Greetings, earthlings. It’s Wednesday, which means that it’s time for another edition of our weekly collection of the best writing involving North Carolina sports, past and present athletes, coaches, and other miscellaneous good stuff.
Admittedly, it was tough to not just post this one piece of hyperbolic gloriousness from the Technician, and call it a day, but I was able to manage. Alas:
We can all agree that former Panthers defensive end Greg Hardy is a horrible human being, yes? That’s the easy part. Well, Hardy made his return to the field for the first time in over a year – playing for Dallas, thanks to a reduced suspension from Rog. The best thing I read on Hardy – and the role of women in sports – this week came from Dan Le Batard for the Miami Herald, who invariably seems to be one of the best national voices on difficult subjects.
Now, lets juxtapose Hardy with his old pass rushing teammate in Carolina, Charles Johnson. This week at the Charlotte Observer, Jonathan Jones profiles Big Money, and outlines all of the amazing things he’s doing in his hometown community of Hawkinsville, Georgia, including helping to put kids through college, and aiding to provide single mothers with affordable housing. Boss.
There have been a plethora of Steve Spurrier retirement articles – and songs, too, courtesy of SC8 – penned in the past two days, but my favorite comes from veteran ACC scribe David Teel, who chronicles the war or words between the OBC and Virginia coach George Welsh back in 1989 – Spurrier’s final season at Duke.
The Carolina Panthers found defensive end Ryan Delaire on the scrap heap (Washington’s practice squad); less than a week after ] signing him, Delaire sacked Jameis Winston twice in 37-23 drubbing on Tampa Bay. Joe Person of the Charlotte Observer provides a little more backstory on Ron Rivera’s new pass rushing maven: THE SACK PRINCE OF DELAIRE.
You can always count on Bret Strelow of the Fayetteville Observer to provide you with the hard-hitting hoops analysis we all crave along Tobacco Road. On Tuesday, he tackled the most pertinent question on the minds of all us bball junkies: Is UNC guard Marcus Paige rocking the Duke Starting 5 haircut?
Joe Giglio of the News and Observer gets a tip of the cap for the amazingly wonderful discovery that Wake Forest – now 3-3 on the young season – has never won an ACC game under second-year coach Dave Clawson when they’ve scored a touchdown (0-8). However, during Clawson’s short tenure in Winston-Salem, the Deacs are 2-1 in ACC contests when they DON’T score a touchdown! I love that so much. You almost had them last year, Frank.
If you follow the NBA, you know just how well documented it is that the midrange jumper – specifically of the unassisted variety – is the least efficient shot to take in a half-court set. Unfortunately, as Grantland’s chief cartographer Kirk Goldsberry notes in his most recent piece, the Charlotte Hornets – they of the 28th most efficient offense in the league a year ago – led the NBA with 1,768 of these jump shots during the 2014-15 season. Not great, you guys.
