http://www.carolinamarch.com An Unofficial UNC Tar Heels Blog Copyright 2000 - My Site Sat, 17 May 2008 01:36:25 -0400 Sat, 17 May 2008 01:36:25 -0400 Carolina March<info@carolinamarch.com> Carolina March<info@carolinamarch.com> http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/5/13/2139/49672 I've been negectful in my Finest News Source reading of late - I didn't pick up last week's print issue of the Onion until tonight while I was picking up dinner. Which is why I'm probably the last to see this:<p> <center><a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/tyler_hansbrough_staying_in"><img width="565" src="http://images.carolinamarch.com/images/admin/onion1.jpg" height="133" border="0"></a></center><p> Nice to have an explanation - if only Hartz was <a href="http://philosophy.unc.edu/faculty.htm">actually on faculty</a>. What kind of shoddy fake news is this?<p> Alas the Onion also has something to say about San Francisco's latest draft pick. From the list of <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/infograph/worst_nfl_draft_picks_2008">Worst NFL Draft Picks of 2008</a>:<p> <div class="blockquote"><b>Kentwan Balmer, DT, 49ers:</b> Was considered a solid tackle going into the draft, but medical tests revealed he is actually about 70% liquid</div><p> Damn them for discovering our athlete's secret aquatic nature! TH &lt;info@carolinamarch.com&gt; Wed, 14 May 2008 02:03:09 GMT http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/5/9/182733/6953 The same day Mike Copeland <a href="http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/index.php?title=unc_s_copeland_to_undergo_knee_surgery">goes down with a torn ACL</a>, the New York Times runs a story on the prevalance of the same injury <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/magazine/11Girls-t.html">in teenage girls</a>. It's a bit alarmist, in the "Our children are in danger!" way, but throws out an interesting estimation - that ACL injuries in teenage girls are as much as five times as prevalent in their male counterparts. And naturally they go to Anson Dorrance for an opinion on the whole thing, and he knows where to put the blame:<p> <div class="blockquote">&#8220;[E]verybody&#8217;s got a tournament. There&#8217;s the Raleigh Shootout, the Surf Cup in Southern California, and ding, ding, ding, they&#8217;re everywhere.&#8221; Dorrance was animated, his words coming out in a rush. &#8220;So now girls are going somewhere every two or three months and playing these inordinate number of matches. And you know what? They&#8217;re playing to survive. And the survival is not just the five games in three days. It&#8217;s the two or three weeks following. They&#8217;ve got a niggling this and niggling that &#8212; sprained ankles, swollen knees, aching backs. They were overplayed and they never rested. But part of what&#8217;s developing is this question of who&#8217;s tough enough, who can play through it?&#8221;</div><p> It sounded reasonable to me, since I couldn't recall a headline ACL tear on the UNC team, but the very next page <a href="http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/sports/w-soccer/mtt/steadman_amy00.html">brings one up</a>:<p> <div class="blockquote">When I was with Janelle, I could not help thinking of Amy Steadman, who was going to be one of the great American soccer players of her generation. In her junior year in high school, in Brevard, N.C., Parade magazine named her the top high-school-age defensive player in America, &#8220;the best of the best.&#8221; She was a captain of the U.S. women&#8217;s under-19 team, a future star of the women&#8217;s national team. She played for Anson Dorrance at U.N.C., and while I was talking to him one day, he pointed out beyond his office door to a gallery where the uniforms of his all-time greats, including Mia Hamm, were displayed. &#8220;She would have been one of those jerseys out there,&#8221; he said, referring to Amy.<p> But by the time I met her, Amy was 21 and had torn the A.C.L. in her right knee four times.<p> [...]<p> As Amy walked toward me the first time we met, her right leg was stiff and her whole gait crooked. She moved like a much older woman. If I hadn&#8217;t known her history, I would never have believed she had been an athlete, let alone an elite one. She had undergone, by her count, five operations on her right knee. Her mother counted eight, and believed that Amy did not put certain minor cuttings in the category of actual operations. She was done playing. She had been told she would need a knee replacement, maybe by the time she turned 30.<p> Amy told me about her final operation, recalling that when she came out of anesthesia, the surgeon seemed as if he was going to cry. He looked at her in silence for what seemed like a long time, trying to compose himself. Finally, he told her, &#8220;Amy, there was nothing in there left to fix.&#8221;</div><p> There's also Susan Bush, (two torn ACLs, '00 and '01), Ali Hawkins (last year), Ashlyn Harris (each knee, '05 and '06) and of course, <a href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com/110/story/133420.html">Anson Dorrance himself</a>, back in 1991. Even the coaching is dangerous. And that's just the first few pages of a Google search.<p> Anyway, the whole thing is a pretty good read. And of course, no mention of ACL injuries and Tar Heels is complete without <a href="http://espn.go.com/magazine/flemfile_20011009.html">the story of Jimmy Hitchcock</a>. TH &lt;info@carolinamarch.com&gt; Fri, 09 May 2008 23:27:33 GMT http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/5/8/01921/87605 It took 21 days from UNC's last game until three players <a href="http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/4/26/22241/6848">tossed their names into the hat</a> for the NBA draft. It's another 51 until the deadline for withdrawing their name - June 16th. That's two days after the College World Series starts, and two weeks after the Stanley Cup Finals will have ended, if everything goes to seven games. Hell, the NBA playoffs may even be out of the second round by then.<p> Hence the political talk. Or more accurately, the political as it applies to Carolina basketball talk. Or more succinctly, will Obama's scrimmage <a href="http://tarheelfan.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/recruiting-and-the-obama-visit/">effect recruiting</a>?<p> No.<p> The cosmic alignment of a) a Democratic primary that stretched out so long the state of North Carolina actually mattered, and b) a presidential candidate young enough to run up and down a gym floor isn't going to come around every year. Or every four years. Frankly, it's going to come around as often as that leap year that's not supposedly a leap year but is a leap year because the year is divisible by 400. Which I suppose would be every 400 years. That's science.<p> In other words, when the great-great-great grandaughter<a href="http://www.carolinamarch.com/comments/2008/5/8/01921/87605/1#1">[*]</a> of Dean Smith is recruiting the great-great grandson of Tyler Hansbrough, then yes, UNC's awesome ability to bring presidential hopefuls in from a pickup game will definitely be a plus. (State will have to resort to <a href="http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=968">reflected post-primary speech glory</a>) Until then, well, with the political activism of your average eighteen-year old I don't think Obamamania is going to be a big concern. TH &lt;info@carolinamarch.com&gt; Thu, 08 May 2008 05:19:21 GMT http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/4/29/182058/607 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerryhayesaustin/2285287379/"><img width="181" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2128/2285287379_491fd0c4c2_m.jpg" height="240" border align=right></a>At least their internet access, which is apparently transmitted by telegraph, and for which I'm paying an exorbinant twelve dollar a day for the privlege. <p> This means that I'm unable to write about Kentwan Balmer for <a href="http://www.ninersnation.com/2008/4/26/461344/2008-nfl-draft-49ers-selec">Niners Nation</a> at the moment, or <a href="http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/042808aad.html">Connor Barth for any Chiefs fans</a> who happen to be aware he's been signed. Nor can I speculate wildly about the NCAA rules <a href="http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/index.php?p=17515">Barack Obama may have brought down</a> upon the Heels by playing a little pickup ball. Or worry about the fact that the Gamecocks are trying to <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/734/story/1053705.html">poach Sylvia Hatchell</a>. Come on, you don't want to coach on a court with that giant, maroon state on it, do you?<p> But if that's not enough to worry about, you can add the fact that UNC's athletic success may not be increasing the university's place in the world. A <a href="http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/29/giving">new study reported by Inside Higher Ed</a> says that male alumni of collegiate teams give more to the university when their former teams win conference championships, but that overal donations are down when football and men's basketball teams are more successful. Of course, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2008/04/athletics_and_alumni.php">as others have pointed out</a>, the school in question is almost certainly Princeton, and probably shouldn't be applied outside of New Jersey. Sorry, Duke. <p>And hey! Larry Brown finally got <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3373585">that Carolina coaching gig</a> he's always wanted! TH &lt;info@carolinamarch.com&gt; Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:20:58 GMT http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/4/26/22241/6848 Hansbrough stays, <a href="http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/index.php?p=17469">Lawson, Ellington</a>, and <a href="http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/index.php?p=17480">Green all declare</a> for the draft without hiring agents. If I had to handicap the odds of various folks going pro - which I didn't, because who really needs my half-assed speculation - it would have gone Lawson, Hansbrough and Ellington, with Green not even making my radar. I'd bet at least two out of three come back for another year, but then again my analysis has already proven to be pretty close to worthless.<p> In other news, Johnny Dawkins has <a href="http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/index.php?p=17479">accepted the Stanford job</a>, just a month or so after I wondered <a href="http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/4/2/15020/27267">why he stayed on the Duke bench</a>. Tomorrow's news shoddily kicked around today, that's what Carolina March brings to you, loyal web viewer. TH &lt;info@carolinamarch.com&gt; Sun, 27 Apr 2008 03:02:41 GMT http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/4/24/204240/872 If my referrer logs are any indication, most of my readership nowadays just cycles through <a href="http://tarheelfan.wordpress.com/">Tar Heel Fan</a>, <a href="http://jackiemanuelsposse.wordpress.com/">Jackie Manuel Has a Posse</a> and <a href="http://unc5corners.blogspot.com/">The Fifth Corner</a> looking for word on the players going pro. Well, with my total lack of sources in Chapel Hill, it's only natural to assume I know what's going on - and I totally do. The following players are declaring themselves eligible for the NBA dra-<p> Hold that thought. I've got to head to the airport to catch a flight to Phoenix. You know, by the time I get back the deadline to declare for the draft (midnight Sunday) will have passed anyway, and it'll be common knowledge by then. So why spoil it for everyone?<p> (As an aside, I really think the Chapel Hill-Durham area needs a better steak place, because if I never hear about another potential agent meeting at the Outback, it'll be too soon.) TH &lt;info@carolinamarch.com&gt; Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:42:40 GMT http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2008/4/23/65644/3572 Reyshawn Terry, who's playing basketball for Aris Salonika in Greece, <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hLmLcilitItTb5luyxAQZ4uXd2kw">had his car firebombed</a> by "five youths on motorbikes" while driving through a neighborhood partial to the team's rival, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAOK">PAOK</a>. Luckily, neither he nor his teammate Jeremiah Massey was hurt.<p> I'd start by asking around about folks <a href="http://www.carolinamarch.com/story/2006/12/5/162637/120">who go by the nickname Firestarter</a>, but I'm pretty sure in this case he has an alibi. TH &lt;info@carolinamarch.com&gt; Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:56:44 GMT Use the text box to search Carolina March string http://www.carolinamarch.com/search/