris took at the Duke-UNC football game held on October 20, 2012 at Wallace Wade Stadium on the campus of Duke University in Durham, NC. Really Intense Dude is captured indirectly in two of the photos. Where’s Waldo?