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One-woman pep squad

A Duke fan on Tobacco Road

By GREG AUMAN
Published March 4, 2007

LUTZ - A Duke fan on Tobacco Road? Ordinarily, you would say there's nothing special about that.

But as the ACC tournament convenes at St. Pete Times Forum this week, bringing four teams from that famed basketball corridor in North Carolina, it's an exciting time for at least one fan on Hillsborough County's own Tobacco Road.

"I'm probably the only real basketball junkie around here," says Jessica Schultz, a huge Duke fan whose home has one of two basketball goals that can be found on Tobacco Road, just west of the Suncoast Parkway.

The quiet, tree-lined rural road winds about a mile and a half north-south, connecting Van Dyke and Hutchison roads, with traffic from the elevated Suncoast Parkway peeking out between houses. You'll find horses and cattle grazing, rusted-out pickup trucks and small businesses ranging from lawn service to bulldog breeding to a preschool academy.

Come Thursday, Schultz won't be so displaced as a Duke fan. Mike Krzyzewski's dominant run in the early 1990s had her smitten during her days at Gaither High, and she can still remember where she saw the biggest moments in Duke lore.

"When Christian Laettner hit The Shot, I was watching in my room," said Schultz, 31, a former English teacher who is now an assistant principal at Mitchell High in Trinity. "I jumped up and down so much I almost broke my bed. My mom came in and was worried something was wrong."

When Schultz ran her first marathon two years ago, she chose one in Raleigh so she could make a quick visit to Duke's campus in Durham. Arriving at Cameron Indoor Stadium, she found the women's team practicing, talking her way past a guard so she could have her picture taken in the arena's main entry.

"It's like a cathedral," said Schultz, who has two degrees from BYU and one from USF but keeps her basketball loyalty with the Blue Devils.

If Duke advances past its opening-round game in Tampa, she said she'll try to buy tickets from forlorn fans of their eliminated opponent.

"The basketball fans we have around here, most of them don't have the good taste to like Duke," she said.

Greg Auman can be reached at auman@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3346.

[Last modified March 3, 2007, 22:30:59]