I’m poaching this commentary from my SaidWhat Media compadre BobLee. It is incredibly insightful. I’ve changed three dangling participles and added nine useless ellipses and the obligatory Jim Goodmon reference so he can’t sue me.
There is an analogy from either Al Capp, Poor Richard or The Venerable Bede that says….. “Place one hand in a pot of boiling water and the other hand on a block of ice and, on average, you should be quite comfortable”. Huh?
For UNC Athletics, the “Fire” of the pot of boiling water included Marvin Austin, Greg Little, JenniferTheTutor, Blake, Butch, Dickie, The BOT3, Uncle Julius etc etc etc.
Now assorted UNC Faculty members are itching to provide the “Ice” including UNC unilaterally eliminating freshmen eligibility and a few other suitcase nuke-type proposals. “Being able to spell UNC” is on the list referred to as The Julius Peppers Ultimatum.
“Unilaterally”, for those of you who mob-up for Bill Barber, means “regardless of whether any other schools do so or not”. Jeeezzz, they could at least ask NC State, Duke, Wake and UVa if they wanted in….. ? Not that they would.
In other words, Extremes of Fire or Ice are apparently The Embattled Flagship’s only options. Say it ain’t so Charming Little Carol.
If this latest extreme is invoked, UNC Athletics, at least Football and Men’s Basketball, would likely be an unrecognizable pile of rubble. “Comfortable” won’t be an option. Listen to the sound of Wuffies chortling and slobberin’ at the mouth.
When & who lit the fuse that led to Marvin Austin’s infamous tweet and all the spiders and snakes that subsequently crawled out of the basement of UNC Athletics remain sort of hidden (OK, not really!)? That can be the subject of a History Channel mini-series and/or at least a book or two or twelve.
If you are really tired of The Great Unpleasantness aka The Butch Davis Scandal, I feel your pain. I’m tired of The Kardashians, GEICO commercials, and Jim Goodmon’s media assault on 60% of the citizens of this state. I see no relief in sight for any of us….. sigh, sob.
Last Friday UNC Admissions Director Steve Farmer addressed a faculty forum on athletics. A UNC faculty forum is different from “a blue-ribbon committee”, “a scene from a George Romero movie”, and “a bunch of constipated Carrboro hippies following Bill Barber” but contains key elements of each one, every LGBT component and an Eskimo.
Here is THE LINK to the story of that meeting. Finish this column then come back and open the LINK.
Not every university in America has a bell tower but most do. Not every college campus has severe parking issues but most do. EVERY college however DOES have (1) ongoing issues involving sex, drugs and alcohol….. and (2) a faction of faculty strongly anti-athletics. Specifically anti-the emphasis on Big Time college athletics.
That jock-hatin’ faculty faction at Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, Texas A&M and a handful of other schools is as quiet and hidden as Anne Frank in her attic; and for darn good reasons. The penalty for speaking out about their concerns could be career-suicidal at least on those campuses. Actually really suicidal.
That would have been the case around Chapel Hill at the height of The Dean Smith Era but not so much over the past decade and particularly not so now. Marvin, Greg, Julius’ antics et al have created “open season” on UNC Football & Basketball.
The Extreme BCS Or Bust Faction gained undue influence in the hiring and subsequent turning over of UNC Football to Butch Davis to “bring BCS-level talent to UNC”. The full assessment of the institutional damages of that ego-driven debacle is still being measured and may not be known for quite a few years. The “damage to the brand” being akin to that once endured by The Three-Mile Island Tourism Bureau.
To be fair to Butch, Blake et al….. Julius Nyang’oro was running his little AfAm ponzi scheme long before the Davis Family moved to Meadowmont. And, Butch Davis did not recruit PJ.
If “the powers that be” (and no one really knows who that includes) decides to let the anti-athletics faction of UNC’s Faculty “try it their way”, the resulting damages may be as tsunamic a devastation-in-reverse as we’ve witnessed the past three years. Ergo – the pot of boiling water replaced by the block of ice.
Neither BobLee nor I know how this is all going to shake out. The poet Robert Frost apparently did not either:
Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Go back and open that link. This has every indication of it all getting very very stoopid. Even more so than the usual Dateline: Chapel Hill stuff.
As regards that last column on The Do-Rag Rule….. admit it….. every time you’ve seen a home security CPI commercial featuring “a Beagle Boy” you think about me. Don’t you? Hehehehehe.
