Duke students are serious when it comes to attending the UNC game. If you don’t know the tradition, students take drastic measures to ensure that they have a spot in the stands for the big game. K-Ville tenting is a process where students, coined “Crazies”, live in tents for weeks leading up to the game. There are three types of tenting – black, white, and blue, black being the longest and most intense.

For each kind of tenting, there have to be 12 members living in the tent. Each type of team sleeps outside for varying degrees of time, starting with the black tenters. The order in which you are place is determined by a campus scavenger hunt for both black and blue tenters. So here is the breakdown.

Black tenting: The twelve members of the tent aren’t even sleeping in a tent for the first week but instead have to sleep under tarps until blue tenting starts. Two out of the 12 members must be present in the tent at all times during the day, and 10 of the 12 must be present during nights. All tenters are subject to tent checks, and if they don’t have the right amount of members present, they get warned once. After a second missed tent check, they get moved to the back of the line. Black tenting 2013 began on January 9th.

Blue tenting: The week after black tenting, the blue tenters arrive. They also have 12 members, but only 1 must be present during the day, and six members must be present at night. They have the same deal with missed tent checks. This year, blue tenters arrive on January 16th.

White Tenting: This begins two weeks before the big game. These tenters aren’t guaranteed a spot in K-ville, so they must scour campus to find a person to give them a placement number. If those seeking white tenting are lucky enough to get a spot, one person must be in the tent all day, and just two have to be in the tent at night. White tenters come to K-ville on the 30th of January.

The last two days before the game, some other rules kick into place, and you can read about those here.

Luckily, if you don’t go to Duke and had not heard of tenting until now, we’ve found a first-hand account of a black tenter on Twitter, and it’s a fun read. Jordan DeLoatch’s tenting session began the night of January 9th – the UNC game isn’t until February 13th. Unfortunately, we can’t fit all the tweets into this post, so if you want to read about the rest of the crazy details, check out @jstorm64‘s Twitter page.

First night of black tenting! First 3 AM tent check…. First line monitor who thought the requirement was 12 instead of 10! — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 10, 2013

A schedule with no morning classes has its own obvious benefits, but it’s also incredibly compatible with tenting. #zzzzzzz — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 10, 2013

@kville_nation Tents are looking good and the weather is looking even better! #kville twitter.com/Duke_MARKETING… — Duke Marketing (@Duke_MARKETING) January 10, 2013

Night 2. The good news is that the tent that was being way too loud last night is quiet. The bad news is another tent is just as loud. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 11, 2013

1 tent check down for the night. Obviously have no idea how many more to go. 1? 2? 0? We’ll see… — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 11, 2013

Hey, I just met you, and we are Crazies… — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 11, 2013

This is the longest into night hours the line monitors have taken to call a tent check. We are TWO minutes in and counting. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 12, 2013

So far, the obligatory loud drunken tent does not seem to have materialized. I expect we’ll see one after the inevitable check. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 12, 2013

TENT CHECK! 18 minutes in, and it sets the season record for longest night hours before the first tent check. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 12, 2013

“I’m ready! I’m ready! I’m ready! I’m ready!” “Why is there a saw on the ground?” “Thomas, what tent do I live in?” #KvilleSounds #TentCheck — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 12, 2013

I’m in K-ville right now. The tent next to us (which was drunk and loud on Wednesday night) apparently is short a person. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 14, 2013

Until now, I had no clue there was so much innuendo that could be derived from inflating an air mattress. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 14, 2013

It’s windier in K-ville than the gale force a ref feels when confronted with the wrath of Mike Krzyzewski. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 15, 2013

Some areas of K-ville have nicer tarp structures than others. In other words, we have slums in K-ville. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 15, 2013

One of our tent members didn’t show after that last grace period. Tent check missed. We’re hanging by a thread until Wednesday night. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 15, 2013

Third tent check of the night…I’m measuring my sleep so far in minutes, not hours. — Jordan DeLoatch (@jstorm64) January 15, 2013