I finally found something about NC State that made me feel sorry.

You know I’ve never been a Wolfpack fan, not once since I stepped on the UNC campus decades ago. To quote a famous Tar Heel sports scribe, the rivalry was total “Culture versus Agriculture.”

And since I had a pen and a bully pulpit, State fans never liked me much, especially before they rebuilt Carter-Finley Stadium into a nice football facility and I referred to it as the “concrete carcass in the fairgrounds.”

I didn’t feel sorry about their NCAA troubles with David Thompson back in the 1970s and through what was obviously and eventually going to happen with Dennis Smith Jr., the worst-kept recruiting secret ever, after ruthless State fans took to the dark web about Carolina’s own scandal. And guess who is responsible for coining the “UNC-Chapel Hill” crap?

I wrote what everyone who cared knew and wanted to talk about how former hoops coach Mark Gottfried got the school to turn down a better deal from Nike because the Smith family was being bought by Adidas. The long-gone Pack athletic administration demanded a retraction, and I said “forget about it. You’ve shown us how the truth hurts.”

But after State got two of the worst breaks in college sports history in the same year, I actually feel empathy and compassion toward the school. The Pack baseball team making a great run to and through the College World Series only to be sent home by a positive test, that was tough.

And Tuesday, some five hours before kickoff in San Diego, the team and fans who had traveled across the country to watch the Pack play UCLA at the Holiday Bowl . . . well, I can’t blame State coach Dave Doeren and Athletic Director Boo Corrigan for feeling blind-sided and saying so.

They thought the Bruins had left all of their suspected COVID carriers back in L.A. Then, BOOM, they are all stuck on the west coast while UCLA just boarded the bus and rode 90 minutes back home.

If you have ever traveled far away to watch one of your teams play a big game, and then lost, you felt like your own bed was another continent away. I am not sure how it feels to go and never even play the game.

 

Photo via AP Photo/Chris Seward.

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