Carolina Alumni Review - September/October 2009

The 1950s brought mostly misery to Tar Heel fans, and the reaction to the 1959 game in Durham, one of the landmarks of the rivalry, was pretty accurately reflected in huge headlines; Coach Jim Hickey often was a whipping-boy, but he got a ride in Kenan the next year to meet Duke’s Bill Murray.

The end

Two days before the Duke-Carolina game in 1969, Duke’s faculty voted to recommend withdrawal from the ACC.

Various rumors have been floated about Duke having begun deliberately to de-emphasize football in the late 1960s. The one incontrovertible fact is that after Bill Murray left in 1965, the program fell face-forward and, with the exception of two good years under Steve Spurrier, never got back up.

Something was happening in Chapel Hill, too, though off the field.

After years of the same massively publicized routine every year — a picture of five sorority beauties in pearls, stories about parade floats that evoke Animal House, exuberant pep rallies and naughty pranks — in 1967 a change seemed to come. Suddenly The DTH’s floats story was on page 6. On page one: “Boycott Chase Cafeteria.”

The game day headline read, “Beat Dook Parade Lacked Spirit.”

The next year, through Friday of game week there was only one football story on page 1, and that was news about increased police presence at the game. The Beat Dook court was on page 6.

At the top of page 1 on game day:“Food Workers Vote to Unionize.” On the day after, the game was not even on the front page.

In 1970, the parade got decidedly

mixed reviews, with the cops commenting that there wasn’t much to clean up after it was over.

Five Duke students abducted Rameses in 1977 and left a note that read, “Please be assured that your prized animal is in compassionate hands and that he will be treated with the utmost respect and care.” How’s that for killing a rivalry with kindness?

You can’t say Steve Spurrier didn’t do his bit. At the end of a very long Saturday in 1989, the young ball coach posed for a picture with his victorious team, with the Kenan Stadium scoreboard in the frame. He’d still been calling trick plays and an end zone pass with the final, 41-0, already in lights.

“One of the worst things that has happened to sports is for that rivalry to go down the tubes,” Irwin Smallwood said.

It’s 18-and- 1 since Steve’s big day, and if there’s to be a rivalry again, the ovoid pig bladder would seem to be in Dook’s court.

o

Something
was happening
in Chapel Hill,
too, though
off the field.
After years
of the same
massively
publicized
routine every
year — a
picture of five
sorority beauties
in pearls, stories
about parade
floats that evoke
Animal House,
exuberant pep
rallies and
naughty pranks
— in 1967
a change seemed
to come.
The game day
headline read,
‘Beat Dook
Parade Lacked
Spirit.’

CLIFTON BARNES III ’ 82 is a writer, editor and Web developer in Cary. Barnes was sports editor of the DTH in 1981-82. His writing awards include a national 2009 Award for Publication Excellence for an article in the September/October 2008 Review titled “Family Law” and available to GAA members at alumni.unc.edu/cararchive.