Enjoy watching the four commentators between March Madness Basketball games. Kenny Smith, sitting with two analysts to his right, took a summer college course from this old professor. Kenny also played basketball at Chapel Hill. Coach Dean Smith recruited him from New York. Kenny played guard. Called plays. Was one of his best, Dean told me. Course was a survey of sports broadcasting. Fun part, each student demonstrated an on-air technique. Kenny read a commentary.
Category: North Carolina
Filibusterer
Remembering Professor Dr. Don Shaw, the Chapel Hill professor who assigned this PhD candidate to read the 1830 New Orleans Bee. A good friend and colleague who died recently. Dr. Shaw was working on a journalism research paper about the origins of Confederate identity as developed in newspapers of that time. The foreign country in the story I read was Texas. The Texas Filibusterers’ ship sailing from New Orleans, headed for Galveston, was boarded
Acceptance
In the 1970s we spent three years in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. And dedicated three football seasons driving to nearby Durham so our son could play on a pee-wee football team. There was a reason Kelson wanted to play football in nearby Durham. Little Elks played tackle football. In Chapel Hill where his Dad taught and completed a Ph.D, they played flag ball. And Kelson had learned to tackle in Texas. After three years in
Overcoming
The graduates, their parents and even the faculty didn’t know his struggle to overcome his reading affliction. That day Richard stood six foot three. His muscular frame weighed near 300 pounds. In that football stadium he looked more like a NFL lineman than a Doctor of Philosophy graduate. Dr. Morgan was an African-American wearing a cap and gown. When he walked across the stage, he received a wow reaction from the University of Carolina graduates
The BBC meets a Hush Puppy
The date was April 1, 1982. Noon. John, Margaret and I were driving to the Atlantic coast. In John’s honor, we planned to sail our 30-foot sloop to Okracoke Island and visit the British cemetery. Four English seamen, washed ashore in World War II, are buried there. John Turtle, then BBC’s Head of Radio Training, looked at the North Carolina restaurant menu and pronounced, “I’ve never heard of, or eaten, a ‘hush-puppy.’ What is it?” We explained.
Naming the Boat
Next to arguing what to name your baby, I rank naming your boat most stressful. Talking about a sailboat’s name because those ‘stink-potters’ tend to choose fish-catching, wife-joking, cash-spending titles. One rookie skipper in a sailboat fleet named his sloop Kathy’s Mink, but other skippers frowned and he found something more seaworthy. The oldest naming tradition warned that anything more, or less, than seven letters would bring bad fortune. That’s why I named my Snipe
Foreign Waters
Basketball. Whatever comes in second at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, I’m not sure. I remember UNC timed spring break to coincide with the conference basketball conference. That’s when being from ‘Communist Hill’ wasn’t a good idea if you met someone from Durham (Duke) or Raleigh (NC State ) or from up-north Virginia. Those people fussed a bunch about the basketball players Chapel Hill recruited. Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament time was a good
Early Retirement
Not many belonged. Our 1970 and 1980s Chapel Hill, North Carolina church membership numbered maybe 300 souls, including some babe in arms. So small that we couldn’t afford to pay a preacher. We chose ‘do it yourself’ preaching. Good idea because the Secretary of the University faculty, Professor Henry Boren, was a foremost authority on the Roman Republic. Although he didn’t deliver a sermon but once a quarter, Henry often read scripture from a Greek-language
Captain Jack
Our crew didn’t win the sailboat race, but we recuperated on the grassy slope outside the New Berne community center, drank a few ‘Daddy Cokes,’ visited with our competitors. We had flown our orange spinnaker…decorated with the dark skull, a blackened rose in her teeth…from the Oriental, North Carolina harbor to New Berne, twenty-some miles down the Neuse River. Captain Jack had sailed his first regatta aboard the 30-foot sloop “Anne Bonny”, named for the
Tailwind, You Win
You can bet your anemometer (altitude measurement gauge) that we old, timid pilots –no old, bold pilots they say–read about the airliner that flew 801 miles per hour. Thanks to a powerful tailwind. Republic Airlines Captain Tom Young said the fastest speed his airliner ever flew was 600 mph. Again, thanks to a tailwind. Tom was a North Carolina University student of this old, private pilot. I became a professor long after I logged 1,600