TO THE EDITOR:
Dear Students:
Some 30 years ago I wrote an open letter to Dean Smith that The Daily Tar Heel ran in its editorial section. I wrote to express my concerns of how basketball fans were acting in the stands. There was a new lean toward belligerent, nasty, confrontational and a classless style of support coming from the students.
I told him I hated seeing our crowds begin to emulate those over at Cameron Indoor. No surprise, he wrote back. He told me that he too did not appreciate the crude way our neighbors in darker blue treated visitors, and that he wished our fans could support the team with simple volume and class.
So, here we go again.
I write now to express a bit of embarrassment, a bit of dread, and a ton of shame. It was bad when someone in the stands said something base enough to draw the attention and ire of a seasoned coach like Coach Pitino, but the other night against Duke, you guys bottomed. I refer to the chant in unison directed at Harry Giles.
Wailing OVERRATED at a young man who indeed left us brokenhearted by choosing another school (Duke, yuck), is more than unfair (especially in this situation), and dangerous, especially when the game was not yet decided, but even more so for our own players’ well-being in the future.
As for Mr. Giles’ playing performance this season, it is unfair to judge considering his injuries and slower path to development. We have seen many of our own Tar Heel players make their way to perfection at different speeds. So, you are remiss to make such a collective judgement. As a chant toward a team, especially Duke, please, yes, but toward an individual player, uh-uh. He is just a kid, like you. Imagine classmates chanting OVERRATED while you make a presentation in an Econ class.
As for dangerous, you may have opened a can of hate that will hurt terribly. Firstly, I suspect those brainiacs over in Durham are working on some chants of their own to deride one of our Heels directly. That will hurt. Secondly, Harry Giles is the kind of player that just may drop a double-nickel on us in some future game and embarrassingly point out it was the OVERRATED chant that inspired him. Dread. That would really hurt.
