The Charlotte News

Friday, March 6, 1959

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date had conferred with Congressional leaders on the Soviet threat to Berlin and possible Western counter-moves. He and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan would begin talks in Washington on March 20 on the same critical problem. The White House and Mr. Macmillan's office in London had announced jointly that the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd would arrive in Washington on March 19 "for informal discussions lasting a few days on the international situation." The discussions would begin on March 20 and the talks would presumably include a review of Mr. Macmillan's recent conferences in Moscow with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. After the announcement of the plans of the Prime Minister, the President welcomed Senate and House leaders of both parties to his office for a discussion of the developing crisis. The group included Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, Speaker Sam Rayburn and House Republican leader Charles Halleck of Indiana. The President had also included Vice-President Nixon, Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy and Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter. According to reports which had reached officials in Washington since the talks by Prime Minister Macmillan with Premier Khrushchev, Mr. Macmillan would urge the President to reduce his conditions for a summit meeting with the Soviet Premier. The Prime Minister apparently was convinced that at present Mr. Khrushchev was determined to push his demands for withdrawal of the Western powers from Berlin and for a German peace treaty to a very dangerous extreme. White House press secretary James Hagerty said that the talks would cover "the evolving Berlin situation, the broader questions of Germany and, of course, Mr. Macmillan's visit to Moscow." Mr. Hagerty denied that the conference with Congressional leaders had been dictated by any sudden emergency.

Pioneer IV had vanished into space this date and might never be heard from again, after the space probe tracking station at Goldstone, Calif., had lost contact with it during the morning when the probe's transmitting signals had become very weak. At that time, the probe was traveling toward the sun at about 3,960 mph, 412,000 miles from earth. The Goldstone station had installed a special filter in its tracking gear and followed the space probe for an additional nine minutes. Asked if there was any likelihood of further contact with the craft, spokesmen for NASA said that it was unlikely, adding that since the probe's battery had apparently gone dead, it was unlikely that the Goldstone station would make any further search for it. They concluded that "Pioneer IV is gone forever." Earlier, the gold-plated cone had been sending clear signals from more than 400,000 miles out in space, picked up by Goldstone at 7:50 a.m. this date. Godspeed, Pioneer IV. When next we meet, it will be in heaven.

At Cherry Point, N.C., it was reported that eight Marines had died early this date when their R-4Q Flying Boxcar had crashed in a driving rainstorm, one crewman having survived. The large transport had been approaching the Marine Air Station on instruments in the wee hours of the morning when it crashed. The survivor, an acting sergeant from Connecticut, was taken to the naval hospital at nearby Camp Lejeune where he was listed in critical condition. The public information office said that the names of the dead would be released after notification of next of kin. The plane had been returning from Norfolk on a training flight and was making an approach on instruments when the tower lost contact with it. The plane struck a lowland area about 200 yards from a main highway. The office said that an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the crash. A 15-year old boy, who lived about a mile from the crash scene, said that he was awake getting a drink of water when he heard the plane approaching, making what he called an unusual sound, prompting him to step outside in time to see it pass over very low with red lights flashing all over it. Then he had heard the explosion when it hit. Residents of the area agreed that they had heard three explosions. The whole area had been lit up by the flashes and the fire, according to another witness who lived nearby. A civilian employee at Cherry Point had been one of the first to arrive at the scene, indicating that all of the bodies were inside the plane, except the injured man, who was on the ground. The plane, he said, was lodged in the tops of trees several feet off the ground and there was water around 6 inches deep below. The airbase was using helicopters to reach the scene and bulldozers had cleared a path to it.

At Fort Bragg, it was reported that General George C. Marshall, 78, was still in serious condition at Womack Army Hospital, where he had been since suffering a stroke on January 15, having suffered a second stroke on February 17.

In South Pittsburgh, Tenn., Highway Patrolmen from three states had converged on the tri-state border area this date after a desperate Alabama convict had abandoned a car in which he had held four persons hostage for more than 12 hours. The Tennessee Highway Patrol said that the car had been stolen by the man in his bid for freedom and was found on a rural road at the Tennessee River near the town. Officers believed that the man was on foot, and they said that at least 26 Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia Highway Patrol cars were in the area, a hilly farming and mining section. The man, serving 160 years in prison on six robbery convictions, had overpowered the patrolman and a trusty convict in a police car south of Birmingham on Thursday, using a key, which he had made himself, to unlock his handcuffs in the backseat of the car. The patrolman in the car said that he was in the front seat and had received a stranglehold from the prisoner who held a piece of steel against him and took his gun. Then the man ordered the trusty, a convicted killer serving 25 years, to drive to the home of the convict's sister in Birmingham, where the convict obtained a suit and $10, and then they had driven around for awhile until the convict spotted a car parked in front of a house, whereupon the three had gone inside the house and the convict had ordered a couple to go with them in their car, leaving the police car parked behind that house. The patrolman said that the entire time he had continued to try to talk the prisoner out of the escape, but was afraid of trying anything because of the kidnaped couple being in the car. The trusty had also sought to talk the prisoner out of the idea of escaping. From Birmingham, the man and his four hostages, held at gunpoint, had headed north. Near the town of Flat Rock, the prisoner ordered them to stop on the highway and told them to get out, after which the released hostages had walked to a farmhouse and telephoned police.

In Raleigh, a bill to expand the state's work release law had passed the State House this date, but had run into a delay after debate involving the budget for the Paroles Board. An objection to a third reading had held up the measure until the following week after it had passed its second reading by a wide margin on a voice vote. The measure would allow prisoners serving terms of up to five years to be considered for the work release plan, pursuant to which prisoners could serve their time at nights and on weekends while working at regular jobs. State Representative John Kerr of Warren County said that the bill would help rehabilitate prisoners and also would serve to keep down the prison population. Within five years, the prison population was expected to reach 13,000, according to the Representative. State Representative John McLaughlin of Iredell County, who delayed the bill when he objected to the third reading, had brought the Paroles Board budget into the debate, noting that under the bill, the Board would have authority to grant work release privileges in certain cases, adding that maybe it was the reason for part of the 31 percent increase for which the Board was asking. He favored leaving work release to the judges, which would not cost anything extra. State Representative I. C. Crawford of Buncombe County had first moved to suspend the rules to vote on the bill's third reading, despite Mr. McLaughlin's objections, and then had withdrawn his motion when debate threatened to boil over again. New bills introduced in largely routine House and Senate sessions, had included the Omnibus Bill appointing members of the county boards of education, sent forward in the House by State Representative John Hargett of Jones County, chairman of the House Education Committee.

Also in Raleigh, it was reported that sale of absentee ballots had brought an average of $100 the previous fall, according to Graham County Representative Leonard Lloyd. The Robbinsville lawyer said that vote buying was nothing new, that over the years it had become a worsening situation as Democrats and Republicans fought for control. But the prices, he said, had hit new levels and showed that things were out of hand. He favored that something be done about it and apparently the majority of his Graham constituents agreed, as they had elected him on his platform to sponsor legislation to abolish the civilian absentee ballot in that county. Mr. Lloyd said that he was talking only about the local situation in his county and that vote buying in Graham was strictly a bipartisan affair. He estimated that in the general election the previous fall, each side had spent in excess of $20,000 on county and state races, in a county with only about 7,000 people and 3,200 qualified voters. The State Board of Elections had recommended that the civilian absentee ballot be eliminated, the Board having blamed it as the source of most of the state's voting scandals. Despite the endorsement of Governor Hodges, the proposal had been greeted coolly by lawmakers. Richard Maxwell, executive secretary of the Elections Board, confirmed recently that the Board was having difficulty in finding a sponsor for the repeal bill.

Also in Raleigh, it was reported that a group of 30 female strikers from Henderson had arrived this date to see Governor Luther Hodges. A committee of six plus a minister had gone to see the Governor while the others waited in his reception room. They had presented the Governor with a statement in which they appealed to him to "step in personally as a participant" in joint union-management mediation sessions to settle the strife-marked strike at the Harriet-Henderson Cotton Mills. The women had told the Governor that "we are willing to present our case, too, and abide by the final and binding decision of any representative group you may see fit to appoint." A co-chairman of the delegation had told newsmen that they had come to Raleigh because they were interested in seeing that nothing was left undone to obtain a fair and amicable settlement, that they had received much unfair publicity and wanted to show that they were not "of the gangster, hoodlum, goon type" but just "hard-working, God-fearing people with children going to school and college." She pointed out that one member of the group was the mother of a 19-year old boy who had recently won a Morehead scholarship to UNC.

A March storm this date had spread into new territory with driving snow and splashing winds, dumping up to 1.5 feet of snow on eight Midwestern states, centered in Michigan during the morning. A squall which resembled a small tornado had ripped out a 60-foot section of wall at the Ford Motor Co. parts plant in Monroe, Mich., with none of the 250 workers hurt, as operations continued. A Greyhound bus had been stranded on U.S. 27, about 12 miles south of Cheboygan, Mich. A snowplow had been sent to the rescue, but conditions had been so bad that it had to turn back. Another Greyhound bus was reported marooned on State Road 68, between Indian River and Alanson, Mich. All schools in Cheboygan and surrounding counties had been closed. St. Ignace was virtually isolated. Iowa, which was staggering from the impact of the worst blizzard in a decade, was struggling to throw off its snowy straitjacket. Heavy snow and gusty northerly winds had created blizzard conditions in much of the storm belt. Temperatures remained in the 20's, however, and no severe cold was reported. The late winter storm, sweeping in from Colorado and Wyoming, had pounded wide areas of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Oklahoma and Michigan, and was headed into sections of the Northeast. Heavy snow warnings had been posted for northern Michigan and for parts of Vermont and New Hampshire.

John L. Sherrill, in this date's edition of "Lenten Guideposts", indicates that in the book Operation Deepfreeze by Rear Admiral George Dufek, the author had written: "There have been so many times in my life when all my experience and all the resources at my command have been useless. At these times I've gone into my cabin and knelt before my bunk and prayed… Something always happened… I can't explain it and I don't intend to try." One such experience had begun for him on February 3, 1956, at his "Operation Deepfreeze" headquarters in Antarctica, receiving a radio dispatch that seven men were missing. Three years earlier, the Admiral had been assigned to the task of establishing year-round scientific bases in Antarctica. After two years of planning, he had started construction of two bases late in 1955, one on the coast at McMurdo Sound and one 450 miles along the coast to the east at Little America. A tractor train had set out from the latter base to scout a trail to the site of Byrd Base, 500 miles inland, to be built the following year. In the early morning hours of February 3, an "Otter", a single-engine plane especially adapted to cold-weather flying, piloted by a lieutenant, had departed from the tractor train on the Byrd Base trail to fly six passengers back to Little America. A few minutes later had come their last radio contact with the plane, that they were running into strong headwinds, freezing rain, with poor visibility, followed by silence. All of the Admiral's planes, except two short-range "Otters", had been flown out of the Antarctic for the winter and thus any search parties would have to operate out of Little America, 450 miles closer to the accident. The Admiral had radioed a captain at Little America to find out whether the "Otters" could be flown from McMurdo to Little America in the February gales, to which came the reply that nothing could be flown into McMurdo at present as the weather had closed in. The Admiral had radioed to let him know as soon as the weather lifted. He then asked about ground teams and the captain radioed the leader of the tractor train on the Byrd Base trail to retrace his track, as another tractor train set out from Little America to meet them. A day had already passed, when a faint distress signal had been picked up. On the second day after the crash there had been two more faint signals, but then again silence. The weather man at Little America still reported snow and high winds. In desperation, on the third day, the Admiral had decided to load one of the "Otters" on a ship and sail it to Little America. During that operation, a wing of the "Otter" had been smashed. It would take hours, perhaps a whole day, to repair it and the Admiral had decided to return to McMurdo and bring up the second "Otter". Meanwhile, the captain reported that the tractor trains had found no sign of the missing plane. The weather continued to be bad with white-out conditions. The Admiral said they would have to wait, but he had done more than just wait, returning to McMurdo and seeking a chaplain, who had been talking to base personnel in the chapel, built by those men during their own time, after they had put in their regular 12-hour shifts. The priest shared with the Protestant chaplain the southernmost parish in the world. The priest had asked whether there was any news and the response was that there was not, the priest then indicating that they would hold a special service after supper. The Admiral said he would be there. One of the men said that they wished there was something they could do, and the Admiral replied that there was, that they should pray and not be afraid to ask for help. The rest of the piece is on an inside page.

Beginning Monday, the newspaper would present a new radio-television page, designed to make viewing and listening more fun, including program logs for local and out-of-town television stations and local radio programs, previews of each evening's television programs, stories on television personalities and a TV question and answer column. Each day, the TV scout would preview the evening's top shows. Skilled reporters in Hollywood and New York, who viewed dress rehearsals and films and read scripts in advance, would tell the reader about the programs. The whole package would be presented in a more attractive and readable form than the previous listings, and would be titled "Sights and Sounds". Why can't we just read that and skip all the programming? What's the difference? Once you've seen one of these programs, you've seen them all. The rest is merely an addiction of your own contrivance. (Skeptics won't credit this, but we wrote those last sentences before watching this date's episode of Kookie and the Private Eye or having any idea that the episode aired this date. Maybe you can consult the Duke department of parapsychology, where the current 2026 UNC chancellor seems to hang. You made the wrong choice this date, fool, knocking down 73 years of Carolina tradition with your right-leaning, tainted filthy lucre. What transpired this date, the firing of coach Hubert Davis after a very successful season and four of five successful seasons, including 2024, was after we wrote that which follows below anent the possibility of a coaching change in the basketball program, advice which was not followed, unfortunately, for our alma mater and its coterie of money-grubbers now occupying the top echelons of the administration. We know who should be fired at present at UNC, and it is not, definitely not, anyone among the coaches, that is if you want to get the stink out of Chapel Hill, which is smelling to high, high heaven. We believe they used to call it Dooky. Now, we call it creeping Trumpism, same thing. Trump, no doubt, still holds a grudge for the 2017 national championship team voting not to go to the White House, for obvious and good reasons, and, so, as with so many of the vindictive little manchild's actions, seeks to insinuate himself to obtain revenge on the entire University community. Undoubtedly, this date's actions have engendered very warm feelings simultaneously among a subset of cretins over on the campus of Buck Duke's Trinity College, which we believe is another underlying reason for the firing, for coach Davis having spoiled the swan song of their coach back in '22, making sure of the matter in the semifinals, an unpardonable sin to some Dookies, no doubt, including, in all probability, the man who feigns having in mind the future of UNC as its new chancellor, the first non-academic ever to hold that position, a man riding a Trojan horse into Chapel Hill and who fain would have a new arena in a completely absurd location, while Duke Indoor remains where it has been since January 6, 1940, all to accommodate his money-bags backers, to replace the Dean E. Smith Center, only 41 years old, their insistent eagerness in the firing and the construction being a bit of a tell-tale heart. We warn that the next coach, whomever it will be, will be quite as accepted by many in the UNC community as a heart transplant from a noncompatible donor, with death of the entire program being likely to occur next season and beyond, at least until amends are made and resignations of the higher staff tendered and accepted, quite rightly. We provide that higher staff, tonight, with the Rockefeller salute. You and your money-bags do not have the right to trample our University into the ground, which is what you are doing, acceding to the wishes of the lowest common denominator, people who have never attended the school and people who are simply too young and naive to understand that there is more to sport than simply winning, in the long-run, and the short-run, something which Dean Smith taught well the student body when he was at the helm of the basketball program, something some of our friends in Durham and other places don't always get. We say that with the notion that we have many friends through life who are Duke graduates, and we do not allow the few who deviate from the norm of human understanding to pollute the standards set by others, any more than we do those relatively few UNC graduates who might, on occasion, deviate from the standards of the spirit and the poetry. But the carpetbagger who has been named chancellor by other carpetbaggers has got to go, along with his pals in the darkness, none of whom are UNC products and yet are bossing the institution and reshaping it to their own designs with big dollar signs in the forefront of all of their vaunted plans for "progress" in the name of regression.)

On the sports page the following day would be the story of the ACC Tournament semifinals in Raleigh this night, with Associated Press number 5 nationally UNC beating Duke, 74 to 71, and number 10 N.C. State beating Virginia, 66 to 63. N.C. State was not eligible for the NCAA Tournament because of having been placed on probation for improper recruitment of a player, meaning that UNC would automatically represent the conference in the NCAA Tournament, set to play Navy the following Tuesday night in New York. (In those days, each conference was limited to only one representative and the ACC determined that representative from its eight teams by its three-day tournament.) As indicated, it would lead to a controversial decision by UNC coach Frank McGuire on Saturday night, in an attempt to rest his starting lineup for the Navy game, essentially conceding the championship game to State, which UNC had beaten twice in the regular season but were stomped into the ground in the tournament finals, primarily because of coach McGuire's controversial decision. Again, we ask, should the coach of the undefeated 1957 national championship team have been fired for it? Based on current circumstances, where everyone seems to want to blame the coach for everything which goes wrong, including the season-ending injury of the team's top player, one bad game in the NCAA Tournament is enough to fire a coach with a 70 percent winning average. So, yes, by all means, fire coach McGuire next week, after UNC loses to Navy. That one was plainly his fault, without question. At least take away his Carolina blue Cadillac presented to him by appreciative alumni for winning the championship two years earlier. He is still a bum and bums must go, forthwith. Send the Caddy to the crusher.

We offer a suggestion to the UNC administration, again as an alumnus twice over and thus with some vested interest in a just, fair and proper outcome of the apparent dilemma, one which reflects the traditional Carolina spirit of fair-play and not one representing dollars and cents and cold-hearted results, which should not be the case regarding a coach who has won 70 percent of his games in his first five years, topping the rate established by Dean Smith between 1961 and 1966 and Mike Krzyzewski at Army between 1975 and 1980 or in his first five years at Duke, 1980 to 1985, also equaling the percentage of victories during the first five years of John Wooden at UCLA, between 1948 and 1953. In each case, coach Hubert Davis has also exceeded the efforts by each of those three coaches in the NCAA Tournament during his first five years.

We suggest that the UNC administration hold in an appropriate venue on campus a meeting, inviting, via the Daily Tar Heel and other area organs, the students, press, and interested people generally to come and listen initially to coach Davis and perhaps other prior coaches of UNC, including coach Roy Williams, coach Larry Brown, a former assistant at UNC under Dean Smith and former head coach of UCLA and the 1988 championship Kansas team, and any others, players and coaches, who might wish to participate, first to educate the present students to the realities of major college sports, realities which have not really changed that much, in truth, over the past 70 years or so, even if some of the rules have changed and some of the communications media have changed around the game, the object being to get the students and fans otherwise to realize that national championships and deep runs in the NCAA Tournament are not easy to produce, perhaps coming equipped with statistics from Jody Zogner as to how many of the top two seeds from each region actually have reached the Final Four since seedings began in the NCAA Tournament in 1980. Coach Davis, in 2022, entering the Tournament as a number 8 seed, beating then in the second round number 1 seeded and defending national champion Baylor despite the controversial call ejecting from the lineup Brady Manek for a supposed flagrant-2 techinical foul in the second half with Carolina holding a 25-point lead, nearly coached the team to the national championship, losing to Kansas in the closing moments of the championship game by three points. Since then, setting aside the following year, he has enjoyed good success, with a number 1 seed in 2024 and a very good team this year, finishing the regular season 24-7 and ranked in the top twenty nationally. And, most important, he has accumulated a 70 percent winning average over his first five years as a head coach. None of the possible candidates for succeeding coach Davis have any substantially better record. Thus, why, rationally, would the program wish to change? One can always imagine this or that outcome, but the imagining of it is not its realization.

We were sure, as certain as could be, in 1967, on the tenth anniversary of the national championship, that Carolina was headed into the semifinals against number 14 Dayton to brush them aside quickly and would be a formidable opponent for UCLA and Lewis Alcindor in the finals the following night. But, unfortunately, Don May of Dayton had other ideas and UNC lost in the semifinals by 14 points. We were sorely displeased and disappointed, sorely, sorely so, it having been the first NCAA semifinals game involving Carolina which we had experienced in wakefulness, having slept through the 1957 run, at a time before we understood much about the game. But, life continued and we simply set sail for the following season, with hope formed anew...

We are not in the situation in which the program found itself, floundering, in 2003, when coach Williams came in from Kansas. We recall, incidentally, sitting in the stands in Oakland at the first game of the 2004-05 season, watching UNC, ranked preseason number one, lose by 11 points to unranked and unheralded Santa Clara, an inauspicious start to the season, making for a rather doleful BART ride back to our home. Some spectators behind us who were chatty and friendly enough, said, "That Williams, he can't coach." We had to engage them a little and explain that he could, that they just had to be patient and they would see. They then asked about the prior coach, "Brad Daugherty", and it became clear that they did not follow closely UNC basketball. It was all jovial and polite, but they probably left thinking we were some kind of overly optimistic fool, placing blind faith in plainly a coach who simply couldn't do the job and, in consequence, would soon have to be fired.

But, we knew from past experience, such as in 1997—when coach Smith's team was at one point at the end of January, 12-6, and facing the potential of not even making the tournament, only to go on to win the rest of the games in the regular season, the ACC Tournament and get to the semifinals as a number 1 seed before losing to eventual national champion Arizona by eight points—, that the Carolina way, not the "Carolina brand", has a way of winning the same way the Irish do, not always pretty, but in the end, coming out on top of each morning. That is the Carolina spirit, the poetry of it. The Carolina "brand" is nothing but a cheap commercial trademark or two. That is not the essence of Carolina or its athletics. Perhaps, since this idea appears grossly misunderstood by the national media for the most part these days, engaged in pure commercialism, and obsessed with firing everyone, Trump-like, who fails to meet immediate subjective personal standards of what that individual deems "excellence", which seems to be "win at all costs", and the rest and the rights of all be damned, some gentle explanation to the student body and those around who wish to hear it might be in order, restoring a sense of what the Carolina spirit or poetry is all about, which we think has gradually eroded in this blogosphere, podcast, reality tv show, instant gratification era, taking to extremes adverse tendencies which have been present and growing in our society for quite a long time, since at least the end of World War II, ever continuing to ooze, blob-like, in a negative direction of consumption of the individual and the spirit of hope and poetry.

Hubert Davis embodies and understands quite well that Carolina spirit, we find, having played in it and coached in it, first as an assistant, and then, for the previous five seasons, as head coach. No one coming from the outside could possibly grasp it, not in a season or ten seasons. Indeed, it took Dean Smith at least five full seasons, and some might say, twenty, of humbling to begin to appreciate it. To dismiss coach Davis at this point would be a grave mistake for the future of Carolina basketball and its sports program generally, caving to the will of a lot of highly opinionated voices who do not seem to understand that Carolina spirit, have scarcely ever set foot on the "Magical Campus" as Thomas Wolfe called it, but favor instead a cut-and-dry, do-or-die, "now" mentality, all of whom, we find, have no banners of their own to fly. Yet, banners in the rafters, while impressive, are not the Carolina spirit or poetry of the matter either. That preceded all of the banners.

We hope that a good portion of the students still retain an appreciation for that spirit, that poetry, and are not being brainwashed by the national sports media and the scuttlebutt, which used to be only transmitted in private and by telephone, but which is now online in various forms, poisoning the well and throwing the baby out with the proverbial bathwater in practically every phase of life, carrying the potential to transform the Magical Campus into just another large plot of ground with a bunch of buildings on it—the way the non-poetic naysayers, those who lack appreciation for it, would like to see it, always have. That won't stop, as prating tongues are as old as the Scriptures. But communicating an understanding, a thoughtful understanding, a philosophical and objective understanding of the situation, the spirit and the poetry of the school, to a younger generation is always worthwhile.

Hash it out. Respond to questions and comments and catcalls, if that be the case, from those gathered to hear. It could be an enlightening and groundbreaking experience for everyone involved.

We don't like the fact that underdog Virginia Commonwealth University came from 19 points down in the last 13 minutes of the game and from 13 points down in the last seven minutes to push the game into overtime, where they won. We cannot repeat here some of the language we were uttering in private at the tv last Thursday evening, wanting to throw something at the screen, though resisting the impulse as self-defeating. But that was not the fault of the players or the coaches; nor did we blame them for it in the aftermath. It was, as we have seen countless times since we first began following closely the sport in early 1963—when we saw guard Larry Brown expertly weave and dribble out the clock against Yale in Woollen Gymnasium, where FDR had once spoken in 1938 regarding his preference for scrambled eggs for breakfast, not grilled millionaire as his critics had suggested—, simply the bounce of the ball and the spirit of the game gone a little awry at the end, coupled with the will and determination of the opponent to accomplish the upset, not dissimilar to Carolina, a number 1 seed in 1994, losing to Boston College in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, a UNC team with championship potential, with the Final Four that year being held in Charlotte for the first time, a team which had won the national championship the prior year and had more talent on the roster in its top ten players than the previous year. It was then, again, sorely displeasing. But again, life went on, and despite one irate fan having written a letter to the Raleigh News & Observer, demanding in its aftermath the resignation or firing of Dean Smith as head coach. Had the internet and social media been available then for instant communication of erupting volcanic feelings online, the cascading tide of demands for his termination might have grown from one small ripple in a pond to a tidal wave, depriving the school of two more Final Four appearances in 1995 and 1997 before his retirement.

If a coach with a 70 percent winning average were subject to being fired for one game's result after a successful, albeit injury-ridden season, with injuries to starters in half the games, as in 2025-26, there would quickly be no coaches left in college basketball. And no one would want to coach for such a program in any event, at least no one competent. That cannot become the case at UNC, if there is anything to be hoped for next season and the seasons thereafter, the hope for which is always the Carolina way, the spirit and the poetry. So hash it out and have a long public discussion before making a serious mistake which cannot be easily ever undone, ruinous, we trow, of the basketball program for years, perhaps decades, to come. Trying desperately to support the "Carolina brand", in some commercial scheme, is a fool's errand. Stick with the spirit, the poetry—in this the 250th year since the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, a mere 17 years before the First State University laid its cornerstone on October 12, opening its doors to one Hinton James, a student who had to walk from Wilmington in the dead of winter to attend his first classes in February, 1795. We talked to him one brisk January afternoon in 1973 while walking through McCorkle Place, and he explained a lot of things to us, about the spirit and the poetry.

On the editorial page, "Fine Arts Drive Deserves Wide Support" finds that the experiment in mass support for Charlotte's leading cultural activities had begun and must not fail. The point of no return had been passed the previous afternoon when a date had been announced for the opening of the community's first Fine Arts Fund drive, on Monday, March 16, with Charles Conner serving as general chairman.