Hell, I just “went to school there”…..

BobLee
July18/ 2012

A Special Treat Today!  I am turning over this bully pulpit today to my SaidWHAT?Media colleague – AgentPierce.  The Blogger Laureate of all things right-wing has a burr under his saddle.   Grab ahold and hang on…..

… Hi there! I’ve stayed away from a certain “unpleasantness” because my comrade – BobLee – is THE consummate authority on that particular steamin’ pile o’ crap.  …….I just “went to school there many many years ago”.  It didn’t define me then and it doesn’t define me now.  ……..

I enjoyed my four years as a UNC undergrad in the 60s.  (The alternative involved words like TET Offensive and Ho Chi Minh Trail…..) I made some life-long friends and transitioned from “a naïve Richie Cunningham from small-town North Carolina” into a naïve young adult heading off to battle corporate America and all the other creepy crawlies of “Life”.

Now I’m a slightly less naïve cyber curmudgeon, husband and daddy.  Someday I will be a dead UNC alumnus and still no doubt somewhat naïve thru eternity.

I attended two large liberal arts institutions over a seven-year period.  Both had beautiful campuses, stirring traditions, pretty coeds, a number of sticky-floored beer bars and somewhat inflated opinions of their place in the universe.  I assume 100s of other institutions are likewise self-delusional.  FWIW, I enjoyed my times at both.

Did my “Carolina experience” best prepare me for the ensuing half-century of ebbs and flows buffeted by ill winds and rocky roads?  Well, those four semesters of Latin taught me a lot of obtuse mythological references and the overall four years warned me about the inherent dangers of procrastination, minimal sleep, and poor dietary habits.  How would I have fared subsequently with out those experiences?

I have contemplated “roads not taken” to a smaller campus experience like Wake Forest or William & Mary.   But I’m OK with the way it’s turned out.  I neither credit nor blame Carolina for my successes or lack of.

I have more than my share of quirky personality disorders; but, oddly, none of the ones I read about in all those We Hate All UNCers Because ______ diatribes.

The number of Rhodes Scholars that have sipped Old Well water is no more relevant to me than how many of Butch Davis’ recruits can count to eleven without taking one shoe off.  Dean Smith convinced that God is a Lesbian named Eugene; and Dickie Baddour making Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes does not damage my psyche one iota.

(Hang around BobLee and one starts spouting stuff like that last paragraph.  He’s very contagious!)

I attended UNC for four years.  I have had my Ford pick-up truck for eleven years.  If there is such a thing as “The F-150 Way” I might buy into that.

This on-going sledge hammer dose of reality has been mind-numbing to many.  Admitting I am naive about much of Life….. but to have been naïve about Carolina’s on-going love affair with its athletic image is a testament to anyone’s ability to deal with uncomplicated Truth.

Carolina’s conscious decision many years ago to compete at the “highest level” of Big Time college athletics set in motion the current train wreck that has so many perched on a ledge declaring that Life, for them, has lost its meaning.  Or it surely will when Basketball gets dragged into the septic tank.

“If Carolina is really no better than X, Y or even Z; then can there be a Santa Claus, a Life After Death or a prize in every box of CrackerJacks?”   Probably not, many are concluding.

Call it “cheating”.  Call it “cutting corners”.  Call it “situational ethics”.  Assume a fetal position mumbling “everybody else does it too”.  Whatever gets you through the day.

There are no virgin Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and the athletic/academic charade just south of Franklin Street did not start when Marvin Austin hit SEND on his tweeter.

I divorced myself from UNC’s academic model decades ago.  I don’t vote for liberals and sure won’t give them my money to finance their nutty ideology.  The Alumni Assn always wants my $$$, but never my opinions.  That Gene Nichol and I sit in the same stadium on Fall Saturdays gives me the creeps.

I have always “pulled for” Carolina sports teams.  I will continue to do so.   I prefer Eastern NC barbecue.  I have no illusions that doing either of these makes me in any way “special”.

I value those good friends I shared a rite of passage with many years ago.  My daughter thinks it’s odd that I can still recite Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in Latin.  And I agreed with BobLee six years ago that “hiring Butch Davis” could well be “the straw that breaks Ramses back”.

Butch Davis did exactly what he was hired to do.  WHAT he was hired to do; by WHOM; and WHY are questions no one is comfortable answering.  Who can blame’em?   There ARE a handful of “level heads” over there.  Eventually they WILL jerk a knot in the rest of the knuckleheads.  Lord only knows when.

I never claimed personal credit for a national championship; so I don’t wallow in apologetic shame over a national scandal.

Many people feel differently about “going to college” than I do.  That’s OK.
I just “went to school there”…. a long time ago.

Right On!
AgentPierce

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