I crap on him because he was the ringleader on the worst teams I can ever remember. Oh, and Jason Capel was largely responsible for Joe Forte leaving after 2 years. He needs to never return to Chapel Hill.
The college basketball season is only a few weeks old, but one team is already in full-blown crisis mode: the North Carolina Tar Heels. UNC, one of...
slate.com
From the link:
But it’s hard to feel sorry for Capel, since this is exactly what he wanted. Last year, when Capel was the team’s second or third option, he was unhappy, directing his displeasure toward Joseph Forte, the team’s sophomore guard and undisputed star. Capel fussed when Forte missed a shot; he made biting remarks to reporters about Forte after games; there were rumors of locker-room confrontations between the two. Even when Carolina was rolling—winning 18 games in a row and sitting atop the national polls—Capel was steamed he wasn’t the man. (A newspaper article that described him as an “indispensable role player” left him fuming.) There were a number of reasons Forte decided to jump to the NBA after his sophomore season (see
this Sports Nut for a few of them), but Capel’s unpleasantness made his exodus from Chapel Hill that much more attractive.
There is a good bit more to the story that isn't being told fairly here.
Jason was recruited to play for UNC by Dean and Gut and Jason wanted to play for Dean but as we all know Dean stepped away and Gut took the gig (took a lot to talk him in to it, Gut did not want to be the head coach, he wanted to retire with Dean). When Gut stepped away, Capel did not take it real well, the 2 coaches he wanted to play for BOTH stepped away from the game and in comes Matt, who Capel knew little about. Matt was determined to wipe out the old and bring in his new version of Carolina basketball, this is well known how Matt made so many changes. But of those changes one of huge ones was to not retain any of the former staff, all former UNC players, bring in his own staff that had no former UNC players other than himself. Not at very least retaining Phil Ford caused a LOT of ill will right out the gate. But the largest problem was Matt's coaching "style".
Clearly Forte was a star but the problem was that Matt tended to point out the short comings of the rest of the players and pointed to Forte as the only real player on that team. Well as you can imagine, that pissed off that team toward Forte. Make sure I say this, it was matt that used Forte, it was not some Forte proclaiming himself to be great. Then out of the blue Matt would erupt at Forte, assume all have heard of the chair throwing incident.
Now Jason Capel, felt he was at least as big a star as Forte was, Capel was wrong about that, he was not as great a player as he felt he was. But being compared in a negative light for so long to Forte Capel formed a strong dislike for Forte, I can understand that. So yes, there was a lot of friction between the 2 but it was Matt that started that as a way in his mind to inspire his players, dumb for sure but that is what went down. Capel upset with Matt was to him as well to be upset with UNC as a whole.
When Capel left UNC he took issue with the school as well as the UNC fans for their supporting Forte more than him. Now of course Jeff fed in to that a lot with his UNC hatred and it just became one of those things that was never settled so over the course of time Jason's ill feelings about UNC as well as the fans ill will toward Capel has us where we are now.
Yes, how he handled this latest deal was not mature and he never really looked to clear up the situation either so I have no pity for him or his bruised feelings. I just wanted to share there was reason for those ill feelings that are not totally on Capel as cause.
northcarolina.rivals.com
