WRAL Sports Fan

Duke

UNC's Ellington, Duke's Henderson remain close friends

By Ken Medlin

Feb 11, 2009

Durham, N.C. — They play for the most bitter of rivals _ and yet they are the closest of friends. Gerald Henderson at Duke. Wayne Ellington at North Carolina are two players on opposite sides of college basketball's biggest battlefield. And yet theirs is a friendship stronger than any rivalry game.

"I talk to Wayne a lot,” Henderson said. “He's my best friend."

"We don't even see each other as 'Duke and North Carolina' until we step on the court," Ellington said.

It goes to back to when Ellington transferred in to Henderson's high school, the Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pa., outside Philadelphia. Henderson took the new kid in town under his wing and the two have been fast friends ever since.

"We always make sure we text each other,” Ellington said. “We'll watch each other play and give each other comments, talk a little trash now and then."

"I really keep it real with him,” Henderson said. “When he's not playing like I feel like he can play, I tell him."

Ellington remembered that Henderson gave him a good-natured ribbing after the Tar Heels played Clemson.

"After the Clemson game, the first thing he said to me -- he didn't say good game or anything -- he said '[Terrence] Oglesby was giving me buckets!'" Ellington said.

Ellington said both players keep in touch and try to “give each other little confidence boosters."

"We're best friends,” Henderson said. “We'll never let anything, especially basketball, get in between something like that."

Twice a year these players are arch rivals. But for the other 363 days, Wayne Ellington and Gerald Henderson are like brothers. Albeit with different taste in blue