America’s Coach Jim Grobe’s Deacons treated Butch’s inherited Tar Heels like Red Sox treat Rockies. When little Wake Forest “shows mercy” to The Mighty Flagship with ten minutes still to play, you can figure the preceding 50 minutes are not destined for any highlight video of The Butch Era. …. Over to The State Fairgrounds, Hope is now more than just a four-letter word. …. NCSU – WFU – UNC …. One already has a suiteified stadium, one already has a very competitive FB program …. And one has …. A Pale Rider.
For area fans of The Panthers, Redskins and/or Tar Heels this was a good weekend to winterize the patio and replace the anti-freeze. Manning, Brady and Skinner feasted on the regional squads like Henry The 8th at a AYCE buffet.
Not only has Jim Leavitt lost his winning lottery ticket but his USF Bulls are no longer even #1 in the “Clobbered Carolina” ranking for 2007. Move over USF, Hello Demon Deacons. The steadily improving Tar Heels hit a reality wall in No Longer Groves Stadium and are now the We need sky boxes before we can win Tar Heels.
Everyone knows that Jim $$$ isn’t everything Grobe has a very nice little juggernaut in place in Camel City but is anyone giving kudos to the grounds crew at BB&T Field? Wow, is that playing field spiffy or what! Legendary sports field guru George Toma would be impressed. I was.
I recall Goal Line Bomar’s daddy, Gayle, having a career offensive day in that same stadium almost 40 years ago.
We knew that WWBDD column would wake up the echoes and generate “a few” responses but WOW! We heard from all the inner circle buddies plus a whole bunch of silent sams who usually just read without replying ….. and EVERY SINGLE REPLY was “Bingo, you nailed it BobLee”. Such consensus is frightening on what is a ticklish subject. Several readers noted they considered posting it in a loonie bin but were afraid it would create a nuclear meltdown among the goggle-eyed spittle spewers.
The CaroLoonies, gawd luv’em, have morphed into their annual BLAME THE REFS mode. Blame The Refs and Blame The Announcers are traditional Rites of Autumn for Little Cletus and his pals at the GetALife Bar&Grill in Lillington.com. ….. moving right along.
I like to let the dust settle after a weekend of color and pageantry. The historical significance of “games” tends, like water and elections, to seek its own level with a 48-hour cool-down.
After a rough first six weeks, life in the TO’B household has to be worth living again. His “former team” is apparently quite for real. Somehow TO’B recruited an 8-0 squad including a legitimate Heisman candidate to dinky old Alumni Field in Chestnut Hill without nary a skybox nor much of a Jumbo. Now that red-headed sonofagun done whupped two regional rivals who had earlier whupped The Flagship. November 10 looms large for the locals …. It’s still of underwhelming insignificance outside a 200-mile radius of Trinity Road. Tucker Baptists’ favorite QB, Daniel “Johnny’s Boy” Evans is the poster boy for never say die “pluckiness”. The kid’s got grit.
Was it coincidence that the Rasputin of “commissions” – The Knight Commission – has just issued its annual warning about “college sports is out-of-control”. There should be a Knight Commission on politics that issues an annual warning about “negative campaigning. Every one could agree with and totally ignore that warning too.
Like Paxutawny Phil on Groundhog Day, The Knight Commission reminds us every year that the sports “arms race” is gonna be the death of higher education. As soon as the annual warning flag is hoisted, Triangle-area info babes scoot over to Carolina Meadows and find Kindly Ol’ Bill Friday (KOBF) who clucks his tongue, scratches his chin and sheds an Iron Eyes Cody tear that our priorities are “outta whack”.
I happen to totally agree with The Knight Commission and cluck and lament right along with KOBF BUT I wish KOBF would also address the issue of the effect of atheistic anarchists on higher education. The only difference between sports loonies and faculty squirrels is that the sports loonies, as a group, tend to bathe more often than the faculty squirrels. Nutz is nutz is nutz whether their ultimate goal is to overthrow God & Country or simply beat those no-count sumbitches” over at _____ College. …… speaking of which ….
(Note: Before you read further, remember I LIKE BUTCH DAVIS. He IS A Pale Rider but he’s never pretended to be otherwise. If some of our fans are kidding themselves that is not Butch’s fault.)
During the recent Bye Week, rather than practice staying in lanes on kick coverage and not jumping offsides, Butch officially kicked off his “You promised me a stadium upgrade” campaign. He is “strongly urging” (!!!) pretty drawings of the The Kenan Expansion to be available to impress incoming BillyBlueChips this weekend. ….. The Dickster hurriedly bought a big box of Crayolas and some poster board. If you know how to draw a really expensive expansion report to The Alamo ASAP.
Many of you will recall Burly John’s “I gotta have a Jumbo” campaign of 5-6 years ago. I guess we saw this past Saturday what a Jumbotron buys in today’s BlueChip market. 38-10 …. Klunk! Now its circa 2007 and the price of “hosses” done gone waaay up.
Hiring a Pale Rider is a lot like marrying a Homecoming Queen or buying a fancy sports car …. the purchase price is just the beginning. It’s the MAINTENANCE & UP-KEEP that can bankrupt you.
Apparently tours of the Morehead Planetarium and getting to play with the Zeiss Instrument does not tickle the fancy of fleet foots and nasty boyz like it used to. The fleet foots and nasty boyz that Butch, Blake and The Beav need to pull UNC’s wagon to BCS Land MUST see fancy architectural renderings of how “committed” UNC Fat Cats are to getting a seat at the BCS Poker Table. “Committed” being an appropriate verb methinks.
The days of Bill Dooley’s flirtaeous Sweet Carolines dabbing White Shoulders behind each ear are long gone. …. Little Ricky Packard says he signed after a piece of apple pie ala mode at The Pines. ….. Big Bobby Hukill says it was the shrimp cocktail at The Ranch House that sold him. ….. sigh, sniff.
According to Pale Rider Rules:
The Tar Heels need “A Stadium Like State Already Has” in order to maybe someday develop “A Football Program Like Wake Forest Already Has” ! ….. who knew?
…….. somewhere that infamous tick that bit Sunny Jim Tatum is laughing his little tick butt off.
I am not a Fat Cat. I am a humble Internet Legend. I have never contributed to any facility upgrade program at any college on Earth. Such charity stays at home with me but I shall defend fairly vociferously others right to do so if they are so inclined. A Fat Cat and his money are easily parted … BCS dreams can get it started. ….. I enjoy the occasional seat in the lower level of The Legend’s Lair due to the kindness of others and the friendship of Prince Albert.
The University of The People which dislocates its institutional shoulders patting itself on the back for being such a pristine haven of academic purity is grabbing its ankles and tapping its coffers simply to impress a few dozen semi-literate 18 year olds in baggy britches. Yowsa yowsa yowsa. ….
I am not disconsolate with such a priority emphasis. In my opinion, a hundred Pale Riders do less damage to UNC’s hallowed reputation than a dozen faculty squirrels squawking their insanity to every open mic they can find. If UNC would occasionally disembowel a faculty squirrel I might consider a financial investment of modest proportion.
Oh …. the fat cats who will, as always, bear 100% of the financial burden for the “Kenan Expansion” are the same “old foggies” that the Lunatic Fringe so despise and want banned from Kenan because they (the fat cat foggies) are not “real fans”. Please reread that sentence and never forget it.
Many of yo
u still think the Lunatic Fringe represents mainstream Carolina sports fans ….. nope. That’s not the case and never will be. Of the top 100 posters on any fan website ….. only a handful even spend $40 for a single game ticket ….. of that handful, a smaller handful can/do buy a season ticket. Of that handful of a handful, an even smaller handful ever join the Rams Club. A handful of that handful’s handful’s handful could/would ever make a donation to any “facility upgrade” campaign ….. yet those yapping hairballs pretend their silly protestations should matter to anybody.
If the Powers That Be at UNC believe the loonies, then God Bless America and lets have those much maligned fat cats build us a mess of fancy suites in that East End Zone so MAYBE we can someday beat Jim Grobe and his Deacon Dynasty.
Dag nab it!
KOBF and BobLee will sit out this latest upgrade campaign but it WILL HAPPEN. They always do. I will keep buying my season tickets, making every away game I can and keep my Rams Club membership in tact. ….. because I do enjoy the color and pageantry.
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BREAKING NEWS !!!! ….. This weekend Melanie “We Excelled” Sill announced that the N&O is changing its much-ridiculed “Do-Rag Rule”. Under the previous diversity-driven (duh!) edict, The N&O would not identify suspected criminals by any racial, ethnic or skin tone adjectives. This reached its depths of absurdity about six months ago when a rape suspect at an African American fraternity party on (where else) North Buchanan Blvd in Beirut On The Eno was described as “about six foot wearing a gray sweatshirt, jeans and A DO-RAG …” Anyone seeing such a person was asked to call Barry Saunders and sing the theme song to Sanford & Son while eating watermelon and tap dancing..
Under Melanie’s new edict, suspected bad boyz will now be described using a PMS color wheel ranging from Ebony to Ivory …. Albino to Midnight At The Apollo. There are 39 shades of mocha to hopefully cover every genetic strain known to science. If Halle Berry has a love child with R2D2 ….. it will be a #27 ….. “khaki with a touch of aluminum”. Call CrimeStoppers if you see a little brownish robot …… wearing a do-rag.
Alan Ladd was Shane.
