Since the University is in shut-down mode over the ongoing athletic and academic scandal (and the NCAA won’t make its announced return to campus until the fall), somebody has got to say something. So I will. This is what I imagine of the various conversations between Federal prosecutor Ken Wainstein and Julius Nyang’oro, Deborah Crowder […]

If Carolina Basketball has not changed much from the era of Dean Smith to the current program of his protégé Roy Williams, someone is lying, embellishing or taking advantage of what is different. When Smith coached the Tar Heels for 36 years, he literally talked about his players’ 90-plus percent graduation rate more than their […]

As Rashad McCants has blown the latest lid off the UNC academic scandal with his ESPN interview Friday, there remains a missing person who could shed light on why the African and Afro-American Studies major became the focal point of the national story about Carolina athletics. Deposed AFAM Chairman Julius Nyang’oro has yet to speak […]

GREENSBORO – If N.C. State baseball coach Elliott Avent felt like kicking a dog after Tuesday’s 4-3 loss to Carolina, he didn’t have to go back to Raleigh to do it. Two “bat dogs” work the games at NewBridge Bank Park, home of the 2014 ACC Tournament — Miss Babe Ruth, the 8-year-old grande dame […]

I walk our dog pretty much every day up a nearby side street, leading to a cul-de-sac. This was once the 5-acre estate owned by an eccentric millionaire, who fled Chapel Hill for Florida after the building of Meadowmont interrupted the peace and tranquility of his property. For example, the heavily wooded DuBose Farm outside his […]

Meb Keflezighi was in Chapel Hill Friday 12 days after winning the 118th Boston Marathon with a personal best time of 2:08:37, which would have caused him to celebrate even if he didn’t lead the field of 36,000 runners. “I go into every race with three goals,” Meb said to a packed room at the […]

BOSTON – I’ve never seen anything quite like it. On a day when everything (and I mean everything) spoke to good over evil, the 118th Boston Marathon came back stronger and more stunningly than anyone could have imagined. Seventy degrees under Marathon-blue skies. So many spectators that the home stretch on Boylston Street was closed […]

What are Mary Willingham’s real motives these days? Is she so deep into it now that she has to keep justifying her original actions, which seemed honorable (if not exactly accurate) at the time? Is she getting off on her new-found fame? Or being used by those trying to bring down the NCAA? Maybe she […]

If you still are saddened that Carolina won’t be taking on UConn in the Sweet Sixteen Friday night at Madison Square Garden, here are 10 reasons to make it even worse. It may have been a perfect storm of Iowa State making plays and the Tar Heels messing up in the last four minutes, but […]

If you’re still going off on Carolina’s embarrassing ouster from the ACC Tournament, ask yourself this question: How the hell did this team win 23 games? In a performance that was an apt summation of this season, the Tar Heels could not score and did not win the defensive and rebounding battles. That’s a recipe […]