Bill Thompson

By BILL THOMPSON

Every time I get close to sliding down the slippery slope of cynicism, something comes along that keeps me from falling into the abyss.

On the same day that the news was full of dire predictions about the creation of nuclear weapons in Iran, terrorist threats around the world, big-business chicanery and the awareness that only a relatively small portion of the North Carolina lottery revenue will actually go toward education, the little town of Bath, North Carolina, was doing something great and good.

They were concluding a yearlong celebration of their 300-year founding. Bath is the oldest town in the state and it has survived three centuries because its heart has always been strong.

It’s not a big town but it has a big heart. I saw that when I arrived to speak as part of the closing ceremonies for the celebration.

The elementary school gymnasium was full of people: local, state and national dignitaries, townspeople and folks who came in from the surrounding countryside and lots of children. Many of the adults and almost all of the children were dressed in period costumes. This was an important occasion and everybody turned out to celebrate.

They had been celebrating all year, beginning with a gathering of the North Carolina General Assembly a year earlier under a giant tent that got blown down by a tornado.

But the tornado couldn’t blow away the spirit of the town. Since the weather of the previous year had prevented the presentation of much that was planned for the opening ceremonies, the closing ceremonies gave the town an opportunity to show the fruits of a lot of work.

What transpired during that ceremony is pure Americana. It was a display of community effort that evoked in my mind a Norman Rockwell painting: a presentation of the colors by the local junior ROTC, the pledge of allegiance to the flag followed by the singing of “The Old North State.”

How long has it been since you’ve heard that very special song sung by youthful voices? Those old fashioned lyrics “Hurrah, Hurrah, the Old North State forever!” echoed through that gymnasium with a resonance that belied its stilted style and reached out to the Tar Heel soul.

During the ceremony, a small violin ensemble and the school band played and a trio of ladies sang a touching farewell song and folks thanked each other for the hard work.

Just a few weeks ago, we watched on television the elaborate pageantry of the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. I was reminded of that grand scene as the children marched on that stage in the Bath school gymnasium portraying the characters and events that made up the three centuries of history in that coastal town.

There was no grand technical display, no figures floating in air, no special lighting effects. No one had spent millions of dollars to create a giant spectacle. But the result was no less grand.

Long after the image of the spectacle in Torino has faded from my memory, I will still remember those children coming out on stage in their homemade costumes, their riverboat made from cardboard, the other little vignettes played out just as they had rehearsed them, and their short lines spoken with nervous voices as their families looked on with an evident and justified pride.

It occurred to me as I sat there on that stage watching the various parts of the ceremony that I was very privileged to be there, not just to speak as a part of it all, but to share in the experience. I thought, “This is small-town America at its best, a coming together as a community to celebrate all that has created this special place we call home. How lucky I am.”

Years from now when those children are grown, they will look back and remember with fondness and pride their part in celebrating their town. They will not remember that I was there but I will remember that they were there.

Does North Carolina have a state religion?

Officially, the answer is “No.”

But this month we know better. For many North Carolinians, March is the month of pilgrimages to “holy” sites, where they will join 20,000 or so other pilgrims in “worship.”

Some will be wearing costumes and uniforms to show their loyalty. Some will have their faces and other parts of their bodies painted to frighten the evil spirits and opponents. They will sing and shout and jump up and down more than the most enthusiastic “holy rollers.” Even those who cannot take the pilgrimages will go though all kinds of rituals designed to bring about favorable outcomes.

This “religion” is, of course, basketball.

For those few North Carolinians who have not yet been introduced to the state religion, I recommend three outstanding new books. Each of them helps its readers begin to see why basketball is so special in our state and how the rivalries and loyalties lead some of us to actions that appear to be either religious fanaticism or insanity.

In the first book, “Blue Blood: Inside the Most Storied Rivalry in College Hoops,” veteran reporter and sports writer Art Chansky lays out the history of the Duke-Carolina basketball rivalry.

“Blue Blood” is comprehensive and full of details about hiring and firing coaches, arguments and fights, and the strategy and tactics of important games. In some ways it is an encyclopedic history of college basketball since the 1950s. Although it centers on Duke and Carolina, their stories overlap with those of the other teams both schools played regularly.

“Blue Blood” has an index, which makes it easy to look up specific people. For instance, if you want to know about former Duke star Bobby Hurley, you can look him up quickly. Then you can read how and why he signed at Duke, even though his father, a high school coach, had been a long-time admirer of Carolina and Coach Dean Smith. Chansky explains how the Hurley family’s new connections with Duke closed down important Carolina recruiting opportunities in the New York area.

These kinds of details and the convenient index make Blue Blood not only a good read, but also a necessary reference book for every sports writer or fan who follows Duke or Carolina.

Will Blythe’s brand new book wins the longest title award. “To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry” might also be one of the best book titles ever.

The title lets you know that it is a memoir, as much about the author as it is about basketball. Blythe opens his book with, “I am a sick, sick man. Not only am I consumed by hatred, I am delighted by it.”

In a compelling explanation of the sources of this hatred that delights him, Blythe charts a pathway for his readers to deal with their own unreasonable passions about basketball and the teams they love—and love to hate.

To illustrate his explanations, Blythe weaves together hundreds of wonderful basketball related stories about himself, his family, and his friends.

In one of them he writes, “A former teacher of mine, a great scholar of Southern literature, believes that he can control games by maintaining the same posture throughout the contest and by doing some kind of weird voodoo gesture with his fingers every time an opposing player shoots a free throw.”

To find out who this teacher is, you have to read a third book, “Off the Rim: Basketball and Other Religions in a Carolina Childhood” by Fred Hobson, the same former teacher whose posture and gestures Blythe describes. “Off the Rim” is also a memoir. Hobson tells us of his growing up in the mountain foothills of Yadkin County, playing high school basketball there, and making Carolina’s freshman team as a “walk on” in the early 1960s. The story of Hobson’s later conversion from athlete to scholar is engaging and poignant—especially since the scholar, like his student Blythe, still goes crazy when Carolina plays Duke.

Which one of these three books should you read? If you want to understand North Carolina’s “state religion,” get all three of them.