For the accomplished chemist, Holden Thorp, the first phase of the “Butch Davis Experiment” went off like another everyday application of E = mc2. With mass, energy and velocity, Carolina sent James Madison hurtling into the September night.   For whatever reasons, some of which we may never know, UNC’s young chancellor jettisoned his four-year […]

The pressure is immense on Holden Thorp to make the right hire for Carolina’s next Director of Athletics. Thorp remains under heavy criticism for firing Butch Davis a week before football practice began, and that scrutiny comes from wealthy donors who feel they were misled to average Tar Heel fans who want to win and saw Davis […]

Roy Williams’ “lamp story” best illuminates how much in need the UNC basketball offices were of expanding and upgrading.   “When we moved into the Smith Center,” Williams said of his days as an assistant in 1986, “I carried a lamp into Coach Smith’s office and put it on his desk.   “When we moved […]

This notion of “Football First” or “Basketball First” fans at Carolina amuses me. Having graduated from UNC and been around for four decades, I am hard-pressed to think of a Carolina alumnus or rabid fan who roots passionately for one of the sports and disses the other. If you’re a Tar Heel fan, your pull […]

  Maybe his timing shocked people and maybe he did not do it with the polish of a senior statesman (inadvertently committing a minor NCAA violation, himself), but it astounds me how Holden Thorp has become the villain in the firing of Butch Davis, who as the facts continue to seep out was, at best, […]

You remember the classic Kevin Costner movie in which he seemingly had No Way Out of his pickle as a double secret agent?   Carolina avoided that dilemma in the first phase of a path to restore its reputation and integrity. It can also keep its football program on track as a contender in the Coastal […]

UNC can still begin moving beyond its regrettable football scandal of the last year, regardless of its final fate from the NCAA. Ohio State has conveniently provided Carolina with the model it should use in order to separate a scandalous past from a brighter future.   The Buckeyes, whose transgressions aren’t nearly as severe as […]

A few things you may not know about the new radio Voice of the Tar Heels: His proper name is Monrovie Jones Angell, IV. That’s on par with Forest Orion Mixon, III, which is Mick’s official moniker, and a lot more eccentric than just Woody Lombardi Durham (the First). His dad is Monrovie, the Third, […]

A gala wedding party was thrown at Litchfield Plantation in South Carolina last weekend, and among other things it was a great example of why people who live in both Carolinas argue and joke over which is the REAL Carolina. Each state has so much to offer, no wonder so many people claim them both. […]

Chapel Hill’s Ben Griffin is 5-foot-7 and 125 pounds soaking sweat from a summer afternoon on the golf course. He turned 15 last month and is a freshman at East Chapel Hill High.He is also the state high school 4A golf champion after winning on the second playoff hole at Pinehurst No. 6 last month. He […]