November 12, 2003
fight for blue and white
11/12/03
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My exceptional nephew Sean Patrick wrote to me from his pad at the University of Iowa last night, saying that he was seriously thinking about transferring, and due to an undue amount of influence from his uncles (my brother Sean and I) he was leaning in the direction of our alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From his letter:
I want you to convince me, through whatever means you can, that UNC is the place that I should go to school. I'm sure you both have prepared rants on this topic, that is a given. Shit, if you want, email this challenge to your fellow UNC cronies and have them flood my inbox with pro-unc rants. Come on guys, you have been waiting for me to ask you this since I was old enough to ask why Eric Montross threw up so many bricks. Shit, the earliest memories I have of Ian is the trip we made to North Carolina when he showed up with Sergei the ferret and my brother punched him in the nuts. Punched Ian, not Sergei, I might add. I remember that on that trip you were already starting to indoctrinate me, so you have a head start.
Convincing people where to live is something I gave up in late 2001, since I found it to be way more about me than the person asking (or in most cases, not asking) my advice. I've always believed that whatever you do, it was what you were supposed to have done. I'm still trying to figure out why I moved to Los Angeles from 1997-2000, but I have faith I'll figure it out eventually.
But mention UNC and I get irrational. Truly, the only reason I applied to North Carolina was because a guy at my prep school had a brochure about the school, the cover of which featured a guy and a girl holding hands in front of the Old Well, which looks something like this:
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watercolor by Sam Bissette
Dreamy-eyed, I knew I wanted that - whatever that was. I wanted to fall in love with a smart, pretty blonde girl who went to the University and take walks by the Old Well in the spring. This took 15 years to come true, but it did.
We were truly spoiled in my years at Carolina, so spoiled that a comparison probably isn't apt. The sheer amount of talent walking through those hallowed halls in the late 80s and early 90s is downright confusing. In my fraternity alone, we had the eventual founder of the Motley Fool (David Gardner), director of "Bring it On" (Peyton Reed), a Saturday Night Live writer (Ali Farahnakian), a Broadway star (Fred Weller) and about 50 other people running the companies you use every day (oh, and Chip). I was in plays with Billy Crudup, Laurie Dhue, Laurel Holloman and Lindsay Bowen. Don't even get me started on the Lab! Theater, as I have done so before.
Is the present cohort of Carolina grads as cool as we were? No idea. As many people have mentioned, it is not the place to go if you need to be told what to do: if you crave structure, you will drop out and sniff glue. However, if you want to create something huge on your own volition, there are 45 compatriots willing to help. It is easy to get B's at Carolina, but almost impossible to get A's, if that makes sense.
You can't beat the environment. Close to both the ocean (a sprint down I-40) and the mountains (a jog the other way), autumn lasts a month longer, and spring arrives two months early. The female-to-male ratio is oft lamented by the fairer sex (3:2, I believe) but the omnipresence of easy intimacy actually allows for true, Platonic, satisfying relationships between men and women. In other words, when there's so much random hooking-up to be had, you don't hit on your actual friends. And yes, I realize I am the wrong person to be talking about this, but that was a long time ago and I've already apologized to most of you.
The student newspaper is the best in the country. If you get the classes you want, your professors will be at the top of their field. Your fellow classmates will be a mixture of redneck slobs who spill their spittle collection on your dorm rug, and rocket scientists who can diagram sub-atomic quarks: frequently, they will be the same person. You will see hordes of sorority girls singing "Thank God I'm A Chi O" while wearing straw hats, all of them blitzed on Jaegermeister. You will see the intricate step shows of the black student groups. You will no longer be in Kansas, or Iowa, anymore.
But should you transfer? In the end, all I can say is that it is ineffable. Everyone loves something about their college; my UVA friends tell wonderful stories, my UCLA friends wax nostalgia, I've even heard that some guy who went to Duke actually liked it. But Carolina fills me with good feeling. I came to the school a bespectacled dork who hadn't even kissed a girl. I left with my virginity long gone, a cadre of 147 friends that I still have fourteen years later, an inner circle of Tessa '91, Chip '89, Jon '89, Lindsay '93, Dana '94, Salem '90, Bud '93 – and tons more.
When I hear the Charles Kuralt speech, the one about the "University for the people, of the people," I always start to get emotional, and when I hear "Carolina on My Mind" by James Taylor, especially when I'm alone in the car, I usually cry. That's about all I can say. It is what it is.
Oh, and if that's not enough, HOW ABOUT THIS!
Hark the sound of tarheel voices...
I will never get tired of that picture of Rasheed Wallace. Go Heels!
I would (of course) put my strong vote in for Oxford. Alas, there is no basketball team, no ocean or mountains, and the weather sucks, but there is something charming about an 800 year old school with alums like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Nigela Lawson, Hugh Grant, Rowan Atkinson and me. (Not to mention all of the really famous, actually important people)
Yeah, the Oxford thing may be hard to beat. I'm willing to say that going to Oxford might increase your chances of getting to do what you want with your life.
However, just *slightly behind* Oxford, is Carolina. And then all the other colleges. And then all the community colleges. And then prison. And then Duke.
Hey Ian,
I can probably get the Kuralt "It's not the bell...." speech on mp3 for your nephew. Drop me a line if you want it, you know where to find me.
Oxford may be classy, but does it have anything that compares to Players?????
And when you go to Time-Out in Oxford, assuming there is one, is there a picture of Phil Ford making the Time-Out sign? Or is it Tony Blair? And if it is Tony Blair, does he mean it, or is he just doing it because he thinks that's what Dubya wants? And does he have a fro like Phil Ford.
I've saved my first ever post-up comment for this near and dear topic. On the basketball front, I'm racking my brain for reasons to stay at Iowa. Former Hawkeye hoopster Roy Marble once did a somersault dunk in a pregame layup line. Former Coach "Dr." Tom Davis earned his doctorate in "Community Recreation for the snowbound". Current coach Steve Alford is the secret president of a small but burgeoning campus cult, "hoosiers for hawkeyes".
Writers thrive in Iowa and Chapel Hill, so it is a tough choice. I chose the midwest for Grad School after really having it up to here with Chapel Hill's sunny days, too many girls to reasonably gawk at, and hearty party scene. Sean Patrick should follow every good Dad's advice and make a list of pros and cons for each campus. If he's visiting the hill again, he should make the list between beers on a Thursday night somewhere on Franklin St. as folks arrive for a game time "study break". That might help him maintain some objectivity....
Also, if one transfers to Oxford, one doesn't have to redshirt. I'm not sure what exactly redshirting is, but I know it can't be good.
What you'll find in Chapel Hill (http://www.ci.chapel-hill.nc.us/) is a college town, a little too big for its municipal britches, with cultural amenities generally found only in much larger cities, with horrendous parking problems, with lots of beautiful girls/women, with a University at which you'll have to pay out-of-state tuition, and with generally nice weather.
You'll be 1000 miles from Iowa, in a town 3/4 the size of Iowa City. You'll be in a University of 26,000 undergrads, about 2/3 of whom are women. (http://www.unc.edu/)
Cultural, social and even academic (who'd have thought?) opportunities will abound. When you're bored, it'll be your own fault, because there'll always be a lot of stuff going on.
Your instructors generally won't know you. Contrary to carefully-contrived appearances, you'll have to study to pass your classes.
Did I mention the hordes of beautiful women?
Of course, all of the above is true about Athens, GA, about Boulder, CO, about Madison, WI-- and probably about Iowa City, IA (except of the out-of-state tuition and long-way-from-Iowa parts). The difference, apart from weather, and all the rah rah bullshit, is that in Chapel Hill, you'll have a bunch of Creepy Old Guys wanting to drop by to see you. They're always looking for an excuse to visit Chapel Hill. When they do, they'll be more than happy to ramble on at length about how campus and town are different, how much better things used to be and about their former glories.
My question for you, young Jedi, is this -- are you running TO North Carolina, or running FROM Iowa?
If the former, then you could do a lot worse than Chapel Hill. If the latter, though, don't bother. Because, ultimately, no matter where you go, there you are.
Why not go to both Carolina and Oxford? I did. I have to say that the social life was better at Carolina, and I did more growing up there. The town-gown barrier is less intense, the band scene is a bit more acessible, etc. That said, Oxford is beautiful, people are insanely smart, and I learned a terrific amount. Class issues are a bit more pronounced, though, and the hoops scene is just no contest. I went to the Boat Race, but it just doesn't compare to Dook--which happens twice a year.
I'm glad to know there's someone else in the world who gets emotional at that Kuralt speech. Carolina always has a commercial on during TV basketball games, and my husband can't believe that I tear up when it comes on.
I love Chapel Hill and miss it--I'm not sure my friends who still live there have quite the same nostalgia, but I for one have become a bigger hoops fan each and every year since I've left. I have a cheesey t-shirt that the senior class made when when we graduated in 1995. It has this silly poem on the back that I knew was stupid when I first read it, about how these are "the best years" yadda yadda. But the longer I'm away the truer it seems. Pathetic, I know.
And I didn't particularly want to go there in the first place, as a transplant from upstate NY. I was scared of the South. But now I think I had the quintessential college experience (that you could probably get a lot of places like Oxford and Iowa). And it was great.
Oh yeah, and winning a national championship helped too.
I never visited Ian in Chapel Hill, or any of the other sibs during their tenures. I've never been to Chapel Hill.
Unlike Ian, I never made it out of my college town. Sean has lived here all his life, so 'getting out' is a major concern.
That being said, every time I visit another campus, I think that Iowa is nicer. The downtown is nicer, the campus is nicer, we have a river, and if you set aside the neptunian winters, it's always a nice place to wander around.
I'm decidedly agnostic on Sean's choice of a school to transfer to. I'm sure UNC is a fine school, but he could take another run at UChicago, or consider some of the excellent midwestern small colleges. Or he could stay here, where there are excellent professors in the departments he cares about.
What I suppose is the most interesting to me is how religously the baby blue Mafia feel about UNC. The University of Iowa and Iowa City is a place people remember fondly, but once they move away they don't mythologize it the way UNC alums do. Maybe it's the Midwestern Reserve up against Southern Devotion to Place...
But Allen Ginsberg said Iowa City was the only place between the coasts that he liked to hang out in. Top that Tarheels!
The ladies Sean, the ladies...
It is hard to jog these days (65 degrees @ 5 p.m. on November 12) without running with your head turned around backward.
You'll never beat sitting out on the lower quad on a warm Spring day just absorbing the sun and surroundings.
You can eat in the same restaurants people like Thomas Wolfe did, while walking over bricks touched by presidents, heros and of course the best women soccer players in the world.
And you haven't lived till you've seen these live:
http://media.theinsiders.com/Media/College_Mens_Basketball/30920_felton110803.JPG
http://media.theinsiders.com/Media/College_Mens_Basketball/30920_rashad110803.JPG
http://media.theinsiders.com/Media/Other/39864_ic03_dec_cover450.JPG
It's true about the ladies.
The weather on the other hand, is subject to change. Tomorrow's forecast low: 27°F (http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=chapel+hill%2C+nc).
ugh. http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=chapel+hill%2C+nc
As the youngest of 5, I sought the advice of my older sibs as to where to go to college. Funnily enough, one sis went to Dook -- the other to Tar Heel University (by the way, it's two words TAR HEEL - learn that now.) Sometimes I wish I hadn't gone to a school where one of them had because I felt like a follower, but it's QUITE a school. UNC is 85% composed of North Carolinians so keep that in mind, you may experience culture shock. It is in the Bible Belt so you will probably be recruited for a bible reading but you can just say no if that's not your thing. As a female, I must say it sucks for dating because there are 3 women for every guy, so I am guessing that's not a problem for you. (But perhaps the demographics have changed since the early nineties.) I can look back and say I played IM basketball with Mia Hamm (and whooped her ass by the way, JK- haha) and that I sat in class with Rick Foxx. Not sure where that gets me in life but overall, great sports, great education, great weather. In conclusion I will quote a rock star, "it's not where but who you're with that realy matters." Good luck!
Sean Patrick,
When I think back on my Chapel Hill years, I cannot help but confess that there were at least two moments of despair for every three moments of joy. I cannot think of a more accomodating place to lose you fucking mind and slowly put the pieces back together. I'm not suggesting you take that path, but that might simply be the path from 18 to 21. It's the kind of place where the most heart wrenching betrayal can be cleansed away with a fall breeze kicking up leaves between Old East and Old West. Chapel Hill is good place to grow and a good place to heal. Extraordinary souls around every corner and even if one kicks you in the nuts, it ain't nothin one spring day on Chapel Hill can't fix.
Oh, yea. I almost forgot. Sean Patrick, if you do get to Chapel Hill. Let me and your Uncle Ian know what you need to score with the chicks. We'll hook you up. For us a pair of six foot tall Klipsch speakers worked well as a little ice breaker at our parties. Of course we will expect an invitation.
sean patrick... your nephew has two of my brothers' names, fine good names for fine good men... which brings me to my first point - i went to carolina for grad school. it was the only school to which i applied. why? because of the basketball team, of course! never mind that the program i entered was #2 (at that time and #1 subsequent) in the country. i grew up with four brothers obsessed with basketball and by default obsessed with carolina basketball. despite the fact that we lived in pittsburgh. i knew dean smith like he was a friend of the family.
why is this? there's mythology there. and myth-making. some of it going on right now in fact! some places just have it. and you don't even know what it is, precisely. it's all these thing people have mentioned combined with a longing for the place that even when you are there, you can't quite satisfy.
when i got my congratulations, you've been accepted letter, my older brother and i danced around in circles in my living room in pittsburgh. neither of us had ever been to chapel hill.
i still get choked up to "carolina in my mind" too. it's a beautiful place, both real in completely in your head once you've lived there. there's all the things you can name -- basketball, women (damn that's been mentioned more than once!), music, academics, history... but it seems like it's all those things you can't name, that make it live on. it's a Place.
Thank you to Ian for the entry, as well as the 21 of you that have so far chimed in.
The case has definitely been made--its good to hear from someone not named Ian that UNC is at least halfway as nice as Ian makes it out to be.
This whole process left me horribly mindfucked, confused and angry last year, and I swore that I would wait a while to transfer simply so I avoid dealing with it again. I seem to have broken that promise.
I wish I could tell you that reading peoples' comments sealed the deal, that I'll be spending my next few winters in the Dean Dome instead of Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but truthfully have no fucking clue right now. It seems like every tidbit of information I learn and every thought I have raises two new questions, the answers to which raise two more questions.
If I go to UNC, I'm sure that Ian will be among the first to hear, so perhaps you will hear the results yourself.
Thanks for the help,
SEAN "PATRICK"
u are cool because i love vince carter he is my inspiration and my role model and i love tar heels