At N.C. State, kids will ride to home football games on buses named the Red Terror.

If you’re really lucky as a kid, your parents might have a friend who is smart, worldly and funny and who later moves from being a sort of voluntary uncle to a friend of yours in his own right.

Crystal Mangum is back in the news: the woman at the heart of the Duke lacrosse fraud is now facing charges of arson, child endangerment and attempted murder following a domestic violence incident with her boyfriend.

One of the things that sets the ACC apart from almost every other conference is that there is a real sense of family here.

To be honest, we haven’t paid too much attention to the situation in College Park.  As you probably know by now, a Maryland student was beaten by the police who were monitoring the promised riot after Maryland’s win over Duke.

Every so often we like to put a plug in for something we’ve tried or like, and when we do, it’s just on our own, not for compensation.

Like pretty much everyone, we’re very happy to hear that Da’Sean Butler’s knee is only sprained.  It didn’t take long to discover that he’s a likeable guy and someone you can pull for when you’re not playing him.

To a certain extent, Duke fans have learned to live with what we’ve come to call Duke hating, so it’s no big surprise when somebody like Jason Whitlock, Pat Forde, Mark Bradley or John Feinstein (sorry to say) takes a cheap shot

Secretary of education Arne Duncan is pushing a proposal to bar schools which graduate less than 40% of their players from the NCAA tournament.

Well, that sure didn’t take long: apparently the referee conspiracy is over and now the committee conspiracy is in place.