UNC Fans Remember Incident, Eager for Duke's Return

March 4, 2007 – a date which North Carolina and Duke fans will long remember.

If you follow either team, you remember the game. Maybe you forget the final score (UNC 86, Duke 72), but you undoubtedly recall the game’s lasting image, which will endure as long as college basketball’s most heated rivalry exists: Seventeen-point-five seconds left. North Carolina up, 84-72. UNC sophomore Tyler Hansbrough at the foul line.

It takes exactly three seconds: Hansbrough misses his free throw, corrals his own rebound and prepares to explode toward the rim between two defenders, as is his custom. But a third defender – Duke freshman Gerald Henderson – comes flying in from the side. Intentionally or accidentally, Henderson careens into Hansbrough, elbow to nose.

Fourteen-point-five seconds left. Whistles blow. Blood gushes. Pandemonium ensues.

By now, you’ve likely watched the replays countless times, whether on “Sportscenter” or YouTube. If you watched the game live on TV, you probably saw the image over and over again while the officials tried to restore calm.

But unless you were there, in the Smith Center, you might have trouble understanding the emotions that the scene evoked from the fans and the players.

Brian Stone was there – a senior at “the Duke game” for the first time in his college career. He sat in the very top row, the nosebleed section of the nosebleed section.

“I felt like I was watching a movie, like there was no way you could script something like that happening at the end of a Duke-Carolina game,” Stone said.

Jeff Duffy was there – technically a junior with enough credit hours to qualify for senior ticket status. He sat far back from the action, but that hardly mattered.

“I’ve never been in a sports atmosphere that was that riled up about a foul. I mean, it was intense,” Duffy said. “You could feel the hate. It was universal – the whole crowd.”

Patty Baum was there – a senior and vice chair of Carolina Fever, a UNC fan organization that rewards students for attending non-basketball games with tickets to the Duke game. She stood in the risers – the bleachers located directly behind the basket near UNC’s bench (the basket under which Hansbrough and Henderson met).

“I have never heard the Smith Center that loud, other than the Ohio State game earlier that year,” Baum said. “I remember everyone in the risers was freaking out and was so angry, and I remember even the old people, the old, rich people in the front were standing up, and they were angry, too. It was the response of the year.”

And Dewey Burke was there – a senior playing the final regular season home game of his career. Tar Heel fans know him as Dewey “Biscuits” Burke, a blue-collar player who regularly entered games that UNC led by large margins with little time left (nicknamed “Biscuits” because of his penchant for hitting the basket that put North Carolina over the 100-point mark and earning the fans in attendance free Bojangles’ biscuits the next day).

He stood on the court (if you Google pictures from the game, he’s the little guy restraining the big guy with the bloody nose).

“Right after, I was just trying to keep Tyler calm, in his ear telling him to breathe … And then there was blood everywhere,” Burke said. “I had blood all over me, just trying to get it off. Then (the officials) took time to review it, then they kicked Gerald out of the game, and the fans are booing him and everything, so the whole thing was just kind of surreal. The magnitude of that game anyway, and then you add an event like that on top of it … it was crazy.”

Not only were Stone, Duffy, Baum and Burke there last year – they’ll all be there this year, too, when Henderson and the Blue Devils return to the Smith Center on February 6th for the first time since the incident. The four of them remember it vividly.

“The two teams were lining up, basically like an army, and they were looking at each other like they were ready to go to battle,” Stone, who is now finishing up his senior year after a brief hiatus, said.

Duffy, now a true senior who will graduate this spring and hopes to attend UNC medical school next year, said, “I was shocked, because you saw the blood, and the red, and it kind of got you going. It looked really, really bad at the time. I’ve never seen a player get so much intense hatred leaving the court. It didn’t look as bad, later, when I saw it.”

With the action directly in front of her, Baum – now in her first year of graduate school at Carolina – was incensed. “Immediately, I wanted to jump out of the risers and strangle him. Thank goodness I was able to restrain myself, because I would have been arrested,” she said. “Looking back at the footage, I don’t think he meant to make (Hansbrough) bleed … In person, it looked like he was angry, and he wanted to get some revenge on us for playing well.”

But Burke – who came into town for the Boston College game and is staying through the Duke match-up – experienced the moment better than anyone else, save for Hansbrough and Henderson.

“From what I saw, it did look intentional, just because: When in basketball do you make a play with a closed fist? Never. So, from my vantage point, I did think it was intentional. To Gerald’s credit, he did call and apologize, and it’s water under the bridge now,” he said.

“The type of athlete he is – you’ve seen him play – he’s effortless. He’s such a smooth, controlled athlete, so it’s just hard for me to believe that wasn’t something he was trying to do. I don’t think he meant to break Tyler’s nose, I don’t think he’s a malicious kid, but I think the intent was there to put him on the ground and send some kind of message,” Burke added.

All four expect a close, hard-fought game next Wednesday evening, with Duke and Carolina seemingly more evenly matched than last season.

As for Henderson’s reception?

“He’s stepping onto a battlefield,” Stone said.

Duffy said that “he should get a little bit of abuse, but at a certain line it goes over, and you’ve got to keep it a little bit classy, but I think he should get booed every time he touches the ball.”

According to Baum, “The crowd is going to be booing, a lot. I think it’s going to be pretty loud, and I think that a lot of people are going to be heckling him.”

Burke said, “You know, it’s going to be a tough night for Gerald. They’re going to be all over him – as they should. Hopefully we take care of business.”

Are you going to boo?

Stone: “Oh, absolutely, I’m going to boo Henderson. I think he’s going to hear it every time he touches the ball. It’s going to be great.”

Duffy: “Oh yea.”

Baum: “Honestly, I’m not going to be that nice of a person. I won’t be mean, but I won’t go out of my way to … be nice. How ‘bout that.”

As for Burke – he said that he sees the game differently than the normal fan and will focus too intently on making sure that his teammates execute their offense and defense well to worry about booing. That hardly makes Burke and his former teammates Gerald Henderson fans.

“Now, if Tyler had the chance to maybe go up and try and dunk on Gerald, would he have that in the back of his mind?” Burke said.

“Sure. Who wouldn’t? I think that’s human nature. But you don’t need any extra incentive in this game; it’s the biggest game there is, it’s why you come.”

And, for 20,000 or so lucky people, it’s why being there can give you something to tell stories about for the rest of your life.