What more infuriating way to wake up than this:
“When you have as many schools in this state as we have, and the recruiting base gets watered down a bit, I think the kids in this state need to know the flagship school in this state,” Withers said.
“They need to know it academically. If you look at our graduation rates, as opposed to our opponent’s this week, graduation rates for athletics, for football, you’ll see a difference. … If you look at the educational environment here, I think you’ll see a difference.”
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/11/03/1614878/withers-spices-rivalry.html#ixzz1cdOo0pSK
Bask in the chutzpah, as does J.P. Giglio, in Withers’ complete failure to notice how strange it sounds to say such nonsense while the Holes await NCAA punishment for (among countless other things) blatant academic fraud. In that sense, doesn’t it seem like a 75% graduation rate is absurdly low? A full quarter of the team can’t graduate, despite having “athlete friendly” majors and rampant cheating that those same “athlete friendly” professors and administrators are more than happy to ignore. Then again, you wouldn’t expect someone stupid enough to give Butch Davis a game ball (essentially rubbing his ass in Holden Thorp’s face, despite theoretically wanting his interim tag removed) to be very self-aware.
As I’ve noted many times before, I received my undergraduate degree in engineering from NC State (3.6 GPA, four years with no summer classes) and my law degree from UNC. Without question, my engineering coursework was more difficult than law school. I don’t remember any of my “Public Ivy” undergrad colleagues saying that. You see, for all its other myriad faults and stumbles, NC State is true to its land grant heritage. We give people a chance to succeed. But nobody holds your hand. If you want to stay drunk 5 nights a week, or blow off homework and studying…your ass doesn’t graduate. Now your spot is open for somebody else to have a chance. Simple as that. What’s more fair, or egalitarian than that? You don’t coast your way through NC State, even if you don’t sign up for our more challenging majors.
It’s that smug, self-satisfied, rampant sense of meritless entitlement (naturally, Withers didn’t even go to UNC, in best Wal-Marter fashion) that makes us Wolfpackers hate UNC so much. It makes me ache for Saturday to get here already. Yeah, our program is in the shitter right now. But the season isn’t over, because we still have the chance to send Withers’ dumb ass into the unemployment line with the same winning percentage in our rivalry as his moronic, dirty, faux-Indian mentor. And we won’t do it with cheap shots, punches, or other unsportsmanlike bullshit. We will just line up and kick their asses back to the Orange County line. Again.
* As always, this screed is with apologies to the decent Hole graduates out there, several of whom having already expressed their disgust at Davis’ chicanery and the clownish Withers aftermath. One such individual went so far as to say a Wolfpack win would have a silver lining to him, ensuring that Withers gets tossed out on his ear immediately after the season.
