Duke fans are slipping hidden anti-UNC license plate messages through DMVs
Auburn vs. Alabama. Yankees vs. Red Sox. Steelers vs. Ravens. Celtics vs. Lakers.
They’re all among the biggest rivalries in their respective sports. In NCAA basketball, though, perhaps no rivalry is more fierce than the one between two longtime powerhouses — Duke and the University of North Carolina.
With the two top-ten teams preparing for their much-hyped matchup on Saturday, diehard fans are getting ready as well. According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, some Duke fans across the country take the rivalry seriously enough that they don’t even hesitate to tell the Department of Motor Vehicles a few small lies.
That is, as long as those lies mean they can proudly send a somewhat rude message to UNC and their fans.
It all started during the 2009-2010 college basketball season with two graduates of Duke — Holt Gardiner and Kenny Dennard, both of whom are passionate fans of their alma mater.
Prior to the season’s start, Gardiner thought Duke had a particularly good team. As a result, he went to Las Vegas and bet on them to win it all. If they did, he promised himself he would use the winnings to buy his dream car.
Gardiner’s prediction was dead on. Duke went to the NCAA Tournament in March 2010 as a number one seed, and played in the Houston regional, where Gardiner traveled to watch them compete.
In Houston, Gardiner became friends with Dennard, who used to play basketball for Duke. Though they didn’t know it at the time, their friendship would spark a nationwide movement.
After Duke eventually won the national championship, Gardiner did indeed buy his dream car, a blue Lotus Evora. Ironically, the person who sold it to him was a UNC alum. In order to rub it in, Gardiner promised the seller he would obtain a special vanity license plate.
Gardiner had in mind a plate that read, GTHCGTH, which stands for Duke fans’ famous rallying cry, “Go to h—, Carolina, go to h—.” But he knew that in his home state of California, the DMV might not approve. So, he came up with a cover story.
The letters, he told the DMV, actually stood for “Go Together Higher Cameron Go Together Higher,” a reference to Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium. The vanity plate was approved, and Gardiner couldn’t help telling his UNC friend all about it. “He started laughing,” Gardiner told The WSJ. “And crying.”
That’s where Dennard comes into the story.
In the summer of 2010, Dennard visited Gardiner, and from the first moment he saw his friend’s license plate, he knew he had to have one of his own. “I think he was on the phone with the Texas DMV as soon as he got in the car,” Gardiner said.
Like Gardiner, Dennard was worried that the Texas DMV wouldn’t approve of the plate. so, he decided to lie as well.
“I said, ‘It’s a Dr. Seuss thing,’” he recalled. “Get that hat, cat, get that hat.”
Ever since that time, the unique vanity plate has spread across the country, with Dennard claiming he knows at least 10 fans in different states who have the same message on their license plate.
The WSJ checked online DMV records, and found that drivers in 21 states have a license plate that reads GTHC or GTHCGTH.
Though different states have various rules regarding what they will and won’t allow a vanity plate to say, Duke fans have gotten creative with some of the lies they’ve told to get their plates approved.
Mac Dyke, a doctor who used to live in Houston, knew he couldn’t get the plate while he still lived in Texas, due to the fact that it was already claimed by Dennard. But when he moved to North Dakota, he made it one of his top priorities to obtain the plate.
“I told them it was my children’s names,” he said in explaining how he got the DMV to give him what he wanted. “It’s not my children’s names,” he clarified to The WSJ.
Meanwhile, Mark Schill, another Duke graduate, mentioned the unique vanity plate to his wife, who graduated with him. At Christmas, he was overjoyed to see that his wife had given him an application to register the license plate GTHCGTH in his home state of Wisconsin.
He told the DMV the letters stood for something his mother used to tell him, “Go to happy, child, go to happy.”
Finally, Duke fan Chuck Landis has owned GTHC tags in North Carolina since 1984. He didn’t bother lying, not just because he doesn’t think it’s offensive, but because everyone in North Carolina knows exactly what true meaning of his license plate is.
As for the teams themselves, Duke and North Carolina will tip off Saturday night in their second meeting of the year. UNC won the first contest back in February, prevailing 82-78.
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