Duke head abducted prior to rivalry game

Colleges

Duke head abducted prior to rivalry game

Feb 13, 2013

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When does a rivalry get real? When you abduct your opponent’s iconic figure.

While no actual person was claimed Wednesday, the head of the Duke University Blue Devils mascot was taken and propped up high above the University of North Carolina student bookstore for passersby to see just hours before tip-off of the Duke-UNC basketball game at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Manager of the bookstore John Gorsuch said that the store was not responsible for the theft and it took a while before they realized what was actually taking place.

"We discovered it on top of the entrance to our store this morning about 7:30 a.m. and we did not realize what we had," Gorsuch said. "We sent our maintenance guy up there to pull it off and still didn't realize what it was. It looked like a double head so we put it in one of our managers office and kind of forgot about it."

Gorsuch said that the head was familiar as being the Duke mascot logo but they did not suspect that it was "the head."

A spokesperson for Duke confirmed that the mascot head was stolen and found on the UNC campus. Just minutes later, Kyle McKay from the UNC bookstore tweeted a picture of himself posing with the head and the text, “Cops came and picked it up.”

According to the UNC Police Department, they discovered the head around 3:40 p.m. above the entrance to the student store after responding to action on social media.

Gorsuch said that the head looked like it had been dragged and had scuff marks on the chin.

Had the head not been located or returned, Duke said that they have a spare and would have been used.

Wednesday's game can be seen live on WRAL-TV at 9 p.m.