I HATE TO OPEN OLD WOUNDS — but, hey, we are heading fast into basketball season — and I always was bad about picking at a scab.

When two of the blue bloods of college basketball meet we expect blood on the floor figuratively, but not literally. In recent memory there has been a lot of bad blood between the Duke and North Carolina men's basketball teams, but mostly that has just been a figure of speech.

But not always. "Don't make Eric bleed." That was my advice to Tar Heel opponents in the 1990 to 1994 era. Eric Montross was a very nice player when he played for Carolina — too nice. Eric still is one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet. (For a point of reference, he's in the Hubert-Davis class.) But as Duke should have learned: "Don't make Eric bleed." Eric was nice player when not hemorrhaging; a great player when he was. Montross scored 12 points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked three shots while bleeding from two different cuts on his head in a UNC victory over Duke in 1993. (You may remember the famous picture with a trickle of blood running down his forehead.) How does such bad blood arise? Certainly not coaching, per se. As two good Christian men, Dean Smith, an oxymoronic liberal Baptist, and Mike Krzyzewski, a consistently profane Catholic, certainly loved each other with a deep and abiding godly love — but, boy, they sure didn't like each other. I swear their blood would turn to ice as they went to make their perfunctory courtesy handshake after each game. During the Bill Guthridge years there was something of a warming, but then Matt Doherty arrived, followed by Roy Williams, and the blood pressure has risen.

Which brings us to somewhat fresher blood. Whatever Duke guard Gerald Henderson did in year-before-last's regular season finale, and I say as the one man in America who replayed the slo-mo Tivo of the slo-mo video of Henderson's end-of-game foul on Tyler Hansbrough more times than the rest of America replayed Janet Jackson's Superbowl wardrobe malfunction, it was not premeditated assault. It wasn't basketball either. At the very least it was reckless endangerment. When viewed as a digital slow-motion of video slow motion, Henderson appears to be attempting the ever-popular "hard foul," by the use of a sometimes legal football play, the forearm shiver. He was not trying to block a shot. He had his eyes closed at the moment of contact.

The officials, in my view, got it right. "A flagrant foul for combative and confrontational action" is what it was, and as such is treated the same as a punch, as it should be. The ejection also brought an automatic suspension for Henderson for Duke's next game under NCAA rules.

By all reports, Gerald Henderson is a nice and decent person. But, then again, so is Wake Forest's Chris Paul — but that didn't make his literal low blow on NC State's Julius Hodge any less painful.

Henderson's post-game comments didn't help clear the bloodied waters any. "Guys got caught up in the air and I just came down on him," Henderson said. "I was not intentionally trying to hurt anybody. Obviously, it was a foul. I was not trying to hurt or hit the kid," said Henderson. So far, so good.

But then rather than giving an immediate apology to Hansbrough, Henderson had to add: "I've seen blood before and it's a physical game." My thought: he may well see it again — and I was sure that it was to be a physical game. (Historical footnote: The next game was a gentlemanly affair in which "Psycho T" Hansbrough did not kill "G" Henderson — or even maim him.) Some might note that television commentator Billy Packer instantly and adamantly disagreed with my assessment. I respond, as would most of those who have involuntarily listened to Packer-headed broadcasts: more evidence for my view. On the rare occasion when Packer agrees with one of my astute observations, I immediately reassess my view. I invariably determine I was wrong.

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And speaking of blue blood boiling, if Barack Obama did not carry on Tuesday North Carolina (this article was submitted before the election results were in), and he did not win the electoral college because of that, I can pinpoint the massive strategic blunder that cost him the presidency. It was sending actress Ashley Judd, the world's number one Kentucky Wildcat basketball fan (just watch her dance during timeouts at Kentucky home games), to electioneer for the Obama-Biden ticket. Judd is the only person that I know who that could instantly unite Duke and UNC fans against whatever they were for. Regardless of the winners (if we know yet), they are in my prayers — because they are going to need them.

Gary D. Gaddy, who himself bleeds Carolina Blue, once made another player bleed during a pickup basketball game in UNC's historic Woollen Gym – unfortunately it was his own teammate.

A version of this story was published in the Chapel Hill Herald on Thursday November 6, 2008.

Copyright 2008 Gary D. Gaddy