Some things should never be said

As I do each and every day since I subscribed to it, this morning I went over to one of the few North Carolina web sites/boards I frequent to check out what their excellent writers/reporters were talking about today. Hoping for a preview of an incoming freshman for the basketball or football team or maybe an interview with a player on the UNC radar. Every day there is always something worthwhile to read. Then, as usual, I head to the web board to see what the posters are talking about, I might not always agree with them, but the mods are terrific and I know that deep down each of them is a Tar Heel fan.
 
Even though there have been some heated topics on the board, I have to say that going there is usually a good way to start your day off in a positive way. I say usually, because today was not the case. I read a thread on the board that talked about another university ridiculing someone who had passed away from the Tar Heel family. And before I go on be forewarned, I won’t mention the name of the deceased nor will I say who said what and why. The first because the person should be in peace and the second because I won’t give advertisement to people that did what they did. I also want to make this very clear, I do not blame the school for this, nor do I blame the entire fan base of the school, I blame the people who were so “internet tough” to write what they did while hiding behind a screen, as well as those people who stood there and didn’t do a damn thing about it. Furthermore they are cowards for having done this, yes cowards…
 
A man once told me that to attack someone who cannot defend him or herself is an act of cowardice. What happens when you attack a person who has passed away? What are you then? But more importantly to me is to figure out “why”…
 
Yes, why would someone offend a person who is dead?
 
Why would people stoop so low as to do this?
 
When was the line moved that it’s ok to speak so horribly about a person who passed away and be ok with it?
 
Is this what a rivalry between two colleges has come to? I for one have never mispelled an opponent’s name or called their coaches by different names. But that is me, the way I do things. Others, friends of mine, but from UNC and other schools, like to deliberately misspell names, or call coaches by something other than their real name. I don’t have a problem with that, it’s the way rivalries are and it’s relatively harmless. But there has to be a line drawn, by all of us, and I am hoping it is drawn way before attacking a dead person becomes acceptable.
 
I wrote on my old blog about how despicable I found it that a mural for Coach Yao had been defaced. Now, to hear that someone who died violently and at the hands of others, for no good reason, has not one, not two, but three pages worth of filth written about them?  Has our society become so lacking in morality that it needs to do such things? I truly hope not, because if it has, then we are not just financially broke as a country, we are also morally bankrupt. Now, and again I say, I am not going to say what non school affiliated site this came from, because personally I am not going to give the site “hits” with people wanting to go look if more has been said, I do not blame the whole fan base of this university for the doings of a few, but I do blame the fact that such a thread stayed up and the moderators didn’t do anything about it for quite a long time.
 
For those of you that read this and shrug your shoulders and think or say “well this is nice but I didn’t know her so…” think about the following: do not see the person I am speaking of by her first or last name, but think of her as someone’s child, someone’s sister, someone’s cousin, someone’s best friend, because to some people out there she was just that. This should not happen to anyone, be it from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or any other school.
 
I will end with this, in this day and age I thought that I would not be shocked by anything anymore. That theory held well for me, until this morning. Take it from someone who has lived the UNC rivalries for two and a half decades: learn to love the rivalries in sports and not hate the people, it will make you a better fan, and in this case a much better person!

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