School Colors

This is Raleigh Mann.

If you watched the UNC men’s basketball game against the Indiana team recently, you had to notice the color red. Red and white are the team colors for the Hoosiers, and always have been.

The same can be said of the Tar Heel fans who proudly deck themselves out in that familiar light blue shade, some even painting their bodies in Carolina blue. Even the seats in the Dean Smith Center are Carolina Blue.

Too bad that the same can’t be said for the teams.

Whose wacky idea is it to outfit the UNC football team in dark, navy blue, a color more suitable for student athletes at a private university not far from Chapel Hill?

Speaking of Duke, should we conclude that its teams don’t know what their school colors are? When and why did it become black with a tiny bit of blue trim? Someone there must think that black makes the players look intimidating.

I don’t think so.

This color-change virus now has spread to the Blue Devils football team, who showed up recently dressed entirely in black except for a token blue strip on the shoulders.

Then of course, there’s Maryland, whose football team uniforms, especially those helmets, must have been designed by Barnum & Bailey. But we won’t have to look at them much longer as Maryland is leaving the ACC.

I have a friend, a born and bred N.C. State fan, who says neither he nor any member of his family can stand the sight of anything light blue in color because to them, it represents that university in Chapel Hill.

Yes, it does — proudly.

This is Raleigh Mann.

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