The 100 Things You Gotta Do Before You Graduate (Whatever the Cost)

1. Carolina-Duke basketball at Cameron

The Carolina-Duke frenzy reaches its delirious climax in the Crazy confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium. John Biever

Why would someone spend as many as four weeks waiting in line for a basketball game that takes two hours to play? Because when it comes to a battle between North Carolina and Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the waiting is part of the experience. Krzyzewskiville, as the tent city outside Cameron is known, has all the comforts of campus. You can toss Frisbees and footballs, blast music, drink beverages, do homework -- made easier by high-speed Internet lines provided by the university -- take naps and scope out members of the opposite sex. (It has been scientifically proven that the closer your tent is to the front of the line, the better your chances are of hooking up.) As the big game approaches, Krzyzewskiville becomes even more sprawling, and the air outside the arena is electric. The players and coaches wander around "town" and press the flesh, and on the eve of the game Coach K himself provides pizza for the tenters and invites them inside Cameron for a chalk talk.

Finally, the big day arrives and you rush in. At tip-off the bubble that has been building bursts in a blast of heat and noise that's sustained until the last tick of the clock. After a Blue Devils' victory, you and the rest of the Cameron Crazies storm the floor and then cap off the win with a huge bonfire back on West Campus. The next day you return to Cameron, fold up your tent and head back to the dorm, whereupon your folks call and ask, "Was it worth the wait?" To which you reply, "What wait?"

2. Order room service with Utah basketball coach Rick Majerus, who calls Salt Lake City's University Park Marriott home.

3. Tailgate in the Grove at Ole Miss, the 10-acre, debutante-stacked meadow on campus.

4. Drop off a race bib or medal at Pre's Rock in Eugene, Ore., the near-holy shrine where distance runner Steve Prefontaine was killed in a 1975 car accident.

5. Make like Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School and do a triple Lindy off your school's highest diving board.

6. Scratch the belly of Georgia mascot Uga VI.

7. Pull a Rudy and walk on to a varsity team. Just promise us you won't make a damn movie about it 20 years from now.

8. Eavesdrop on the pregame speech of South Carolina coach Lou Holtz, college football's most rousing speaker.

9. Get a jump on March Madness with Midnight Madness (a.k.a. Late Night with Bill Self) at Kansas, the nation's best hoops launch party.

10. Visit Boathouse Row, a cluster of 19th-century buildings in Philadelphia that marks the epicenter of U.S. rowing.

11. Throw back a few aboard a boat in Tennessee's Volunteer Navy.

12. Go to a Saint Joseph's basketball game and shout "The Hawk will never die!" -- the most defiant cheer in college sports.

13. Streak through a large lecture hall during class (as U.S. mile-record holder Steve Scott once did at UC Irvine).

14. Shake it all about with Virginia Tech faithful as they do the "Hokie" Pokey between the third and fourth quarters of home football games.

15. Catch a baseball game at Mississippi State from the Left Field Lounge -- temporary stands set up on run-down pickup trucks.

16. D-u-u-ude! Surf to class at UC Santa Barbara.

17. Watch runners in the Boston Marathon pass by from your perch at Boston College.

18. Roll out of bed late and catch a Wildcats football game at Arizona Stadium; two residence halls are built into the facility.

19. Have a cold one at the Esso Club, a converted gas station on the edge of the Clemson campus.

33. Get dirrty at Oozeball, Connecticut's annual mud volleyball tournament. (We promise no Christina Aguilera.)

34. Have lunch at Miami's student union while you watch the diving team practice in the adjacent pool.

35. Pile eight guys into a van and road trip to the Final Four.

36. Wave your index finger toward the opposing goal and yell "Sieve! Sieve! Sieve!" at Boston's Beanpot Hockey Tournament.

37. Make like a high schooler, and roll the giant oak tree at Toomer's Corner with toilet paper after an Auburn win.

38. Check out the annual Bayou Classic, a double whammy of Southern vs. Grambling State: a football game and, more important, a Drumline-style battle of the bands.

39. Try to do the backstroke across the blue "Smurf turf" at Boise State's Bronco Stadium.

More than 500 teams made up of students, faculty, and staff take part in Notre Dame's annual hoopsfest. Bob Rosato

40. Come up with a cool name for your team in Notre Dame's Bookstore Basketball tournament, the world's largest outdoor five-on-five event.

41. Enter the Little 500 intramural bicycle race at Indiana.

42. Try to tear down the goalposts at Iowa State's Jack Trice Stadium, which were reinforced with a steel-and-concrete base in 1998.

43. Scream your lungs out at Texas A&M's midnight Yell Practice.

44. Chill out at Dartmouth's Winter Carnival by taking part in the human dog-sled race or the polar bear swim.

45. Put on your best drag, join the masses of raging Wisconsin students and spend Halloween on Madison's State Street.

46. Fly ye to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational.

47. Jump into the alcove between any of the exterior columns at Syracuse's Carrier Dome. The echo sounds eerily like a laser gun being fired in Star Wars. (The film's sound designer, Ben Burtt, was raised in Syracuse.)

58. Play 18 at Stanford Golf Course, where Tiger Woods ruled before leaving for fame, fortune and Swedish nannies.

59. Embark on a quest to discover whether anyone really plays coed naked lacrosse, volleyball, field hockey, etc.

60. Scale the Lindseth Climbing Wall at Cornell, the largest indoor natural-rock wall in the country, then tackle Maryland's seven-sided, 60-foot-tall tower known as the Beast.

61. Play pickup basketball at Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse, site of the climactic game in Hoosiers.

62. Paint the A on "A" Mountain in both Tempe and Tucson, Ariz.

63. Attend the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party in Jacksonville, prelude to the Florida-Georgia football game.

64. Pay homage to the man who gave us basketball by visiting the grave of Dr. James Naismith in Lawrence, Kans.

65. Listen to a Washington football game while boating on Lake Washington, from which the stadium p.a. system is audible.

66. Travel to Collegeville, Minn., to see Saint John's legend John Gagliardi try to become college football's winningest coach.

67. Pick a friendly fight with a mascot; you won't do much damage through that furry suit.

The Big Ten title is often on the line when league heavyweights Michigan and Ohio State square off. John Biever

68. Gather at 6 a.m. before a home football game for Kegs and Eggs -- washing down runny eggs with beers -- at Notre Dame.

69. Dot the i in the Ohio State marching band's script Ohio (and then be pummeled by security).

70. Hang out in Cambridge, Mass., on the banks of the river and watch the Head of the Charles, the world's largest two-day rowing event.

71. Spend a college football Saturday watching games at ESPN in Bristol, Conn.

72. Shake ya tailfeather during Howard's homecoming week at Yardfest, a giant concert-party that has featured Jay-Z, Erykah Badu and LL Cool J.

73. Strap on a helmet and enter the Purdue Grand Prix, a 50-mile, 160-lap go-kart race.

85 Catch a performance of the Florida A&M Marching 100 -- the self-proclaimed "marchingest, baddest, most electrifying band in the world."

86. Ask out the starting quarterback or head cheerleader.

87. Climb to the top row of Wyoming's War Memorial Stadium, the highest
football stadium (7,220-foot elevation) in the country.

88. Arrive at a game with a letter painted on your chest so you and your friends can spell out your school's name. (Guys can do this, too.)

89. Go bowling at the Hippodrome on George Washington's campus, home to the only public lanes in downtown D.C.

90. Compete in such inebriated events as the Happy Meal 800 meters and the Naked 400 meters in the Beer Olympics at Oregon.

91. Attend the College World Series in Omaha, an 11-day baseball fest that gives you the chance to see future major leaguers pinging the ball out of Rosenblatt Stadium.

92. Visit the original Pizza Hut, a modest 1,077-square-foot building on the Wichita State campus.

93. Take a lap around the track at the Penn Relays.

94. Tailgate in South Carolina's Cockaboose Railroad, a string of 22 cabooses on unused tracks outside Williams-Brice Stadium.

95. Call it Inuit-ion, but we think you'll love Anchorage, site of the Great Alaska Shootout.

96. Pretend you're a Clemson football player and run down the Hill at Death Valley. Be sure to touch Howard's Rock before you begin your descent.

97. Complete a brewery tour near the Colorado State campus. Start with the Anheuser Busch facility, find your way to O'Dells Brewing Company then stagger to New Belgium Brewing Co.

98. Sit in the front row of the student section for a Kansas State football game. Crowd surf up to the top when the Wildcats score.

99. Pop an Altoid and head out to Full Moon on the Quad at Stanford. At midnight seniors and freshmen meet to lock lips.

100. If you really plan to graduate after doing all this, um, maybe you should go to a few classes?

Issue date: September 30, 2003

SI ON CAMPUS Sports Illustrated On Campus, a new magazine covering college sports and collegiate lifestyles, is available as an insert in 72 major college newspapers across the country every Thursday throughout the school year. Click any of the links below to see selected content from the latest issue: • Cover story: 100 Things You Gotta Do • Road Trip: Knoxville, Tenn. • The Final: For Your Viewing Pleasure • Previous week's issue: Sept. 23, 2003 Send your college sports questions to Milo at askmilo@sioc.timeinc.com. Your query might be answered in a future issue of Sports Illustrated On Campus.