Saturday, September 11, 2004

The South's Oldest Rivalry

Via Yahoo, this Cavalier Daily story recounts the first game Al Groh took the field for Virginia against North Carolina, there was a fist fight on the field after the game.

Virginia and UNC are about to fight it out on the football field for the 109th time in just a few minutes.

Virginia's current streak of 12 home wins over the Tarheels started in 1983, which was my first year. After the game, which was Virginia's sixth of the year and clinched a winning record for the first time in decades, the fans swarmed the field and tore down the goal posts. On Sunday morning of that same weekend, I went over to the Chemistry building looking for a phone book, of all things, and walked into the plate glass window between two doors, shattering the glass and slicing the back of my hand. I dripped blood across the street back to my dorm, then across the Grounds to the University Hospital, and got stitches that would leave an inch-long scar, and generally felt like a fool. (Pondering the honor implications of these events, I called the buildings and grounds department and made a complete confession.)

The next day, on Monday, at a lecture in the Chemistry auditorium, the professor professed outrage at the drunken football hooligans who had vandalized the front door to the building, before confessing that he had a segment of a goal post that was torn down from his undergraduate days in Charlottesville. (I didn't raise my bandaged hand to explain that no alcohol was involved.)

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