By Eddy Landreth
Staff Writer
UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp delighted Carolina’s rivals and infuriated many Heels supporters when he dismissed football coach Butch Davis a week before the start of summer training camp.
Thorp provided no new evidence that Davis had knowledge of the problems inflicted on the school and the program by a select group of players.
So the disgust felt by the fans is understandable. For the first time since Mack Brown,
Carolina had a football coach who understood what it takes to build a winner. The kids loved him (still do), respected him and played hard for him. Recruits followed him all the way to signing day.
Davis assembled a group of coaches who made recruits feel comfortable and then did a fantastic job of motivating the team and holding it together when the NCAA investigation started last summer.
“Last year, we were constantly amazed by the way our players responded,†said UNC athletics director Dick Baddour, “and by the level of professionalism with which our coaching staff helped them deal with numerous adversities. This coaching staff is truly outstanding.â€
Of course, Davis is the architect of that coaching staff.
Some fans have suggested boycotting home games as a protest. Don’t do it. What is done is done. Like it or not, this is how life works. At some point, one most move ahead or risk being gnawed into pulp by bitterness.
Besides, to boycott the games is to punish the players, who have already paid a high price. These young men work a rigorous 12-month schedule in order to play one game a week.
This team has already proven it has the courage Thorp lacks. The Tar Heels overcame severe adversity with the loss of so many quality players a year ago by still having a winning season and finishing in dramatic style against Tennessee in the Music City Bowl.
Such success would not have occurred without the players accepting the coaches’ direction.
“To get back, missing all those guys, to an 8-5 record,†offensive guard Jonathan Cooper said, “it made me feel pretty good about our team.â€
You can bet the beach house that when Casey Barth’s field goal sailed through at the end of the game against Tennessee, UNC fans everywhere felt pretty good as well. So the worst thing Carolina fans can do now is quit on these players.
“The kids in this locker room deserve our fans to be behind them,†recruiting coordinator and tight ends coach Allen Mogridge said. “I pray that our fans will support these young people and this coaching staff and this head coach and this university moving forward.â€
The head coach, on an interim basis, is former defensive coordinator Everett Withers.
If the fans do come and cheer long and loudly, magical results are possible. Davis and his staff recruited well during his time at UNC.
The program needed a thorough examination after the issues came to light last summer, but the administration has overreacted and bungled to the point of absurdity. As infuriating as that may be, fans should resist the urge to stay home on game day. The players here today either served their punishment for academic improprieties or never committed violations.
As any coach would hope, the team used the adversity as a rallying point.
“It’s brought us closer together as a unit,†Cooper said. “It got to a point where it was an us-against-the-world mentality. It was like nobody believed in us but us.
“The resiliency to bounce back from all these obstacles made it seem like any other obstacle was nothing, having to play without such high-caliber players.â€
This is still college sports, not the NFL. So there is an unwritten pact between the fans and the team, binding one to the other if the players do their part. Carolina’s players have done their part. They have prepared rigorously for the season. Now Carolina fans must reciprocate, regardless of their feelings about what happened recently.
This really is about the players who put on that Carolina blue uniform and risk their minds and bodies every time they walk out on the field.
Mogridge is correct. These kids are all right.