Dribbling Down the Tobacco Road

I've always said that any true sports fan needs to make pilgrimages to the important landmarks in sports during his lifetime: Fenway Park, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Lambeau Field, the Rose Bowl, etc.  Yesterday I not only crossed two sports to-do's off of my list - Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium and UNC's Dean Dome - but I had the rare opportunity to visit both on the same day.

First up was an up-close-and-personal tour of Cameron, which exceeded even my wildest expectations.  Thanks to some special connections, I had the chance to walk right onto the fabled "Coach K Court" and take a look around the facility with no one else around.  As I'd heard, the gym is very small and cozy, and has a wonderfully classic feel to it.  Even though I unfortunately wasn't there for a game, I could understand what makes Cameron such a special place; from the blue seats to the classic scoreboard, everything had a very "Duke-cool" feel to it.  While it lacked the bells and whistles of some of college hoops' more elaborate arenas, the only college basketball facility that I've been to that might rival it is the Palestra in Philadelphia.  In addition to Cameron, we also toured the nearby Duke sports museum, which had awesome displays of Duke sports accomplishments (mainly basketball, but other sports too) over the years.  Duke has a gorgeous campus overall, and the basketball facilities truly are the icing on the cake.

On the floor of Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Yesterday evening, it was off to the Dean Dome to watch North Carolina take on UNC Asheville.  The Dean Dome couldn't have been more different from Cameron Indoor Stadium; other than the trademark Tar Heel blue covering all of the seats, railings and rafters, nothing about the Dean Dome was very collegiate.  At more than double the size of Cameron, the Dome is probably awesome when filled with screaming UNC fans, but was a little underwhelming at basically half capacity.  The fans matched their team for most of the game, as they appeared to take the win for granted (and barely cheered) until it got close in the second half.  At that point, both the team and the fans released nervous blasts of energy, which gave me a glimpse of what a game at the Dean Dome could be like.  This particular pre-Thanksgiving non-conference matchup, however, reminded me more of an Indiana Pacers game than it did a home contest for one of college basketball's top all-time programs.

There were plenty of open seats at the Dean Dome for UNC's game against UNC-Asheville.

For this trip down Tobacco Road, the score reads Duke 1, UNC 0.  I hope to have the opportunity to attend big-time battles at both Cameron Indoor and the Dean Dome in the future, though, to see how the two compare on more equal playing fields.