The myth of State Fan only caring about beating UNC came back to life today in the News and Observer’s ACC Today blog, this time coming straight from an NC State fan’s mouth:
Inside Carolina editor Ben Sherman said that since September, UNC fans’ attention on his independent Tar Heels-devoted site has turned to their own team, which started 3-0, lost three of four and now has won four straight.
Before this season began, however, N.C. State fans who visited the Tar Heels message boards often threw down the 41-10 hammer.
“It was a decisive score,” Sherman said, “so it’s the leading argument.”
Nonetheless, N.C. State graduate Banks Talley of Raleigh said many of his fellow alumni believe too much emphasis is placed on the Wolfpack’s annual game against the Tar Heels. And yet Talley, whose wife Noelle graduated from North Carolina, called the 41-10 score “awesome” and admitted to a period of gloating afterward.
He will spend this weekend with a group of Tar Heels fans and joked that he might have to go canoeing to get away. As much as he wants another win over UNC, though, Talley would prefer a winning season to one win over State’s rival.
“The lunatic fringe of the State fan group only cares about beating Carolina,” Talley said, “and to me, there are bigger things than that.”
Even if that’s the case, there is nothing bigger than the N.C. State-UNC rivalry this week. Floyd said he started hearing about it minutes after a loss at Virginia Tech last week.
As he headed toward the tunnel, with his helmet and shoulder pads still on, N.C. State fans in the crowd in Blacksburg, Va., implored his team to “Beat Carolina.”
What Talley said certainly has a kernel of truth embedded in it, because in a few cases, some State fans do obsess a little too much on what our “Royal Blue” sister university is up to. Me, I prefer to focus on what NC State is doing, and how NC State can get better. It’s called worrying about your own game and letting the chips fall where they may when rivals clash. Get good enough and you’ll be hard to beat, rival or not.
Still, I did get a loud, long laugh at the Inside Carolina guys assertation that State fans were over on their message boards taunting Carolina fans. While what he said may strictly be true, what he doesn’t say is telling: Inside Carolina has a long and storied history of banning rival fans – some before they ever even post a single message, as was the case with my Scout.com account – and deleting messages willy-nilly. What they do over there is beyond running a tight ship, they outright censor anyone whose opinion dissents from their party line of labeling NC State as a Cow College and UNC as Mecca, Nirvana and Heaven all rolled into one. Free thinking is not the order of the day on Inside Carolina, and never has been. They’d probably open re-education camps if they could, their moderators are just that sort.
A quick aside, one that many folks may not realize: did you know that Kenan Stadium was paid for by noted dairy farmer William R. Kenan Jr.? Kenan, Jr., an 1894 UNC graduate and grandson of one of UNC’s original trustees, got word of the initial plans and donated a large gift to build the stadium and an adjoining field house. Kenan was a pioneering Scientific Dairy Farmer among other things. Remember that the next time you are taunted with the Cow College thing and point it out to them.
And then ask them how long they could go without eating. They may deride NC State for having an outstanding agricultural school, but me, I am proud that NC State’s graduates and researchers are helping to put food on my family’s table, among many other wonderful and important things.
