Five TarHeels I Don't Hate

[Indoor66]

Full disclosure, I'm a double grad of cheater hill. One of my only faults.

You don't need any more! 😂

[burnspbesq]

Bobby Jones. Great guy (he was a neighbor when we lived in Denver in the mid-70s), and his battles with Dr. J in the final days of the ABA were epic.

Carla Overbeck, two-time World Cup winner and longtime Duke assistant coach.

Mike O’Koren. High school teammate of Jim Spanarkel, quintessential Jersey Guy and master of the perfectly-timed backdoor cut.

Billy Bitter. Tough little guy who got slashed in the nuts by Duke’s Chris Hipps on national teevee and only missed about two minutes of action.

Matt Harvey. Oh, what might have been.

[DUKIE V(A)]

If you can’t say anything nice...

[burnspbesq]

I am probably going soft in my dotage, but my All-Tar Heel team hasn't changed for a while:

• Jeff McInnis (Started a fight with one of our walk-ons, and I won't mention any filthy rumors))
• Makhtar N'Diaye (Disgraced himself at three different colleges)
• Rasheed Wallace (Very poor sport, tho' some say is OK now)
• Vince Carter (Successfully went through rehab during his 20 years in the NBA)
• Rashad McCants (McCan't, McWon't, McCancer -- probably hated by the Heels as well)
• Tyler Hansbrough (More annoying than hated -- tried to rehab himself by jumping off a balcony into a swimming pool, but no)
• Danny Green (The model of poor sportsmanship)
• Harrison Barnes (The least self-aware person on the planet)
• P.J. Hairston (He doesn't need my list -- he's on the FBI list)

McInnis didn’t start that fight. Jay Heaps (who was actually on scholarship that year) ran him into the table in front of the Crazies with a textbook shoulder charge.

[Music man55]

Only two players I can think of. One was Bill Bunting, forward in the late sixties. My sister was dating a guy who went to UNC and she met Bunting at a dance on campus and told him she had a little brother who would love to have his autograph. He signed his name on a napkin and the next week she gave it to me. I thought it was cool, even though I would have much rather have had Mike Lewis or another Blue devils' signature. The other is Don McCauley,the great running back for them in the early 70's. Other than those two, nobody would qualify

[Music man55]

Only two players I can think of. One was Bill Bunting, forward in the late sixties. My sister was dating a guy who went to UNC and she met Bunting at a dance on campus and told him she had a little brother who would love to have his autograph. He signed his name on a napkin and the next week she gave it to me. I thought it was cool, even though I would have much rather have had Mike Lewis or another Blue devils' signature. The other is Don McCauley,the great running back for them in the early 70's. Other than those two, nobody would qualify

By the way,speaking of Mike Lewis, I met him years later in the 90's. You couldn't ask to meet a nicer guy in the world. What a great treat that was!

[sagegrouse]

McInnis didn’t start that fight. Jay Heaps (who was actually on scholarship that year) ran him into the table in front of the Crazies with a textbook shoulder charge.

Jay Heaps was a recruited soccer player, good enough to be college payer of the year, play ten years in MLS, and be on the US national team. Pretty sure he had a scholarship for soccer, which of course counts against the hoops program.

The play in question, led to a Dean Smith-Coach K contretemps:

McInnis, who was the victim of an intentional foul by Duke walk-on Jay Heaps in the final minute, was ejected from the game after reacting to the foul and picking up his second technical. Heaps fouled McInnis, then shoved him into press row.

``Talk about role models,' Smith said, ``the Duke students should be role models. The esteemed Duke faculty should be embarrassed. (The fans) could get a technical, too. The school has to do something. The ACC office has to do something.'

Smith said that sort of thing doesn't happen at North Carolina. He also suggested that official Steve Gordon ``followed' McInnis after the Heaps foul before calling the technical foul.

As for the obscenity, Smith said the Duke students could have been clever and said ``rectum.'

``I'm a little bit disappointed at what Dean said about our fans,' Krzyzewski said Thursday, following his team's workout at the coliseum. ``Our fans have been terrific. I take offense to that.

McInnis did something to get the technical foul -- his second -- and get tossed.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Bobby Jones. Great guy (he was a neighbor when we lived in Denver in the mid-70s), and his battles with Dr. J in the final days of the ABA were epic.

Carla Overbeck, two-time World Cup winner and longtime Duke assistant coach.

Mike O’Koren. High school teammate of Jim Spanarkel, quintessential Jersey Guy and master of the perfectly-timed backdoor cut.

Billy Bitter. Tough little guy who got slashed in the nuts by Duke’s Chris Hipps on national teevee and only missed about two minutes of action.

Matt Harvey. Oh, what might have been.

Totally agree with you on Carla Overbeck - great call.

When Matt Harvey was with the Mets, he was widely disliked by teammates, media, etc. He sounds like a miserable guy.

Speaking of talented athletes who weren't saints, I grew up as a Giants fan in the 80s so loved LT - what an athlete.

Reggie Bullock has been very active in the community and done some great things - he is a really good guy and has lived a tough life.

I randomly met billionaire investor and UNC alum Julian Robertson a few years ago in a doctor's waiting room. I knew who he was but played dumb. He could not have been a nicer, more humble person. I mentioned that I was a Duke alum and he said he had made a small gift to the university (he seeded the Robertson Scholars program with $24 million).

As an avid NY Times reader, I will add Frank Bruni - I don't always agree with him, but he is an excellent writer.

Go to Hell Carolina!

[jacone21]

Coretta Brown


That's my list.

[Duke79UNLV77]

Andy Griffith
Bob Newhart
Jason Capel
Rashad McCants (after he turned, before he refused to talk to the NCAA)
Shamans Flanagan

[jv001]

A name I haven’t seen yet but who would top my list is Eric Montross. The guy is just a genuinely good person, and a huge benefactor for the Children’s Hospital.

I forgot about Montross. He's a nice guy and a man of faith. I also forgot Brad Daugherty who's a terrific announcer and was a very good player. Often overlooked as one of the best ACC basketball players.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I was going to say "um..." and leave it blank, but that's not quite correct. So here's my list:

Devildeac's wayward daughter Claire
Wheat
Rick Duckett (he was my assistant coach when I coached a Little League team in Winston Salem in 1978 or '79. Haven't seen him since.)
Kent Butler
The wives mentioned above whom (who?) I have never met

[DevilHorse]

+ Mia Hamm

+ Warren Martin

- Lawrence Taylor (Didn't he have 2 consecutive offsides/unsportsmanlike penalties where he creamed our running-backs in the backfield, while they had a lead, just to intimidate them during his last game at Kenan?; never saw anything like it before or since.) Then my Giants draft him and I root for him. How different perspective can be. +

+ All of those UNC players showing up on the police blotter, providing endless entertainment

Larry
DevilHouse

[sagegrouse]

Kinda liked Andrew Platek this past season. He made me smile in February when we saw him.

I think Andrew Platek looks like Groucho Marx, but with blue eyes. Ms. Sage, unprompted, asked, "Is he really a college basketball player?"

[sagegrouse]

McInnis didn’t start that fight. Jay Heaps (who was actually on scholarship that year) ran him into the table in front of the Crazies with a textbook shoulder charge.

Yes, of course, you are right. BUt how was it that McInnis was the one who got tossed?

Having gotten most the bile out of my system, here are four UNC alums I admire:

Mia Hamm -- best of all time
Brad Daugherty -- decent and freindly guy, who's a good announcer -- plus a NASCAR fan
Antawn Jamison -- a positive influence on every team he played on
Thomas Wolfe -- great, great American writer, who died 50 years too soon

And I note the persuasive comments above on Bobby Jones and Walter Davis. I also have soft spots for Phil Ford and Mitch Kupchak. Yeah, I know about Phil.

[sagegrouse]

McInnis didn’t start that fight. Jay Heaps (who was actually on scholarship that year) ran him into the table in front of the Crazies with a textbook shoulder charge.

Yes, of course, you are right. But how was it that Heaps was felonious but McInnis was the one who got tossed?

Having gotten most the bile out of my system, here are four UNC alums I admire:

Mia Hamm -- best of all time
Brad Daugherty -- decent and freindly guy, who's a good announcer -- plus a NASCAR fan
Antawn Jamison -- a positive influence on every team he played on
Thomas Wolfe -- great, great American writer, who died 50 years too soon

And I note the persuasive comments above on Bobby Jones and Walter Davis. I also have soft spots for Phil Ford and Mitch Kupchak. (Yeah, I know about Phil.)

[WillJ]

I come at this with a Bayesian perspective. For the non-stat-geeks out there, this means that I have a prior distribution of likeability within the tar heel population and then, separately, I have some data on each person within that population. Now, like others, I have data on certain tar heels - Hubert Davis, Brad Daugherty and Sam Perkins come to mind - that, taken alone, seems to suggest a certain likeability. Importantly, however, that data on individual tar heels is noisy, as I only observe a sliver of their overall behavior. I also have a *very* tight prior distribution on tar heel likeability, one centered on minimum likeability (let's call it -1 on a scale from -1 to 1,) and with very little variance. When I combine the noisy individual data with the very tight prior in a Bayesian fashion, the result is still a posterior distribution that is very tightly centered on -1, i.e., minimum likeability.

I am more of a frequentist for more purposes, but the Bayesian logic accurately represents how I think about these things. There may be tar heels that *seem* likeable, but that only tells me that they must be terrible, abhorrent, detestable on dimensions that I do not observe. Perhaps they are less detestable than the broader population of tar heels out there, but only slightly so. Remember - they all chose to go to UNC when they had other choices available to them. That tells us all we need to know except for rounding error.

[burnspbesq]

Andy Griffith
Bob Newhart
Jason Capel
Rashad McCants (after he turned, before he refused to talk to the NCAA)
Shamans Flanagan

Good call on Shalane (sp?) Flanagan. She and Duke’s Shannon Rowbury had some tough battles over the years.

[roywhite]

I come at this with a Bayesian perspective. For the non-stat-geeks out there, this means that I have a prior distribution of likeability within the tar heel population and then, separately, I have some data on each person within that population. Now, like others, I have data on certain tar heels - Hubert Davis, Brad Daugherty and Sam Perkins come to mind - that, taken alone, seems to suggest a certain likeability. Importantly, however, that data on individual tar heels is noisy, as I only observe a sliver of their overall behavior. I also have a *very* tight prior distribution on tar heel likeability, one centered on minimum likeability (let's call it -1 on a scale from -1 to 1,) and with very little variance. When I combine the noisy individual data with the very tight prior in a Bayesian fashion, the result is still a posterior distribution that is very tightly centered on -1, i.e., minimum likeability.

I am more of a frequentist for more purposes, but the Bayesian logic accurately represents how I think about these things. There may be tar heels that *seem* likeable, but that only tells me that they must be terrible, abhorrent, detestable on dimensions that I do not observe. Perhaps they are less detestable than the broader population of tar heels out there, but only slightly so. Remember - they all chose to go to UNC when they had other choices available to them. That tells us all we need to know except for rounding error.

I think WillJ is saying that nearly all are infected, but some are asymptomatic, or appear to be.

[accfanfrom1970]

I come at this with a Bayesian perspective. For the non-stat-geeks out there, this means that I have a prior distribution of likeability within the tar heel population and then, separately, I have some data on each person within that population. Now, like others, I have data on certain tar heels - Hubert Davis, Brad Daugherty and Sam Perkins come to mind - that, taken alone, seems to suggest a certain likeability. Importantly, however, that data on individual tar heels is noisy, as I only observe a sliver of their overall behavior. I also have a *very* tight prior distribution on tar heel likeability, one centered on minimum likeability (let's call it -1 on a scale from -1 to 1,) and with very little variance. When I combine the noisy individual data with the very tight prior in a Bayesian fashion, the result is still a posterior distribution that is very tightly centered on -1, i.e., minimum likeability.

I am more of a frequentist for more purposes, but the Bayesian logic accurately represents how I think about these things. There may be tar heels that *seem* likeable, but that only tells me that they must be terrible, abhorrent, detestable on dimensions that I do not observe. Perhaps they are less detestable than the broader population of tar heels out there, but only slightly so. Remember - they all chose to go to UNC when they had other choices available to them. That tells us all we need to know except for rounding error.

Posts like this is why I frequent DBR. Along with the beer, bourbon and wine threads. But they are all off topic threads. This thread is true basketball genius.