dook sux

I can’t even capitalize it.

That school in Durham, North Carolina.

That school with its faux Gothic everything.

That school with the worst fan base in college basketball.

I am a proud graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Bicentennial Class of 1994.

I’ve converted my Davidson graduate wife to being a huge Tar Heel fan.

I’ve brainwashed the next generation as you can plainly see.

We love us some Tar Heels

We hate our biggest rival.

H A T E

Loathe

Abhor

Despise

Detest

During this basketball season, I must state emphatically dook sux.

At a fellow Tar Heel’s funeral, the person speaking about the deceased told all assembled that the deceased had a particular talent for hating dook.

I miss that person every day for many reasons, that one included.

The rivalry is amazing.

Shove it Dick Vitale.

We all know you’re completely biased toward dook, Baby.

There is a book entitled To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: a Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the [dook]- North Carolina Basketball Rivalry by Will Blythe.  Published in 2006.  I loved it. It accurately describes the hatred that we Tar Heels feel towards that tobacco money melee down 15-501.

Unless you’re a die hard North Carolina fan, you might not like the book.

One school is a large state university of which 85% of its students are required, by law, to come from North Carolina.

Its motto is Lux Libertas. Light and Liberty.

The other is a private college named after the Duke family which started out as the Methodist and Quaker school called Trinity.  It is now highly funded by chemical companies and the Yankees that swell its ranks.

Its motto is Eruditio et Religio. Knowledge and faith.  A little bit of Methodism left.  Not much.

It’s about as Southern as a Connecticut Yankee, a Boston cream pie, a Maine lobstah roll.

I love New England. I went to school there.  But, it is weird to have a little piece of Yankeedom in North Carolina.

That’s part of the rivalry.

Ask anyone from around the South; most of them would rather pull for UNC than dook.

And, yes, everyone says, “But, So and So went to dook. You like So and So. Y’all are friends.”

I make my confession here. Some of my friends went to dook.

Yes, I love So and So.  But So and So is the exception proving the rule.

I went to Chapel Hill when Christian Laettner played over at dook. I can think of no one more badly named.  I guess Antichrist Laettner would have been too obvious.

The guy is the original douche.

He stomped on the chest of a player who was down on the court.  Stomped. Hard.  Hurt the man.

ESPN’s 30 for 30 entitled “I Hate Christian Laettner” fueled my continued hatred of that dude.

As I watched it, I had no difference of opinion as to him.  No softening. No warmth, except the undying fire of my hatred.

As Powers Boothe’s character said to C. Thomas Howell’s character in the first PG-13 movie red-commie-invasion-flick Red Dawn, “Son, all that hatred’s gonna burn you up.”

The reply, “Yeh, Colonel, but it keeps me warm.”

I’m burning up over here.

It’s not fair to judge Mr. Laettner so harshly.

He was only doing the bidding of Rat Face, the evil Mike Krysewski.

Evil. He barely punishes his players for flagrant technical violations.

Coach K indefinitely suspened Grayson Allen a few years ago for tripping an opponent.  It definitely didn’t last long.  Neither did those crocodile tear apologies.

Coach K stands in stark opposition to the late Dean Smith, who was a god.

So is Roy Williams.

Don’t come at me dook fans.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, I cried like a baby when I read about Coach K’s 37 year friendship with Steve Mitchell.  Mr. Mitchell sat behind the dook bench at every home game at Coach K’s insistence.  Mr. Mitchell died in 2017 at aged 62 from complications of a stroke. He lived with special needs his entire life, and Coach K made him an integral part of the dook family.  I’ll give that one thing to Coach K. One thing.

O.k. fine.

He’s not all bad.

But, can anyone tell me the name of an evil North Carolina player?

Does anyone remember a North Carolina player stomping someone or intentionally tripping someone?

Does anyone remember the dook students who chanted “Inhale…Exhale” when Steve Hale came back to play after a collapsed lung?

They’re just not nice.

Period.

Zion Williamson and his fellow teammates will probably make me eat all of these words this season, but, at the very least, Syracuse beat them already.  I got that going for me.

At the end of our alma mater, “Hark the Sound!”, there’s the cheer of

Rah! Rah! Carolina-lina!

Rah Rah! Carolina-lina!

Rah Rah! Carolina-lina!

Go to hell dook!

It used to be

Go to hell State!

It changed as folks over in Raleigh aren’t one millionth as obnoxious as the folks in Durham.

It changed because dook sux.