Fascinating claim by WaPo columnist John Feinstein, dropped while discussing Roy Williams dealing with the Dean Smith legacy:
Part of the problem for Ol’ Roy is trying to live up to the iconic status of Smith, even though Smith insists Williams’s teams at Kansas and Carolina ran his offense better than his teams did. To most who live there, about the only flaw Smith ever had was his nasty habit of leaning to the left politically. (The great irony is that many, if not most, Carolina fans fall into the same right wing political category as Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski.)
Really. How would Feinstein know this? Certainly, it is completely wrong to assert that most UNC alumni fall into even the right-half of the political spectrum. I mean, there is a reason John Edwards and Erskine Bowles are so popular among UNC faithful.
Feinstein must be talking about Wal-Mart fans — fans who buy a shirt and latch onto a team without setting foot on campus. But again, there is no evidence that UNC skews any more to the right among these folks than does any other team — especially the one in Durham that Feinstein is so fond of defending. In fact, all you have to do is listen to sports talk radio in Carolina for a day and two to get the breakdown — dook is wildly popular among rural folks who love the way Coach K sticks it to Carolina’s royal “blue-bloods.”
It is not a perfect measure to be sure, but it flies in the face of Feinstein’s bold assertion. Or maybe in 25 years of being a Heel nut I’ve completely missed the political leanings of my fellow Heel fans. I doubt it.
Update: That was beyond ugly. Reminded me nothing so much as one of those college bowl beatdowns where you think the two teams are evenly matched and one comes out with their hair on fire and the other…? From the introductions on the Heels seemed subdued, distracted even. Don’t know what caused that, but I’d love to know if a #1 seed ever trailed by 28 points in NCAA game. All-rightee. Let’s see if the diamond Heels can make it back to the College World Series.
