This Just In – Stanford?  Really?!

I cannot represent that I understand any of the considerations of why in the world the Atlantic Coast Conference has now been expanded to include teams that are, well, on the Pacific coast. UNC opposed this expansion. In this case I (gulp) agree with the Board of Governors.

For my first dozen years in North Carolina, the ACC was comprised of eight teams. All of them were on the Atlantic Coast. UNC, Duke, NCSU, Wake Forest, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Maryland and Virginia. To call these “glory years” of the conference is to wildly understate the cultural grip that college sports (especially football and basketball) had on our region.

On those short winter days, we would collect around our televisions on Tuesdays and Thursday nights to watch ACC rivals go at each other via Raycom’s coverage. No ESPN – this was the Thacker-Packer report and local ads for Food Lion and NCNB when that was a local bank. (“We want to be the best bank in the neighborhood”)

I remember sometime in this period that I had a call from someone who wanted to hire me for a grant-funded project. It was a really good job. I really wanted the job, but I had a very negative view of the guy for calling my right at the tipoff of the first Duke-Carolina game that season. Was he serious?

One year, we lost power on the afternoon of a Duke-Carolina game due to a winter storm. We sat in the dark in our living room, watching the game on my phone.

When early March rolled around, all productivity halted on the Friday afternoon of the ACC tournament’s first day. First game at noon, then 2:00 pm, then 7:00 pm, then 9:00 pm. The whole conference plays on the first day. Glorious.

At the beginning of the last tournament before the ACC expanded, Coach K was speaking to the press about the tournament and the expansion. He was wistful. He said that although he understood the reasons for growing the conference, he had a huge appreciation for the current 8-team structure. These tournaments are a bloodbath the first day, he said, and it would never be the same.

So there it is … first the board of Governors and now this:

I agree with Coach K.

I don’t know where he stands on the current move to expand the conference, but I have no doubt that Coach K still remembers the 1980s and the eight-team ACC conference as its best years.

All of this reminds me of how many in our community like to think of Chapel Hill as our village – not a city (which it is under most definitions) but a village. Small, intimate, connected. Chapel Hill is, of course, not a village anymore, but it gives me pause that we may be leaping straight up to Metropolis … at least the ACC seems to be making that leap.

Along with accepting this new reality, there’s the uncommon twist that I’m not sure anyone saw coming … Duke’s pounding of Clemson on Monday night. Carolina had a strong matchup against Fake Carolina, but holy mackerel that was a stompin’ that Duke delivered to the then-top 10 Tigers, causing them to fall to the bottom of AP’s Top 25.

The battle for the bell should be very exciting on November 11th. If you call me that night, leave a message.

(featured image via Todd Melet)

jean bolducJean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.

Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc

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