A recent Forbes Magazine article categorizes the Duke-UNC rivalry as merely friendly competition, apparently based on the academic cooperation between the two schools.

The writer, an intern, states that the rivalry started on the basketball court. The Duke-UNC rivalry actually started with football, years before basketball. It was a bitter and sometimes destructive rivalry. The schools may be FRENEMIES, as the articles calls them, when it comes to academics but it is still a RIVALRY when it comes to athletics, especially among the fans and students.

I wrote an article a few years ago about the Duke-Carolina football rivalry and it started like this:
“It’s late afternoon on Dec. 7, 1941. The family of Greensboro Municipal Judge E. Earl Rives, a rabid Carolina fan, sits down to dinner. About four hours earlier, Japan had attacked U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor. The judge is explaining the war implications to his family when his young daughter speaks up: ‘Which side will Duke be on?'”

Our friend and co-creator of this site Dane Huffman has some good thoughts about the Forbes article here.

Forbes article – College Frenemies: Real Rivalry Or Just Friendly Competition?