UNC and Duke partisans shouldn’t be too hard on the two skydivers from Virginia-based Aerial Adventures who recently mistook Duke’s Wallace Wade Stadium for Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, eight miles away. After all, they are not the first to have confused the two institutions.
Hired to deliver the game ball for UNC’s August 30th season-opening football contest with McNeese State, the parachutists declined to jump because of bad weather when they passed over Kenan. A few minutes later the clouds broke. The men saw a stadium below, assumed they were again over Kenan, and jumped—to the confusion and then delight of Duke fans gathered for pre-game ceremonies.
Confusing UNC and Duke is simply inconceivable to alumni and fans of the two fierce rivals. But it does occasionally happen and not just among parachutists. Shortly after Caldwell Hall was dedicated on the UNC campus in 1912, the S. H. Kress & Co., published this postcard, which identified the building as being on the University of North Carolina campus—in Durham.
The NC Postcards website has at least two other examples of UNC being located in that place eight miles away of which we will not speak:
U. of N.C. Campus, Durham
and
Bynum Gymnasium, University of North Carolina, Durham
I knew I never much cared for Caldwell or Bynum!