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Make Us Love…The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
By Jay Busbee | March 14, 2007
In today’s installment of “Make Us Love…”, we welcome Mike White, a guy who’s flying pretty high these days…high in a Carolina-blue sky, you might say. The floor is yours, Mike!
I would like to thank Jay Busbee of Sports Gone South for the opportunity to proclaim my gospel of Blue Heaven on Earth. I am a graduate and unabashed loyalist to the University of North Carolina. I fell in love with the place when I was 8, and my family first moved to Chapel Hill, NC. At the time, Dean Smith had won the national Championship two years earlier, and Mack Brown and Carl Torbush had built one of the best defenses in the nation. The day I saw Vince Carter dunk in the Dean Dome, I was an irreversible convert. I have two blogs to proliferate my loyalty, Digital Headbutt and Tar Heel Mania, where I’ll be live-blogging UNC’s run in the big dance. The day I received my acceptance letter into Carolina was the happiest moment in my life. There still is no place I’d rather be.
The NCAA Tournament starts tomorrow, and UNC is looking to make a deep run and perhaps win the National Championship. Roy Williams and one of the most talented teams ever to step onto hardwood in Chapel Hill are a few reasons why you should have them going a long way in your bracket. But those reasons are obvious. Here are a few extra reasons, from one of the most maniacal Tar Heel fans you’ll ever meet, why you should cast aside your previous notions and fall in love with the University of North Carolina.
Duke (or Dook) is our mortal enemy. I have read the comments and some of the articles that Mr. Busbee has written in this space, and if those are any indication, this reason alone should be enough to make you love UNC. But let me elaborate. We don’t just hate each other because we’re two great basketball teams 8 miles apart from each other. UNC-Dook pits public versus private, liberal versus conservative, reasonable human beings against complete lunatics, the State of North Carolina against the State of New Jersey plus a small enclave in Durham. And Gerald Henderson breaking Tyler Hansbrough’s face open certainly didn’t help matters. In Chapel Hill, we only root for two teams: Carolina, and anybody playing Duke. We cheer, live and die for whoever is playing Dook on a given day, as though that team were us.
The best example I can give is when I attended the NCAA regional 1st and 2nd rounds in Charlotte in 2005, a 2.5 hour drive from Chapel Hill but still decidedly Tar Heel country. UNC and Duke both happened to playing regionals there, though they were in different brackets. Because most fans had the tickets to all of the sessions no matter who was playing, A lot of Tar Heel fans stuck around Charlotte Coliseum to watch Duke take on Delaware State. I would estimate that of the 21,000 fans in attendance, 14,000 lived and died by want the Delaware State Hornets were doing, and not just because they had the tournament’s best band. I should point out that the entire student body of Delaware State is 3,722 strong, so the entire DSU student body from the last 15 years would have to been in attendance for an equivalent level of allegiance. The Hornet faithful, sure that most fans would root for the school that was closer and more powerful, could not believe how many fans were cheering for the little guy. It soon dawned on them what was really going on. The Mississippi State cheerleaders took notice, and in the Sunday session once our game against Iowa State was winding down, they decided to take this unexpected advantage to the maximum. The MSU cheerleaders taught everyone in the stands the basic cheers for the Bulldogs, such as:
· When the fight song would pause for a drum roll, cheering: “GO! STATE! GO STATE!”
· Cheering the MSU colors: “WHITE! MAROON!” just like we would cheer “TAR! HEELS!”
There were at least a few others, but I can’t remember them right now. By the time tipoff arrived, there were 17,000 screaming fans for Mississippi State, living and dying by every basket, every free throw, every turnover. It took the Dookies one of their greatest efforts to squeak out of that game, 63-55. I cheered so loud I had a sore throat for three weeks, but I don’t regret screaming my lungs out for MSU for a second. That, my friends, is how it’s done.
The University of North Carolina’s student population is 61% female. And 60-70% of them are hot. If you include the graduate students, you have about 8,000 to 9,000 fine females to choose from on campus. Hellooooooo, ladies.
Franklin Street. In downtown Chapel Hill adjacent to the campus, Franklin Street is one of the best off-campus places to hang out in the country. There are a lot of interesting local businesses here, although corporations are slowly starting to creep in. Still, there are a lot of great places to eat drink and be merry. Some of the best are the Carolina Brewery, Top of the Hill (literally at the apex of Chapel Hill), and Pepper’s Pizza. Trust, me you haven’t had a real pizza until you’ve had the experience of Pepper’s. Franklin Street is so awesome that even the Dookies hang out here. J.J. Redick got his DWI on East Franklin Street. Ninth Street Sucks!
The weather. I used to live in Massachusetts, where it would often still be snowing until Easter. Right now it’s 80 degrees and partly cloudy in Chapel Hill in the middle of March. It’s not uncommon to have 70 degree days in December and 60-65 degree days in January. If you can take the heat and humidity in July and August (which I admit that after 12 years I’m still not quite used to), there are few places with better weather.
The Education. UNC consistently ranks among the top 5 public schools and the top 30 overall in the U.S. in undergraduate education, and most of UNC’s graduate schools are among the best in the country. They also consistently rank #1 among public schools in “best bang for your educational buck”. It’s a world class education without a world class price tag.
The facilities. Kenan Stadium is one of the best places I’ve ever watched a football game in. If only we had the football team to match. There’s no comparison to the Dean Dome; if Cameron Indoor Stadium is the Sistine Chapel of college basketball, this would be the St. Peter’s Basilica. And while it may always be undergoing some sort of construction project, UNC-Chapel Hill remains one of the prettiest campuses in America.
We play everybody. And we mean, everybody. Our squads do not shy away from tough non-conference competition. (We’re talking to you, Michigan.) While ultimately to his detriment, John Bunting consistently brought one of the toughest non-conference schedules in all of college football, and the Tar Heel basketball team always brings tough competition to their schedule.
Deon Thompson, Alex Stepheson, Michael Copeland, Danny Green, Marcus Ginyard, Wes Miller, Bobby Frasor, Quentin Thomas, Surry Wood, and Dewey Burke. Most of these guys are top recruits, all of them are good players, all of them make big contributions to this team, and combined they make a very good team. If these names don’t sound too familiar to you, don’t worry about it. That’s our bench.
Carrboro, NC. Chapel Hill is blue heaven on earth, but nearby Carrboro provides citizens with a more alternative scene. Once an industrial mill town, The Tar Heel State’s very own People’s Republic has great food, including one of Americas’ best organic food co-ops, Weaver Street Market, and one of the nation’s best farmer’s markets. Carrburritos is one of my favorite places to eat; their Mexicali food is the best. Carrboro also has some great nightlife, home to the area’s most legendary club and concert hall, the Cat’s Cradle, where bands like Superchunk got their start. I should note that the owner of the Cat’s Cradle, Frank Heath, not only is a UNC graduate but used to room with Michael Jordan.
Our mascot makes absolutely no sense. The Tar Heels are named after soldiers from North Carolina, a large tar-producing state, who stood their ground in battle as though they had tar on their heels. And yet our mascot since 1924 has been a ram from Texas. But that’s the beauty of college sports. It has everything to do with blind loyalty and irrational thought. And whether the reasons are rational or irrational, you should make a little room in your heart for blue heaven on earth, the University of North Carolina. At least until they play your team.
Works for us…we’ve got the Heels going deep and the Dukies losing to our mother’s alma mater, VCU. Thanks, Mike!
Topics: ACC, Make Us Love..., UNC |
March 15th, 2007 at 12:30 am
[…] Posted by Mike White on March 14th, 2007 A short while ago, Jay Busbee of Sports Gone South contacted me about writing an article to proclaim the gospel of by beloved Tar Heels to the masses. This was an opportunity I could not pass up. Just in time for the NCAA tournament, maybe I can still talk you into putting down UNC as the champion of your bracket. If we lose, blame Roy. […]
March 15th, 2007 at 9:24 am
As a Wake Forest fan and as a person who grew up an hour away from Chapel Hill/Durham, I think it is important to remind everyone that is perfectly acceptable to despise Duke AND North Carolina. There are more similarities between their fans than differences. You can’t find one during football season,
but every december they start popping up again yapping about some McDonald’s All American from Alaska. God I hate them.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Kick ass, Mike. The only acceptable choice for me, as a Kansas fan, is to root for both of our teams to win out and run into each other. But at that point, I must turn my face away from Roy Williams and root root root for Bill Self and someone else’s hair.
March 15th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Jay:
Only Duke has gotten All-Americans from Alaska: Trajan Langdon, Carlos Boozer, and Shane Battier. But you sir, and your fellow Wake faithful are a breed I cannot hope to comprehend.
I’m a big UNC basketball fan, but I’m an even bigger UNC football fan. I am somewhat of an anomaly, but I hope Butch Davis can change that.
Extrapolater: if that happens, Bill Self’s face might melt. Seriously, it looks like it’s made of wax.
March 15th, 2007 at 11:25 am
I once went to a Wake Forest-UNC football game with this Demon Deacons chick. Wake kicked the crap out of UNC, and as a result we all got nice and drunk. Later that night, somewhere on the Wake campus, I — shall we say — “split the uprights.” So I will always love UNC for chumping it up that day. Go Heels!
March 15th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Hey, whatever it takes. The more UNC fans, the better.
March 15th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
[…] Top Clicks loserwithsocks.wordpress.…sportsgonesouth.com/?p=24…deadspin.commarkboulton.co.uk/journal…sports.espn.go.com/ncb/pl…tarheelmania.wordpress.co…wordpress.com/tag/tyler-h…awfulannouncing.blogspot.…tarheelmania.wordpress.co…- […]
March 16th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Jay’s last comment reminds me of the time I walked around the Old Dominion campus with my brother-in-law, and his guided tour consisted of “I did it with a Math major behind those bushes, and then when I was a sophomore I made out in the foyer of that building”. He should give the campus tours. “Don’t look at the buildings, they’re ugly. Just think of all the nookie you’re going to get here at good old ODU!”
March 16th, 2007 at 11:19 am
[…] Mike has made his love for the Tarheels even more public by contributing a feature to Sports Gone South […]
March 16th, 2007 at 11:33 am
[…] I love it when I can promote two blogroll homies at the same time. Mike White wrote some love for the Tar Heels on Sports Gone South. […]
March 16th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Yeah, I remember senior year a buddy of mine and I started a drunken list to figure out who’d hooked up in more buildings/dorms on campus. It was all going so well until my then-girlfriend joined in the conversation…and started naming LOTS of buildings I’d never even been in. Slut.