Was the Carolina-Duke rivalry, at its worst, ever close to this?

I remember the days when the basketball rivalry between UNC and Duke kept me awake at night. The Dukies were winning more games than we were, going to the Final Four what seemed like every year and Mike Krzyzewski was pushing Dean Smith out to pasture.

Of course, it wasn’t really that bad and didn’t last forever, and the actual combatants — whether the opposing players and coaches, the sometimes-partial press and the warring fans —  still got along, at least a little bit. Dean Smith was smug, Coach K was crass, could J.R. Reid, and wasn’t Laettner an a-hole even to the Duke fans?

But I watched the Democratic National Convention and, as a life-long journalist, switched back and forth between MSNBC and Fox News afterward just to see what they were saying. Joe Biden gave the best speech of his life on one side; he was still a political hack on the other.

Having no sports and non-stop politics right now is really making me crazy.

The Democrats had a star-studded cast – from a fourth-straight celebrity host to John Legend and Common to Stephen Curry and his family to a group of young guns who made me think the blue party was set for life with dynamic future leaders. And MSNBC said as much in their usual over-the-top way.

On Fox News, Laura Ingram had Donald Trump Jr. as her lead analyst who ripped apart every word Biden said, while Karl Rove and other commentators called him a liar and a lightweight and a phony. I wondered once again which planet was I on?

It never came close to my worst Duke-Carolina squabble that sometimes turned into a loud-mouthed argument. No one on my side ever said Krzyzewski couldn’t coach, the worst criticism he got was he couldn’t groom big men. The other side said Smith stunted his players, you know, the only one to ever hold Jordan under 20 points.

When Biden said he wanted to be the president for everyone, even those who didn’t vote for him, I thought was pretty cool, perhaps even unifying. But when Fox News acted like he was more dishonest than the big Trump, I went to bed in disgust, longing for a good old Carolina-Duke debate.

 

Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related Stories
‹
Chansky's Notebook: Bailing Out
Roy Williams probably had reasons for the soft statements. Carolina fans reacted strongly to the video of a team party after the win over Duke. Only Armando Bacot and Day’Ron Sharpe were in the video, but a statement from players and managers said it was supposed to be a closed event that other students and […]
Chansky's Notebook: Please, Go In!
UNC men's basketball faces what is an early season must-win at Georgia Tech. Art Chansky says a look at the statistics is painful, but not terminal.
Chansky's Notebook: Leaky Steps Up
Dean Smith used to say he’ll be happy with a one-point win. The legendary UNC basketball coach struggled spiritually between playing well according to his teachings, regardless of outcome, and winning no matter how poorly you play. Since his job was to win and he was so competitive, he chose the latter. If he was […]
Chansky's Notebook: Rock(et) Star
Ben Kiernan was UNC’s MVP of the Notre Dame game. When Mack Brown went over the 31-17 loss, he gave mixed reviews to the two main branches of his Tar Heels’ play. He said the offense was good in the first half and then “went dead” in a scoreless second half. He praised the Tar […]
Chansky's Notebook: Goals and Ambitions
Garrison Brooks has both opportunity and pressure. On paper, the ACC looks as weak as it has been in some time due to widespread losses to graduation and early departures to the NBA, and no sure-shot superstars in the incoming recruiting classes. A beneficiary of this development is Brooks, the Carolina senior who was second-team All-ACC last year and earned the league’s […]
Chansky's Notebook: A COVID Debate
Clemson was livid that Florida State wouldn’t play the game. Let’s be lawyers, and make a case for each of the teams that did not play its scheduled game over the weekend. Clemson had traveled to Florida State when it learned a player with mild symptoms who had practiced with the team all week tested […]
Chansky's Notebook: Draft Dodgers
Carolina and Duke players have lost ground in the NBA draft. Like everything else with sports in the COVID era, the NBA draft goes off tonight after being postponed for five months. And if you look at the various mock draft boards, certain things jump off your screen. First of all, about half the names […]
Chansky's Notebook: A Two-Thirds Bet?
What if Phil Mickelson and Mack Brown amended their bet? With the Masters being moved back to this weekend due to COVID, perhaps the three-time champion should revisit the fun bet he made with Carolina’s football coach back in 2003. The famed lefthander was still seeking his first Green Jacket when he partnered with the Texas football coach at the […]
Chansky's Notebook: Kudos To Carolina
UNC teams did a commendable job beating the odds. Who among us thought the ACC would be playing football and other fall sports last summer? With the pandemic upon us and the medical experts still learning, the seasons looked like a long shot. While other conferences pumped the breaks and/or called off football, the ACC […]
Chansky's Notebook: Extra Motivation
Carolina’s schedule could be working to its advantage. When the COVID-revised list of games came out, it looked troublesome for the Tar Heels with Virginia Tech and Florida State basically bookending Notre Dame and Miami with four rivalry games in a row right in the middle. Coaches usually don’t like that because it takes a […]
›