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Fans enjoy friendly rivalry

FanFest attracts supporters from nearly all of the teams in the ACC tournament.

By MICHAEL A. MOHAMMED
Published March 11, 2007

TAMPA - Outside the St. Pete Times Forum on Saturday, Chuck and Rob Raymond wore their team pride on the tops of their balding heads.

The brothers had gotten their domes painted with the blue and white logo of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.

All around them, visitors from near and far sipped $9 cups of beer and waited for the second day of the Atlantic Coast Conference college basketball championship to get rolling.

Inflatable carnival games filled a parking lot near the entrance. Tampa Bay Lightning cheerleaders in micro-miniskirts and metallic spandex tops wandered through the crowd to represent the Times Forum's regular residents.

At the free face-painting booth, a man in a Hawaiian shirt airbrushed team logos onto children's cheeks and middle-aged men's bald spots.

In the arena, UNC and Boston College got ready to play.

The fans at the Times Forum's pregame FanFest represented nearly all the teams in the championship.

There were even a couple of Cameron Crazies, hard-core Duke fans, though North Carolina State had knocked the Duke Blue Devils out of the championship the day before.

"It's kind of a wakeup call. It's not the Duke Invitational anymore," said Jill Alexy, who wore a Cameron Crazies shirt on her way into Saturday's game.

"We always have Carolina to root against," said the Duke grad and Indiana resident.

Despite the rivalries, many of the visiting fans called the ACC championship a friendlier and less corporate contest than the NCAA's March Madness.

Chet Maxson, another Duke fan sticking around to boo UNC, said the ACC championship is "not like the Final Four."

It's more like a backyard brawl, he said. ACC teams - and fans - know each other better, which leads to more good-natured ribbing than car tipping.

Ocala native Joe Locker laughed and sipped beer with his friends, who wore UNC blue.

Locker himself, though, sported Boston College gear. He didn't come to argue over rivalries, he said.

"I'm just here for the Bud Light," he said.

His friend and fellow Ocala resident Rob Reed, who grew up in Chapel Hill and loves the Tar Heels, agreed - except when it came to Duke.

"I'm only disappointed Gerald Henderson didn't trip and smash his face on the cement," Reed said, referring to the Duke freshman who broke a UNC player's nose in a foul March 3.

Soon, the crowd filtered into the Times Forum. A few desperate scalpers waved fistfuls of unsold tickets, and a couple of dozen fans ignored them.

Sipping their beers, they lolled in the sun and watched the game on a big TV set up outside the Times Forum.

Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at (813) 226-3404 or mmohammed@sptimes.com.

[Last modified March 11, 2007, 00:26:55]