- [Narrator] From 2002 to 2006, J.J. Redick attended Duke
where he was one of the best shooters college basketball
has ever seen.
He was also one of the most hated players college fans
had ever screamed at.
And at the university of Maryland
that screaming was particularly loud and vulgar
and full of references to his family members.
Fans across the nation held deep revulsion
for J.J. Redick and had no problem expressing it.
Why, what does it take to be the most hated player
in college basketball?
Not that much really.
Redick had three main factors working against him.
First, he went to Duke an elite private school,
exclusively for the rich
who think they're better than the rest of us.
And sure, sure J.J. Redick didn't actually grow up rich
he's middle-class from rural Virginia
but like what are college students supposed to do?
Look up every Duke players background
when it's so much easier and more fun to blindly hate.
Plus by attending Duke,
Redick inherited the role of white Duke villain.
In the late 80s early 90s it was Christian Laettner
who did things like stroke
an invisible neck beard at opposing fans,
and purposely stomped the chest
to final four opponent Aminu Timberlake.
Then it was Wojo with his obnoxious floor slapping.
Next up was J.J. Redick.
Didn't really matter what Redick's personality actually was.
He was white and good basketball
so he got the part, Duke villain.
Which brings me to the second reason everyone hated Redick.
He was really good at basketball.
Coach K called him the best pure shooter he'd ever coached.
But here's the thing, J.J, nobody likes a winner.
It makes the rest of us feel inadequate.
And shortly after that angry.
So he went to Duke and was good.
That doesn't really seem like he's that bad of a guy.
But how about this?
He was kind of arrogant.
He'd bob his head, talk trash, smirk at the crowd.
Here he is waving to the Florida State crowd
after hitting a first half buzzer beater.
Duke was up by 18.
In adulthood he's even called his college self
sort of a prick.
And that's all it took.
Duke, good, sort of a prick.
College basketball fans saw that and said destroy him.
And no school went to greater lengths to destroy him
than the University of Maryland.
Now, if you didn't go to Maryland,
you might not think they had much of a rivalry with Duke
especially because that's the narrative Duke perpetuates.
They always chant "not our rivals" at Maryland
as if to say Maryland sucks so bad
Duke doesn't even think about them.
But they did come up with something to chant at Maryland.
Just saying, just saying.
All right the Duke Maryland rivalry
is never gonna have the consistency of the Duke UNC rivalry.
Those schools are eight miles apart,
have a longer history of the bball success.
And according to the Duke student newspaper
are more competitive academically, burn on Maryland.
But historically there have been bursts of intense rivalry
between the Terps and Blue Devils
and those bursts set the table for our beef.
In 1984, UMD ranked 16th and Duke ranked 14th,
met in the ACC championship game.
Duke fans wore skullcaps
to mock Maryland coach Lefty Driesell for being bald.
Mean, but ineffective.
Maryland won and loved being the scrappy underdogs
who knocked down the rich private school kids.
Sure sounds like there was a rivalry to me.
Though I'm now forced to admit that from 1985 to 1994
the Terps beat Duke just once out of 22 games.
So fine, no rivalry during that near decade.
But how about we fast forward to the early 2000s.
Coach Gary Williams had built up Maryland's program
and they were direct rivals with Duke.
Don't take it for me take it from Blue Devil Shane Battier.
- [Battier] Maryland in my four years were our true rival.
- [Narrator] Battier's senior year, 2001,
the schools met four times.
The first would become known as the miracle minute game.
Playing at home the Terps were up 10 with 54 seconds to go
and feeling good.
Then Jason Williams, who now goes by Jay
scored nine points in 14 seconds.
The game went to overtime where Duke won by two.
Incensed, Maryland fans express themselves by chucking stuff
water bottles, cups, trash
at the Duke's section of the crowd.
Not the best idea because, for example,
a water bottle could hit Carlos Boozer's mom in the head,
giving her a mild concussion.
This incident sticks to Maryland for a while,
and even provides Redick with fuel to hit back at the Terps.
But more on that later.
Adding insult to injured mother,
Maryland won their next match up by 11
though Duke revenge in the ACC semi-finals
beating Maryland by two and going on to take the ACC title.
The Blue Devils got even more revenge in the final four
where they overcame a 22 point deficit
to end Maryland's run.
Hey, UMD any solace in the fact that
Duke went on to win at all? You got beat by the best?
No, I get it.
At least in 2002, Maryland got their own NCAA championship
against Indiana.
The team that eliminated Duke in the sweet 16
which felt good, certainly of course,
but according to Juan Dixon
in this Washington Post documentary
it could have actually fell better.
- [Dixon] Beating Duke in that championship game
would have been much sweeter
because that's what we all were looking forward to.
We knew they were on the other side.
We knew we had some classic games in the past.
- [Narrator] And the following fall,
the next Duke villain entered the scene.
As a freshmen Redick developed a reputation
as a sharper-than-diamonds shooter
and was even better the next year.
When Redick arrived in Maryland for their first match up
of his sophomore season,
he was the leading scorer
on the number one team in the nation.
Maryland was unranked.
But standings be damned,
the Maryland students looked at the pieces,
Duke, good, cocky, rivalry and chose to beef.
Students use the weapons at their disposal.
T-shirt slogans were antagonistic if not a bit long-winded.
Signs were a bit more straight forward, got him.
Though some signs went uncomfortably far,
referencing sexual acts with his then twelve-year-old sister
which I think we can all agree is just horrid.
Redick responded by simply playing so well.
He went five of six from three and after each shot,
he treated fans to some signature grinning and head bobbing.
Redick even talked a little trash
with the Baltimore Ravens owners sitting court side.
With 18 and a half seconds left,
Redick had a chance to put the game out of reach
with two free throws.
He made the first, then Maryland hit him with a chant
that wasn't exactly clever, but it was certainly aggressive.
- [Announcer] 63-60 because of A turnover and two missed shots.
- [Narrator] J.J flashed them a smile
before hitting the next shot.
Maryland lost 68-60 and the university as a whole
got some pretty bad press.
You see, the game was broadcast nationally on ESPN.
So there was no time to sensor that chant.
And apparently even avoiding
some of the more profane T-shirts was difficult.
From USA Today to ESPN's Outside the Lines,
Maryland was painted as what's wrong with college fandom.
UMD's administration made efforts to repair their image
and even reached out
to the state's Attorney General's office
to figure out how to ban cursing
without violating freedom of speech.
They decided it was a little too complicated
to prohibit cursing and instead held T-shirt exchanges,
started as student sportsmanship committee
and forbid the pep band from playing Rock and Roll, Part 2
a song which Terp fans had made their own
adding a refrain of, "Hey, you suck"
directed at opposing teams.
The chastised Maryland fanbase
wouldn't see Redick in College Park until the next season
but they found ways to keep the beef warm until then.
They got his phone number
and called him at all hours of the night,
which hey, other schools did too.
Maryland just did it in a larger capacity.
And perhaps with more vitriol.
All the hostilities started to get to Redick
but there's a chance those negative feelings
were exacerbated
by a late season shooting slump.
The Terps even beat the Blue Devils for the ACC title
in large part because of that shooting slump.
Redick found renewed focus
in the summer between his sophomore and junior year.
He got in superhero shape
and became not just a great shooter,
but a better all-around player.
And on February 12th, 2005,
J.J. Redick finally returned to College Park, Maryland
for a rematch with the Terrapin student section.
Before the game ESPN College GameDay aired a segment
meant to drum up sympathy for poor maligned J.J.
Redick discussed the animosity he faced on the road.
- [Redick] I'm amazed at some of the things
that come out of college students mouth directed towards me.
- [Narrator] And singled Maryland out.
- [Redick] I think the worst episode was definitely
at Maryland last year.
- [Narrator] He brought up the signs about his little sister
as a particular sticking point, which yeah, that's fair.
- Somebody made a sign saying that they had had sex with her
which I thought was pretty gross,
pretty sick and twisted.
- [Narrator] And then the segment got weird.
Sitting in a darkened gym, Redick read from his journal.
If it was simply journal entries
that would be embarrassing enough
but it wasn't just journal entries.
It was his poetry.
- [Redick] November 5th, 2005.
I can't see what my future has in store,
but I moved forth with the strength of a condor,
the courage of a warrior.
- [Narrator] I mean, what was ESPN thinking?
People already hate the kid.
Why poor blood in the water?
As far as Maryland was concerned
the College GameDay special did not soften their hearts
towards J.J. Redick.
In fact, it kinda made them resent him more.
Like, okay, sure J.J gets hate on the road.
But so does everyone, including Maryland players.
DJ Strawberry endured taunts about his father
Darryl Strawberry's private life.
And how about Juan Dixon?
UVA fans chanted "crackhead parents" at him.
Dixon's parents struggled with drug addiction,
contracted HIV from needles,
and both died when Dixon was a young teen.
But he didn't get a soft light College GameDay special
about how he dealt with fans.
So why'd J.J get one?
'Cause he's a clean cut white kid who goes to Duke?
Kinda seemed that way.
Despite the injustice, the UMD administration
wasn't trying to have another incident.
Before the game, Gary Williams asked students to behave
and security even checked signs at the door.
While most signs were A-OK some profane ones slipped through
including ones that showed learnings
from Redick's College GameDay episode.
See this one hits both his poetry
and the understandable fact that
he doesn't like when fans say gross things about his family.
Jeannie and Abby are his older
and younger sisters, respectively.
But despite the few outliers,
Maryland fans overall managed to walk the fine line
between enthusiasm and being just horrid.
They booed every time Redick touched the ball
and turned Duke's "not our rival" chant back on them.
Duke lost in OT and J.J didn't have a great game.
He even air balled a three.
What a treat for Maryland.
In his senior year, Redick kept the beef sizzling
by just completely out playing us--
I mean, Maryland. oops my bias slipped out a bit there.
He scored 27 points in a blowout home win.
And in his final Maryland matchup,
Redick had 35 points in another large win.
Interviewed after that game,
he presented himself as above any Maryland beef
with a quote that seemed innocent enough, but wasn't.
The first part of this quote is playing into the time honored,
"not our rival" we don't care about Maryland tradition.
And the second part, that's a full-on reference
to the Carlos Boozer mom incident.
Redick might as well have said remember the worst thing
these bad kids have ever done.
Don't let them off the hook for that.
And while J.J was fanning the flames
this beef had an expiration date.
Most college beef does.
Redick graduated in 2006
and was drafted 11th overall by The Magic
and within four or possibly five years, of that
the Maryland students who'd hated him live and in person
had graduated too.
But hey expired beef can have a pretty strong scent.
Years into his pro career,
Redick was still booed when he played the Wizards in DC.
And Redick struck back when asked about the boos
he played the "not our rival" card.
But as time wore on and J.J started to be known
as more than just a Duke star, the beef didn't stink as bad.
Sure Maryland alumni of a certain era
still harbor some ill will toward the guy
and sure Redick, isn't gonna totally put his time
at Duke behind him, even if he wants to
as he said in 2020 on his podcast.
- [Redick] It's weird to be 36
and still get asked about Duke.
- [Narrator] College beef is a unique cut.
There doesn't have to be much substance
to create rich, bold flavors,
that fill you up and stick to your bones
well after the meal is over.