After last night’s win in Chapel Hill, this website ran a headline and a couple of sentences that flippantly asked if UNC’s 1-3 record since Coach Dean Smith passed away could be the signal of the end of some kind of ‘pact with the devil’ because there would be no way that Jesus would allow so much cheating to produce so much success (and therefore pain for other fans) over such a long period of time?
While obviously made in jest, these comments drummed up a firestorm of controversy and drew hundreds of tweets and reactions from others about “class” from a lot of very self-important people who really wanted to share their opinions of disdain with the world. (I’m sure we all understand the irony of UNC fans suddenly wanting to talk about ‘class’ as it relates to their athletics teams.)
By way of a little education for some — the reference to a ‘deal with the devil’ carries with it an allusion to a long running joke ABOUT NC STATE that many of the outraged appear to be too young and too inexperienced to understand. You see, since 1983 (32 years for anyone taking paper classes) many NC State fans have made thousands of references and jokes asking if NC State / Jim Valvano sold our souls for the amazing Cardiac Pack National Championship run of 1983? In case you didn’t know, Jim Valvano has also passed on to another place, leaving nobody with the moral high ground of ‘not talking ill about the dead’.
Because the comment was obviously not meant to be taken literally and is more a tangential observation regarding ‘luck’ than is an actual view about Coach Valvano/Coach Smith, I’m sure that it was impossible to predict that so many people would choose to take such a comment so literally. If it was acceptable for State fans make these jokes about ourselves for 32 years then how could it be so bad to use the same logic and thinking in jest about our rival? This long running joke in the NC State community never garnered one iota of outrage from thousands of self-important victims…so, I’m sure that the author never expected such a response to effectively the same joke that has been running for 32 years within our own fanbase and with our own dead coach.
In hindsight, these comments unfairly drew attention away from the great work and that NC State’s hard working student athletes turned in on the court on Tuesday night. This was not the intent of the authors. Not that the truth actually matters to many who just like the live in a state of unhappiness and being offended…but, I’d like to point out that no member on this website has written a negative thing about Coach Smith since his passing, nor have we allowed negative threads to be started on our message boards (in which we once prided ourselves for allowing freedom of speech, no matter how much we might disagree with the speech). As we have shown in our silence over the last few weeks, we obviously believe that it is appropriate and respectful to allow a natural and time period to pass after Coach Smith’s passing to put aside criticisms about cheating and hypocrisies and rivalries. The joke last night was definitely ‘too soon’ for too many.
Now that we’ve got a little more clarity about that situation we are going to turn the page on a new day and put the focus back on the NC State student athletes who have been busting the rear ends in both the classroom and on the court this season. They deserve the attention!! So, please take a few minutes to get yourself in the right frame of mind by watching the highlights below.
For now NC State is squarely on the RIGHT SIDE of the NCAA Tournament bubble at a #38 RPI and a resume that has FIVE Top 50 wins. The 17-11 (8-7 ACC) Wolfpack holds EIGHT wins against the RPI’s Top 100 (with FSU sitting just over #100). Ten of State’s eleven losses have been against teams ranked in the Top 84 of the RPI.
First time since 2002-03 @PackFootball and @PackMensBball have won at Chapel Hill in same academic year.
— NC State Athletics (@PackAthletics) February 25, 2015
We’d all like to thank Trevor Lacey for his class at the end of the game when he could’ve taken the opportunity to rub salt in the wound of the Tar heels with a snowbird dunk, but instead chose to take the high road and show some CLASS by dribbling to the corner. Seasoned NC State fans can’t help but draw the parallel to the (not only lack of) ‘class’ exhibited by Ty Lawson in the 2007 ACC Championship game vs another Tar heel team coached by Roy Williams.
Other ‘seasoned NC State fans’ would enjoy this comment:
It’s not fair that my kids don’t get to go to school tomorrow @WCPSS. I had to endure all those #UNC fans the morning after Dudley Bradley.
— Tim Peeler (@PackTimPeeler) February 25, 2015
