MY WIFE AND I have really nice season tickets for the UNC women’s home games.
So good, sometimes we can’t see the game. Like when the opposing coach stands up
to yell at his team. Yep, seats that good.
Unfortunately, that means at times I can hear what he (or she, but mostly he) is saying.
For example, University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma
yelling something at one of his players that I will not repeat, so loud that sitting behind
him, 30 feet away, I could hear it clearly over the crowd noise — and I’m about half-
deaf.
My thought is that if there is anything a player can do which will make the coach
scream that he wants God to do that, that coach really doesn’t deserve to have
players, much less ones as good as he gets. His team was handily ahead at the time.
I can’t even imagine what he says when they are behind.
But now I remember. When UNC’s women played UConn in Storrs in 2005 and UNC
was blowing them out of their own gym (77-54 final) — after Auriemma literally quit
coaching, something I have never seen any coach at any level do — he was still yelling:
“I don’t even know why I recruited you.”
Why would anyone accept a scholarship offer from this jerk? And why would anyone
be fan of a team coached by him? Lots of wins, I guess. Personally, I’ll take Dean,
Roy or Sylvia — any day.
Butterball at the RBC
Not that I would tell a land-grant university to look a gift horse in the mouth (that would
be under the purview of the policy makers in their veterinary school), nor should I, I
suppose, tell NC State to refuse any agriculturally related cooperative partner, but
Butterball doesn’t really seem like the best corporate sponsor for a Wolfpack team that
leads the conference in turnover margin.
It’s a double double
The Paris twins, now there’s a double double. The daughters of William “Bubba” Paris,
who played offensive tackle in the NFL, both play basketball for the Oklahoma
Sooners. As you might expect, they’s big girls. Ashley is good; her sister Courtney is
great — with one of the most unapproachable records in all of sport.
Courtney just had her streak of double doubles, that is, consecutive games with ten or
more points and ten or more rebounds, end.
Before I tell you her record, let me give you an idea of how incredible it is. UNC’s
National Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough had 35 career double doubles in his first
three years at UNC. Not in a row. Total.
The second place streak among women is held by Anne Donovan. She has 19. UNC’s
remarkable Billy “The Kangaroo Kid” Cunningham has the longest streak among the
men with 40. Courtney Paris’ streak was halted at, you count ’em, 112.
They’re not booing
Don’t be confused it your team does something good and the fans start booing. Listen
closely: They’re not booing they’re saying . . . . Well, it depends on which game you’re
watching.
For example, this season, while watching the Tar Heels, they weren’t booing, they were
saying Bruce, for hard-hitting outside linebacker Bruce Carter. In seasons past, they
weren’t booing they were saying Spoon for Brandon Spoon the hard-hitting middle
linebacker from Burlington.
If it’s the Panthers, it’s Hoov for longtime fan-favorite hard-hitting fullback Brad Hoover,
or Moose (or perhaps Muhs) for the once and current, and hard-hitting, wide receiver
Muhsin Muhammad.
Top 10 Reasons
I said I wasn’t going to the 2009 ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament. My brother-in-law
asked simply, “Why not?” I gave him these 10 reasons:
10. Costs money — way too much money.
9. Don’t care at all for Hotlanta.
8. Far too far to be a nice drive.
7. A bit too close to fly in an airliner and really save any time.
6. Don’t even want to imagine the conversation that starts,
“Well, we could fly down with your brother Lee in his little airplane.”
5. Too many games that I couldn’t care less about.
4. Might end up a hotel with Duke or State fans.
3. Would like to conserve my energy for the NCAA tournament.
2. Ol’ Roy don’t care if we win it; I don’t care neither.
And the Number One reason I don’t want to go to the ACC Men’s Basketball
Tournament:
I never want to watch a basketball game in a football stadium ever again — ever.
Gary D. Gaddy plans on attending the 2009 ACC Women’s Tournament because it’s a
pleasant drive to a nice basketball arena with good seats for cheap prices, and Sylvia
cares, the team cares and so does columnist Gaddy.
A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday February 5,
2009.
Copyright 2009 Gary D. Gaddy
garygaddy.com 