To the Editor:
First of all, I will admit, as a current freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, your publication of The Daily Tar Hell on Friday was an almost perfect parody of our school-wide publication. The way it treated the publication’s liberal and egotistic attitudes was comical and did give me a few laughs. Second, congrats on your win Saturday night. The best team showed up, and I can’t wait to see the next game Feb. 23 in Chapel Hill.
The reason I am writing this is concerning the overall attitude of a large percentage of Tar Heels, who say that State is not a rival and basically treat you guys in Raleigh like dirt. I’m writing this to inform you that this is not only wrong, but it is based in the overall attitude, which is fueled by school officials and alumni.
On one’s first day, he or she is constantly told how he and his other classmates are the best students from the state, and the percentage of us that are from the top ten percent of our high school classes. It gives us confidence about being here, but it also gives the impression that students at other schools, like State, are not as smart as us. Even though some statistics from U.S. News backs up this statistic (which ranks UNC as 30th and State as 106th), it is still not right to treat you guys as idiots. Think about how many kids get to go to college, and you begin to realize that anyone who makes it to this level is pretty darn smart. It’s an unfair assumption on anyone’s part to have that belief.
Another reason for this attitude is that UNC has, to quote former Florida State basketball player Sam Cassell, “a cheese-and-wine crowd.” What I mean by this is the fact that a lot of the alumni show up, but they sit down and cheer instead of getting into the game like the student section, which is a very small percentage of our stands compared to you guys. When I watched Saturday night’s game on ESPN, you could tell that PNC Arena was rocking. While watching a game at the Dean Dome, sure it starts off pretty well, but once a big enough lead forms, the place quiets down a fair amount and most people sit down. And when the going gets tough, the fans get out of the whole game. Throughout the entire football season, we could only fill Kenan Stadium two-thirds of its max capacity, which may have something to do with the fact that we could not go to a bowl by our own doing. There was one game that was, for the most part, sold out, but a good quarter of the stands were in an intimidating shade of red.
But I think for the most part, the main reason the students do not consider you a rival is because you’re not Duke. There was a time in college sports where the students would chant “Go to Hell, State,” but that changed when Duke became a large basketball powerhouse in the nineties. Since then, you’ve been ignored and have been the butt of our jokes. But after Saturday night, I believe it’s time that Tar Heel nation considers you guys over in Raleigh a serious rival. We must push our built up egos to the side, and realize that just because we think your place isn’t as good as ours, it doesn’t necessarily mean we are better than you. I hope Saturday dawns a new era in college rivalries, with an old rival who is tired of getting mistreated.
See you guys in February.
