UNC Football: Stay classy fanbase

In the many years, or should I say decades, that I been a sports fan I have always enjoyed a good discussion, whether or not I agree with it. Before I go on with this post, let me repeat that… a good discussion, not a bashing, not a one way attack, a discussion. And secondly, this time this post is more as a fan than a blogger. With that said… Things such as… Should the coaching staff stay with the starting QB or not? Who’s fault is it that the D is not working as it should be? Who is the best team in the conference or the nation, or which player will win the Heisman? And I could go on and on, and I am sure if I did I would miss many good topics that are on the mind of sports fans all over. Including some UNC Football ones, like might be the player under center when #13 Miami comes calling next Thursday night in Chapel Hill. Even if this might be a sin as a Carolina fan, I have friends that love Duke, and we have had great heated discussions. There is nothing wrong with being able to do that… nothing, since we do live in a country where it’s everyone’s right to be able to choose. Not my fault they choose wrong, someone has to cheer for the second best squads. And while I might agree with some and disagree with others, it can be fun to read what people that root for the same university as I do, and what others that root for other programs, think about this and that. But then… things also can not be fun, and that is why I am doing this post. I am proud to be a Tar Heel, damn proud! I believe in the “Carolina Way”, I do not think of that as just words, but as a state of mind that makes us in someway different, heck… in some ways better! But then I read things like “we need to get rid of our coach”, “this or that player sucks, get him out” or “when is basketball coming, I have had enough of football already”. I think I have read in several social media outlets fans ready to sell off, or give away, their tickets cause. Well cause the team ain’t as good as they wish it was. Well to all those fans let me clue you in. Maybe, as A.J. Blue said, they have not given 100% all the time, but there is no one, not a soul, that plays competitive sport that wants to lose. If it hurts us as fans to watch our team lose, it hurts those players a lot more. Sure, tell me now how this squad, with so much promise at the beginning of the season is not but a lowly 1 and 4, at the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Tell me how our starting senior quarterback has not been what he should have been, and maybe it’s time for a change. Remind me over and over again how this defense is not improving, and in some way might have taken a step backward from a year ago. I am sure the list can go on and on, and that is your right to speak about your team. I will sit and listen to all of it, remembering the 2008-09 basketball, when you could not go into one UNC web board without seeing double digit threads on how the team “stunk it up” starting out 0 and 2 in the ACC. Losing to Boston College in the Dean Dome and then #4 Wake Forest on the road. How many threads I read about they would never win a damn thing. How they could not wait for the next season. How it was time to get rid of the head coach. C’mon, think back, you remember those times, those threads. Amazingly, all those fans forgot that stretch of time when that same team who could not win a damn thing, led by players like Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green to name some, brought home the hardware. Going on to lose just two more games, finishing the season 34-4 and having its second national championship under head coach Roy Williams. The same coach that at the end of the previous season some of the fan base bashed for all the mistakes they believed he made on the court against Kansas. And then even more attacks on him cause the coach dared to wear a sticker one of the fans of the Jayhawks put on him, a team he coached for a decade and a half. The reality is that this football team, like it or not, might finish at .500 or below. Definitely not what most would have thought that it could have done. While it’s not the same players as the ones from the 1988 or 1989, where they both won one game per season, or the ones that from 2002 to 2007, where not once were better than .500, they are the same in another way. They don the same jersey and play for the same school. The same university that we say, as fans, support! Support them when they are down… cause when they are up, you will ride their backs all as much as you can! Believe in them when, cause they came here cause they believe in this team, this program, this university… the one named the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The one that is nicnamed “Tar Heels”, the one that we say “it’s always a good day when you are a Tar Heel”. The one that gives us the “Carolina Way”, about staying united, but it never said a thing about being united only when winning. How many times we have said “stay classy” about this school or that one when they do things that they shouldn’t. Well, fans of UNC… stay classy… support this team!