If you grew up rooting for Virginia, North Carolina State or anyone else in the ACC, you may have despised the University of North Carolina.
But go ahead and admit it: Even if you hated the Tar Heels outwardly, deep down inside, you also admired them.
Carolina did things the right way. The Tar Heels played hard, respected opponents and adhered to high academic standards.
Longtime basketball coach Dean Smith called it “The Carolina Way” in a book he wrote a few years before he passed away.
Of course, we now have much different outlook on the Tar Heels, thanks largely to Raleigh News & Observer reporter Dan Kane, who used the Freedom of Information Act and plain old shoe leather journalism to shatter our illusions.
In 2011, the newspaper obtained a transcript of UNC football star Marvin Austin showing a B-plus grade in a senior level African studies class he took before his freshman year began. UNC officials were at a loss to explain how he got into a high-level course before his first football practice.