Tarheels....

How about them ‘Heels?

I have always been a North Carolinian. My family on my American side has been here three generations. I’ve grown up here, this is my home, and I’d be happy to see a fourth generation of Derricks in North Carolina.

But only over the years have I realized what it is to be a Tar Heel.

I remember as undergrad hearing Gov. Jim Hunt speak on our Quad about the history of our new nation’s first public university. As a poor ex-colony, we didn’t have the rich patrons of New England’s Harvard or Yale. But we as a state recognized the importance of education and had the audacity, the audacity, Gov. Hunt proclaimed, to found our own school – a university of the people.

I remember standing in a classroom in Germany, telling fellow study abroad students from all over the world the legend of how we became the Tar Heels – taking a slur of derision against poor barefoot workers burning pine trees to make tar and turning the name into a title of honor as our soldiers stood their ground in battle, while other Confederate units retreated, “because of the tar on our heels.”

But I have never been prouder to be a Tar Heel than this evening on Franklin Street, when thousands of us cheering, chanting, fire-jumping basketball fans spontaneously, with one accord, grew quiet for a moment of silence in memory of Eve Carson, our Student Body President who was taken from us this week.

http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c23/jderrick/?action=view&current=Tarheels.flv

This is how we win.

This is how we celebrate.

And this is how we mourn our loss – with the strength, spirit, and honor of the historied, legendary Carolina family of Tar Heels.

I’m a Tar Heel….