Different Shades of Blue

I am in North Carolina and the RTP "Research Triangle Park" area and I toured, briefly, the athletic facilities at Duke and UNC. 

I skipped N.C. State because who cares about N.C. State? 

My overall impression was that UNC had nicer facilities.  The football stadiums weren't even close.  North Carolina has an impressive football facility.  (Where $4.00 gets you a small soda, $6.00 gets a souvenir soda, and $13 gets you the jumbo hot dog and souvenir soda)

No one should ever spend $13 for a soda and hot dog. 

Anyway the Tar Heels, Kenan Memorial Stadium had chairback metal benches for most of the stadium.  One end zone (must be for Alumni and donors) had nice Tar Heel Blue seats.  Another endzone was clearly the Student Section, as it had chest metal benches with no chairbacks.  I can't say that I have been to many college football stadiums, but this stadium appeared to me to be a very nice one. 

Duke's stadium looked awful from the view I had.  It looks like they don't really care about college football.  It was about as appealing as UConn's old Memorial Stadium cement side, but the cement stadium wrapped all around the field.

I was on my bike at Duke, and stopped from my car at UNC so I really only had limited views and was operating on a tight schedule.  I did not stop inside any arena, although I did bike past Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke. 

Besides football, I obviously stopped at the soccer complexes at the respective schools.

The Duke complex was busy with teenage boys soccer camps.  The UNC soccer complex was empty except for a runner around the outside on a track. 

UNC has one major advantage over Duke and that is that UNC has it's soccer offices overlooking the stadium, and the soccer complex at UNC looks to be substantial, as it appears to be a two or three story building.  I am sure it has lockerrooms and meeting rooms and film rooms etc.  This was the only thing however that impressed me about UNC's field, more than Duke's field.

In terms of first impressions, UNC's Fetzer Field was extremely unappealing.  The track around the field made the stadium feel like the Grand Canyon.  The grass was also not in great condition.  I was extremely dissapointed with UNC's soccer field.  I know it's July, but I expected better from one of the top soccer schools in the country. 

I liked the feel of Duke's soccer field.  There were nice shrubs growing on one side of the bleachers.  There looked like there was a nice place to film, and there was a pavilion on one end line that looked really nice and could serve many purposes.  I much preferred Duke's stadium on my first look than UNC's, and it wasn't even close. 

Duke's practice fields looked ok.  They had nice turf ones next to the soccer stadium.  They had grass across Frank Basset Drive.  It didn't look like the fields were full size, but maybe I was wrong.  Atleast it seemed as if Duke had both the option of grass and turf fields.   I believe that the turf fields had lights at Duke.

UNC had nice turf fields.  I am not sure if they had grass fields.  I would imagine they must, but I couldn't find them.  UNC had lights on their turf fields. 

Just in terms of soccer, if I gave myself a self guided tour, I would prefer the facilities at Duke over UNC.  Maybe it's just me.  Maybe I missed a few places, but I liked Duke better than UNC for soccer facilites.

Overall, I preferred UNC's athletic facilities (all sports).  I really liked UNC's outdoor pool that I passed by.  It looked really nice.