While we hated losing the football game to Carolina, we were glad to see Carl
Torbush, a guy we believe is being unjustly fired, get to leave on a note of
triumph. His players showed a lot of loyalty and decency in holding up a sign
saying "Keep Carl" after the game ended. Barry Jacobs and Lenox
Rawlings have, in recent days, decried the win-at-all-costs mentality which
seems to have firmly taken hold in Chapel Hill. Even Art Chansky criticized it
before he decided that money (read: owing money, or department deficit)
was an acceptable reason to terminate a five year contract after only two
years - one of them successful, if not hugely so.
Now
the N&O joins the chorus. Bully for the N&O! Once upon a time
UNC promoted assistant coach Dean Smith and told him to just run a clean
program and not worry about anything else. That is bookended by the
Torbush firing. We hate losing to UNC, but it is nice to see Torbush get
the last laugh. Best of luck to him wherever life takes him from here.
Two other things we heard this weekend, each diametrically opposed to the
other. We found that an acquaintance of ours is a member of Phil Ford's
church. She spoke convincingly of Ford's repentance and his agony over his
recent turn of events. If you are a believer, Christianity requires
forgiveness. If you aren't, common humanity tells us that people in anguish who
want to repent deserve forgiveness. We've had times in our lives of trauma
and failure, and it's not easy. Obviously this has affected him very
deeply, and what we heard moved us. Best wishes to Phil and he's
fortunate to belong to such a loving church.
In less savory news, a friend of ours who went to the debut game at State
found herself with a particularly nasty man sitting behind her who yelled the N
word several times during the game. Free speech and all that, but that's
asking a lot of indulgence. If any State/arena type folks would like the section
and general vicinity of this loser, please e-mail us and we'll get you the
information and maybe you can make arrangements for him to make such
declarations face to face with, say, Damon Thornton or Damien Wikins. Or maybe
you can just escort him out as a riot waiting to happen.