Duke's 'Grandma' Chant Slammed as Cowardly: Deceased Grandma Target of Chants (VIDEO)
Duke's "grandma" chant by fans at their Thursday night game in Durham has seen the team come under heavy fire for being rude and insensitive.
Tyler Lewis, who is a freshman guard for N.C. State, suffered the loss of his 83 year old grandmother on Feb. 1. His grandmother, Margie Campbell Lewis, passed away due to complications from pneumonia.
Despite mourning her loss, Lewis competed for N.C. State against the Duke Blue Devils. However, he allegedly came up against some particularly offensive and heartless chanting from the opposition fans, the Cameron Crazies.
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Early on in the game the Duke fans sought out Lewis for particularly strong treatment, chanting "Bilbo Baggins" and "Part Your Bedtime" at the freshman.
However, things got much worse later on in the second half when a group reportedly began chanting, "How's your grandma?" referring to his recently deceased grandmother.
N.C. State forward, Richard Howell, later took to Twitter to slam the Duke fans. He tweeted, "He lost his grandma and y'all chant that? Cowards."
The freshman's father, Rick Lewis, was also at the game and he told local press that he also heard the taunts by the Duke fans about his mother.
News & Observer reported that Lewis told them, "It was mostly 'Past your bedtime,' but there was an instant when a brief number of students chanted about Tyler's grandmother. It wasn't the entire student section. I think a few tried to outdo themselves."
However, a Duke basketball spokesperson, Matt Plizga, has denied the chants took place to the New York Daily News: "We have looked into the stories that are circulating on the internet, talked to dozens of people who were at the game, and no one we've talked to, including several of the 50+ journalists who were sitting in front of the student section, heard the alleged chant."
"What has become clear is that there was no organized chant by the Cameron Crazies referencing Tyler Lewis' grandmother, nor was there any reference to his grandmother's recent passing on the standard cheer sheets that are distributed among the students prior to each game."
Here is a video of the incident:
