Two Great Articles About Early ACC Fights

Here’s a pretty fun article about the legendary 1961 Duke-UNC fight which capped off a game that had been testy throughout.

This whole thing started when Art Heyman, at the end of the game, gave UNC’s Larry Brown a hard foul on a layup.

As they had many times growing up, Heyman and Brown mixed it up. Only this time, a lot of fans jumped in as well.

It ended up being a flat-out brawl perhaps highlighted by Heyman slugging UNC coach Frank McGuire in the nuts.

Years later, Heyman says he saw McGuire somewhere and claimed McGuire said “it still hurts, Artie!”

As good at this story is, there’s a link inside that leads to this story about the early days of the ACC which featured a tremendous amount of animosity. That’s one of those things we with Al Featherston was still around to talk about because he had a tremendous knowledge of the history of ACC basketball in this state and would probably have added a lot to the discussion.

Years ago we came across a picture from a Duke trip to a bowl game in the Wade era (we think) and saw some UNC fans who drove over with signs to wish the Blue Devils good luck.

The early days of the ACC buried that sort of fan friendliness forever but look at what we’ve gained since.