|
Insights and Observations
-----
|
Henry's Highlights
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
By Henry Hinton |
 |
Group therapy may not be
strong enough medicine
©2006 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
|
LIVE THIS A.M.
7:00-9:00 a.m. |
|
|
 Tune
in on the radio or catch the live Internet feed
of today's Talk of the Town with
Henry Hinton: |
|
Select Live Stream |
TALK 1070 ARCHIVES:
Catch the replay of Tuesday's Talk of the
Town, featuring guests Joe Scarborough, Tom
Campbell and Steve Hawley: |
|
Select Archive Clip |
|
|
The entire region of
North and South Carolina could use a little “pep-me-up.” After a summer of
anticipation and high hopes, football fans at every school in the area (yes,
even Wake Forest) are scratching their heads and hoping for a turnaround.
Got any Prozac?
It’s too early to start
wishing for basketball season, even in Chapel Hill and Durham. What is going
on with the state of football around here?
After a disappointing 0-2
start to the East Carolina season, this reporter headed to Charlotte for a
football fix on Sunday morning. Surely my Panthers will make me feel better.
Um… so much for that
idea.
The great state of North
Carolina has never really been able to lay claim to being fertile football
ground, but this is ridiculous. In a state that most likely has more
basketball national championships than any of the other 49, the closest any
of our sister universities have ever gotten to a football Division I
championship is the one the former chancellor at N.C. State promised a few
years back.
By the way, what ever
happened to her?
In an era of chat rooms,
talk radio, message boards and blogs, losing can be a real problem for
coaches. Have you noticed that?
And another thing, those
reporters, particularly the big city newspaper guys, are always looking for
a ‘cutting edge’ story. Sometimes they can even help create one.
The News and Observer’s
Chip Alexander (same reporter ECU fans grew to love after his comparisons of
Pirates and Stanford fans a few years back) got into it a bit with State’s
Chuck Amato at Monday’s media luncheon in Raleigh.
Amato more or less
stepped in it while searching for an answer to one of Alexander’s pointed
questions. The inquiry went something like this: “Should your team be losing
to a team like Akron in your seventh year with these great facilities?”
The essence of Amato’s
answer was, 'Well, they won their conference last year and they recruit
non-qualifiers and my facilities are so new they haven’t helped me any yet.'
Hmmmmmm… Chuck needs a
public relations guy.
Who was it that said
“never get in an argument with a guy who buys ink by the barrel.”
In Chapel Hill, there is
still some hope. Well, okay, not that much. But losing to Virginia Tech ain't
so bad, particularly when your new quarterback throws a costly interception.
The Rutgers thing? Well, at least it wasn’t Akron.
South of the border, both
Clemson and South Carolina are searching for the silver lining in their 0-2
starts.
Steve Spurrier is also
searching… for his golf clubs and probably saying “what was I thinking?”
Wake Forest fans are
celebrating for the moment but they have to be thinking that having to come
from behind on Duke is not the kind of thing to build your early season
confidence.
At Duke, they are just
happy CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC have some new scandals to report on.
And, of course, here in
Greenville, there is an equal mix of concern and excitement about the first
home game.
Starting 0-2 is certainly
a disappointment, but hope springs eternal considering both games were very
close. Got to win the close ones though... starting this Saturday.
ECU is anywhere from a
one- to three-point favorite in this game with Memphis. Pirate fans are
resilient for the most part and Dowdy-Ficklen will be rocking.
All the preseason experts
said the Pirates would be better but, considering the tough schedule, would
still have a tough time bettering last year’s 5-6 record.
After two games it is
easy to see why they were saying that.
Time for a turnaround.
Hopefully it will materialize Saturday night in Greenville.
Otherwise?
Pass the Prozac.
Send an e-mail message to
Henry Hinton.
Click here to dig into Henry Hinton's
archives.
This page updated
04/21/08 07:02 PM.
|
