-
-
Like this title? Start a Reading List with others like it!
-
The Krzyzewskiville Tales
- Author(s): Aaron Dinin
- Contributor(s): Mickie Krzyzewski
- Published: 2005
- Pages: 296
- Illustrations: 20 b&w photos trim size 5 1/2 x 7
-
- Buy the ebook:
- Apple iBooks
-
- Foreword / Mickie Krzyzewski ix
- Preface xi
- Acknowledgments xxxvii
- General Prologue 1
- The Captain 25
- The Engineer 38
- The Sociology Major 54
- The Public Policy Major 93
- Interruption to the Storytelling Competition 110
- Aaron 114
- The Women's Studies Major 135
- The Pre-Med Student 146
- The Math Major's Tale 176
- The Pre-Law Student 191
- The English Major 206
- General Epilogue 221
- Crazie Talk: A Glossary 225
-
- Mickie Krzyzewski
-
"Duke University Press has scored with this basketball book built around a Chaucerian conceit. . . . Dinin's book can be treasured for its wit and charm. . . . [I]t would be enjoyed by anyone wanting to read about college basketball, college life, digs at sociology majors or the anthropology of demented, blue and white-painted fans."—Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness
"[T]his is the most singularly driven book I’ve ever read. . . . In the grand Southern tradition, Dinin has taken a postage stamp of land and created a world. . . . As a hard-core Blue Devils fan, I respect the obsession. . . ."
—Chad W. Post, The Believer"Dinin probes the history and cachet of the little village . . . with a sense of basketball history and a respect for good storytelling."
—John Levesque, Seattle Post-Intelligencer"Are they insane? No, just Crazies. And this book is worth reading because those tales help explain why anyone would do this. They're fans--with a tradition that puts them up there (or out there) with Crazy Ray."
—Bryan French, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Best local Sports book of 2005 "Aaron Dinin filled up a dreary football fall with heartfelt, historical basketball journalism. Inspired by The Canterbury Tales and written with the enthusiasm of a Cameron Crazy, Dinin takes the reader through the winter pregame tenting rituals of Duke undergrads. This is a beautiful little book, complete with a glossary, some sweet photographs, and filled with the boundless joy of being a Dukie during the wonder years."—John Valentine, Independent Weekly
"Dinin channels Chaucer as Duke's tent-dwellers rewrite The Canterbury Tales."—Carol Herwig, USA Today
-
"Duke University Press has scored with this basketball book built around a Chaucerian conceit. . . . Dinin's book can be treasured for its wit and charm. . . . [I]t would be enjoyed by anyone wanting to read about college basketball, college life, digs at sociology majors or the anthropology of demented, blue and white-painted fans."—Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness
"[T]his is the most singularly driven book I’ve ever read. . . . In the grand Southern tradition, Dinin has taken a postage stamp of land and created a world. . . . As a hard-core Blue Devils fan, I respect the obsession. . . ."
—Chad W. Post, The Believer"Dinin probes the history and cachet of the little village . . . with a sense of basketball history and a respect for good storytelling."
—John Levesque, Seattle Post-Intelligencer"Are they insane? No, just Crazies. And this book is worth reading because those tales help explain why anyone would do this. They're fans--with a tradition that puts them up there (or out there) with Crazy Ray."
—Bryan French, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Best local Sports book of 2005 "Aaron Dinin filled up a dreary football fall with heartfelt, historical basketball journalism. Inspired by The Canterbury Tales and written with the enthusiasm of a Cameron Crazy, Dinin takes the reader through the winter pregame tenting rituals of Duke undergrads. This is a beautiful little book, complete with a glossary, some sweet photographs, and filled with the boundless joy of being a Dukie during the wonder years."—John Valentine, Independent Weekly
"Dinin channels Chaucer as Duke's tent-dwellers rewrite The Canterbury Tales."—Carol Herwig, USA Today
Reviews
-
“This inventive and enlightening romp through the wintertime tent city on the Duke campus is like a trip back in time. You’ll find yourself in college again, taking Anthro 101 and Chaucer and letting ACC basketball run your life.”—Alexander Wolff, senior writer, Sports Illustrated
“The following tales were inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s verse poem The Canterbury Tales, and, of course, the students of Duke University and their adventures in Krzyzewskiville. . . . Any reader who has experienced a night of personal checks at Krzyzewskiville might ask himself, Would a group of students actually sit down and tell stories about K-ville while 1,200 screaming, laughing college kids run around nearby? That, of course, doesn't really happen . . . or at least it hasn’t in my experience. Granted, a few such stories have been passed along over the years, but never in such detail and never in such a setting. However, I’ll ask my readers to suspend disbelief for a few pages in the interest of a good story—or twelve.”—Aaron Dinin, from the preface
Permission to Photocopy (coursepacks)
If you are requesting permission to photocopy material for classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at copyright.com;
If the Copyright Clearance Center cannot grant permission, you may request permission from our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).
Permission to Reprint
If you are requesting permission to reprint DUP material (journal or book selection) in another book or in any other format, contact our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).
Images/Art
Many images/art used in material copyrighted by Duke University Press are controlled, not by the Press, but by the owner of the image. Please check the credit line adjacent to the illustration, as well as the front and back matter of the book for a list of credits. You must obtain permission directly from the owner of the image. Occasionally, Duke University Press controls the rights to maps or other drawings. Please direct permission requests for these images to permissions@dukeupress.edu.
For book covers to accompany reviews, please contact the publicity department.Subsidiary Rights/Foreign Translations
If you're interested in a Duke University Press book for subsidiary rights/translations, please contact permissions@dukeupress.edu. Include the book title/author, rights sought, and estimated print run.
Disability Requests
Instructions for requesting an electronic text on behalf of a student with disabilities are available here.
Rights & Permissions Contact Information
- Email: permissions@dukeupress.edu
- Email contact for coursepacks: asstpermissions@dukeupress.edu
- Fax: 919-688-4574
- Mail:
Duke University Press
Rights and Permissions
905 W. Main Street
Suite 18B
Durham, NC 27701
For all requests please include:- 1. Author's name. If book has an editor that is different from the article author, include editor's name also.
- 2. Title of the journal article or book chapter and title of journal or title of book
- 3. Page numbers (if excerpting, provide specifics)
- For coursepacks, please also note: The number of copies requested, the school and professor requesting
- For reprints and subsidiary rights, please also note: Your volume title, publication date, publisher, print run, page count, rights sought
-
Description
Recent Duke University graduate Aaron Dinin has produced an entertaining, imaginative look at Krzyzewskiville, the tent city named after Duke University's head men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski (Sha-shef-ski). A unique Duke tradition, Krzyzewskiville is used to determine which students are admitted into key games. Taking Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as his model, Dinin has created characters who narrate their semifictionalized tales—by turns reverent, bawdy, and humorous—to enlighten readers about this cherished institution.
So the story begins. On a wintry night in Durham, North Carolina, writes Dinin, twelve students huddle under the meager protection of a nylon tent. They have little in common except the sacrosanct tradition that has brought them together for the past month. Before the sun next sets, they will anoint themselves in blue and white paint and enter nearby Cameron Indoor Stadium to worship at the altar of Blue Devils basketball. In the meantime, they abide in Krzyzewskiville.
A stranger enters the tent, a respected sportswriter, and suggests that the tenters pass the hours until the next tent check by telling stories of Krzyzewskiville. Like Chaucer’s pilgrims, the students compete to tell the best tale. They report on ribald tenting exploits, relate a dream in which Duke basketball players and coaches test a fan’s loyalty, debate the rationality of tenting as a way of allocating students’ tickets, and describe the spontaneous tent city that sprang up one summer when their beloved “Coach K” was offered a job elsewhere. This storytelling competition creates a loving portrait of the complex rules and tribal customs that make up the rich community and loyal fans that are Krzyzewskiville.
Mickie Krzyzewski, Coach K’s wife and a familiar courtside figure at Duke basketball games, has contributed a foreword praising the “love, commitment, and ownership” of the citizens of Krzyzewskiville.
About The Author(s)
An Atlanta native, Aaron Dinin completed The Krzyzewskiville Tales before receiving his B.A. in English from Duke University in 2005. Dinin, who was indifferent to sports before coming to Duke, tented in Krzyzewskiville for two years, and as a senior he was a line monitor, one of the most powerful positions in Duke student fandom. When not in class, in a tent, or cheering for the Blue Devils in Cameron Indoor Stadium, he worked on a scholarly project to analyze the manuscripts of Walt Whitman, played viola with the Dulcedo Quartet, and provided campus tours for prospective students with the Blue Devil Guides. The Krzyzewskiville Tales is Dinin’s first book—but surely not his last.