My first sports column ran on Wednesday about whether or not being a big football school would be good for UNC. It generated quite a bit of chatter on the comment board, which I’d like to address.
First, from “lee Gliarmis”:
Every year there’s one like you. You would have been one of the malcontents building shanties when i was in school, ruining the campus my senior year.
Take a cold shower and just say thank you to our Rams Club members, and athletic department for all of the fine academic facilities they’ve funded for you to utilize and complete your college education.
Lighten up Frances
I’m not sure who Frances is or who I’m like, but lee’s point comes through loud and clear – that I’m just complaining to complain. Personally, I disagree. What good am I as a columnist if all I ever do is clap my hands for the people in charge? If all I do is say that hiring Butch Davis is the best thing ever, did I add anything to the discussion? As a columnist, I have to be more than just a fan. And I tried to do that in this column.
Next, from “Pres Davenport”, who echoes lee’s complaints and adds some of his own.
Good for you for throwing cold water on your fellow students on the football team! Its not like they have been here all summer taking classes and practicing twice a day in sweltering heat so you can sit on the sidelines and enjoy a victory.
Why would any self respecting academic like yourself lend credence to the idea that football, such a barbaric sport, should bring joy to anyone.
Congratulations to you James! You have written the first of this years sadly predictable anti-football, anti-athletics, pro-academics articles in the DTH. I think you may have set a record this year – your team has won its season opener, against a Division 1 AA opponent, and you already convinced the DTH to publish your story criticizing your own school, and making the assumption that corruption in the football program is an inevitable truth. Heaven forbid a school try to succeed at both athletics and academics.
First of all, I never put down the members of the football team. I lived in a suite with a couple of them my first year on campus – Chase Rice and Hilee Taylor – and both were the epitome of class. From what I could tell, not only were they dedicated to football, but to their coursework as well.
The charge that I think football shouldn’t be fun is incorrect as well – I went to Saturday’s game, cheered the team on and loved every last play. As a fan, I couldn’t be more excited to see Carolina finally tap it’s potential, but as a student/citizen/human being, it’s getting harder and harder for me to simply watch college sports. More on that in a second though.
(On a side note, where do people get the idea that I “convinced” the DTH to publish this? They asked me to write a sports column… I simply delivered a piece of work with some value beyond the field. If you want game analysis and predictions, try Tar Heel Blue or the DTH Sports News. As long as I’m a columnist though, I’m going to bring the noise.)
At the end of Pres’s letter, he alluded to a valid critique of my column – that a school can succeed at athletics and academics. Randy Ferguson, class of ‘67 presented this response:
Mr. Dillard:
Perhaps your concern about whether a successful football program can co-exist at an University that also has outstanding academics can be best addressed by looking at our peer top flight public universities. UCal Berkeley is currently ranked tenth in the football polls and Saturday defeated Tennessee. UCLA is currently ranked 14th in the polls and last year defeated Southern California. Michigan has gone to BCS bowls three of the last four years. So three of the four public universities ranked higher academically than Carolina have very successful football programs. The other public university ranked higher than us is Virginia, and I can assure that their relative lack of success on the football field is NOT due to lack of effort.
Please also consider two other fine academic institutions: Wisconsin, who is currently ranked fifth in the football polls, and Texas, who won the national football title a few years ago and is ranked seventh in this week’s football poll. So, if Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Texas can have both successful football programs AND outstanding academics, I not only think Carolina can as well, but also think that Carolina would be remiss if we did not strive to be outstanding in all aspects of university life. As a matter of fact, Carolina is one of the few of the top flight public universities that does NOT have a successful football program.
Naturally, we must adhere to all the rules and not cut corners, but I look forward to the day when Carolina will not only be known for its outstanding academics, its outstanding men’s and women’s basketball programs, its outstanding soccer teams, and its outstanding baseball team, but ALSO for its outstanding football team. Go Heels!
Randy makes a great point – there are some great schools that have football success. This is the reason I dropped the stat about Stanford being the only school in the U.S. and World Report Top Ten to be represented in a BCS bowl. To me, it seems that if you’re running an academic institution, your goal should be to have the best school you can possibly have – very similar to sports, in fact, where winning a championship is the only goal. Since it considers itself a top flight University, UNC’s goal should be to become the TOP university in the nation. When you look at the data, the traditional football powers aren’t in the top ten, where UNC should be aspiring to be. This isn’t to say they can’t break the top ten in football and academics at the same time, but since we’re an institution of learning… shouldn’t academics come first?
Then there’s Jonathon Howard, who asks why football is different from basketball:
This article is beyond ridiculous. Why is it that being a “basketball school” is O.K., but winning football games somehow means that all of a sudden a bunch of bad students will be coming into the school. I have news for you, not all basketball players are geniuses.
Why not ask what the costs are to maintain the solid basketball program. The fact that people are questioning whether success on football field is going to screw with the student body is ridiculous.
Stay classy
To answer his question, they really aren’t that different, other than the fact that football teams are bigger. And I’d love to look into how being a basketball school affects our institution, the only problem is it’s not newsworthy. This is football season therefore the focus is on the football team.
Lastly, from “Matthew”:
What an embarrassing piece of drivel that should have never gotten past the editors desk. The members of the football team are hard working and contributing members of the student body. This summer, while you were probably making Frappacino at the local Starbucks or playing countless hours of Dungeons and Dragons on the internet, the football team was taking classes and practicing in the abrasive summer heat. They love their University and sacrifice so much to play the game and excel in the classroom, at the same time. For you to say that having a competitive college football team hurts the schools ranking is a slap in the face to your schoolmates.
Additionally, besides the fact that your comments are disrespectful, they are also very racist. Yes, you who is trying to come across as the liberal scholar, has come across as a naive bigot. The football team is predominantly African American, so your first swipe at them is to say that they bring down UNC’s Academic standing; bravo! And do not accuse me of playing the race card—-I am a 27 year old WASP male.
Finally, because you obviously have never followed football and probably no other sport, please take a look at the following list of FOOTBALL PLAYERS:
Gerald Ford, University of Michigan–38th President of the United States
Roger Staubach, US Naval Academy–Chairman and Founder of The Staubach Company, a half a billion dollar a year, global real estate advisory firm
Rick Steinbacher, University of North Carolina–Associate Athletic Director, University of North Carolina
Heath Shuler, University of Tennessee
United States Congressman, North Carolina 11th District
I could obviously go on, and on, and on, but I frankly do not have the time and I think you can get the point. It is members of the student body like you who give our great university a bad name.
Crap! Now everyone knows I play Dungeons and Dragons!
Not sure where I played the race card though. Yes, most of our football players are black, but are we doing the most we can to help the black community by requiring that there children be exceptionally athletically gifted to get into our University? To me, that’s where the racism comes in, but I could be wrong.
Moreover, I never said that football players couldn’t be geniuses – all I said is that having being a major football school (being in the business of semi-professional football) can detract from the University’s purpose – higher learning.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to play computer games on the internet. GO HEELS!
