By this point, we all know that Butch Davis, the head coach of the UNC-Chapel Hill football program, was fired late Wednesday afternoon.
But what I’m really fired up about was the flood of boastful messages that came out on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook from Wolfpack fans.
While I will not say that I have been the most kind-hearted fan over the past few years to UNC fans when they walk through Carter-Finley Stadium or the RBC Center – I have in fact booed them on several occasions – I feel Pack fans have not taken a step back to look at the situation.
Tar Heel fans have just endured a year’s worth of hearing State fans taunt them about the investigation that they had to experience and calling them names – most famously ” UN-Cheat.” The last thing we need to do is look classless and rub this in their face even more.
Now I’m guessing you might want to know why I’ve said all of the previous comments and that is easy to explain – the timing of the firing.
It is one week before practices begin and one month before the season kicks off. To say that the announcement was shocking a few months ago would have been a bit obvious. But at this point, it appears that the UNC football program is simply shooting itself in the foot.
The situation also hurts the progress that the players in the program have made to this point. Many of the players currently on the team had no involvement in the investigations that have occurred and have been forced to answer questions for former players such as Marvin Austin and Greg Little, who are entering training camps in the NFL rather than dealing with these issues as students.
Whether Davis knew about what was going on with his team is another story entirely, but the timing has to hurt both the coach and fans of the program.
To sum it all up, while I still have a deep-rooted hatred for anything in baby blue, I do not feel this is the time to gloat in the faces of sorrowful UNC fans. After all, Athletics Director Dick Baddour and Chancellor Holden Thorp might have just made the biggest mistake in the University’s long athletic history and we should have plenty of time to rub it in their faces on Nov. 6.