Saturday promises to be the good, the bad and the ugly.

I am excited to see the pandemic-plagued start of the football season and how good the Tar Heels really are with Sam Howell back at the throttle of an even more dangerous offense.

I feel terribly bad for the town of Chapel Hill and the merchants who depend on home football and basketball weekends, and two-thirds of the businesses that are still alive and counting on some trade.

And I know it can get even uglier for the hourly employees and vendors that staffed Kenan Stadium and sold their wares for a small cut in the retail price. Most won’t make a dime Saturday.

Would it be better if there also wasn’t a game being played that day?

Financially speaking, the expense of testing a football team three times a week and housing the players in a hotel Friday night will only add to the projected shortfall on the sports season. The game has one big benefit, the TV money ESPN will pay the ACC schools.

Certainly, having a team to watch from your living room or favorite watering hole (wear your mask) will cheer up the COVID culture that stayed 6 feet apart for fewer than 15 minutes, and those who didn’t even do that and are still staying home, period.

Watching the Chiefs and Texans open the NFL season Thursday night gave a glimpse of hope that an entire schedule will be played and eventually with fans in the stands and roaming Franklin Street. But the proof won’t come until weeks of testing does not yield an outbreak.

Mack Brown has been telling his ballplayers that, when the game starts, they can forget about the virus and have fun playing football, which was in doubt until the very last week.

The UNC athletic family has great compassion for all those in town and across the state who are struggling with the effects of the pandemic and for those players hurting from more social injustice.

Hopefully, their voices were heard enough to be a catalyst for true change during a surreal time that only Dr. Strangelove could enjoy.

 

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