so I am going to provide this link to what I think is an important article.
Over the years, I've gotten the impression that very few UNC fans truly understand how much old fashioned hard work was required to make Tar Heel football relevant once again. The admin reaction against former military service men playing football, and to GI Bill students in general, combined with hiring 'the most professional' college basketball coach in the country, which lead to an undefeated National Champ, followed by the death of alum (and National Champ coach at Maryland) Jim Tatum, ruined UNC football, including reducing its once large and very passionate fan base to one akin to that of Wake Forest: very small and very quiet, OK with losing year after year as long as it wasn't too embarrassing.
Mack has said that he will coach until he no longer has fun coaching. Fun and hard work aint the same thing, not close. Mack's message to players is that it is about fun. Those UNC weak sauce boys before Dooley usually had fun. They weren't haunted by losses. They lost no sleep over being bad. They clearly were not close to ready to work hard enough to win. So they quit when they had a real coach who demanded more than having fun. Dooley was all hard work, all the time, to master fundamentals and acquire the mettle to win at the end, on the raid, and against foes with larger stadiums and more highly recruited players.
Dooley took over UNC football at its worst stretch ever. Dooley never had the most overall talent in the ACC, but he won 3 ACC championships and left UNC an opponent to be feared: nobody had fun playing against Dooley's teams.
And it didn't end when UNC allowed him to walk. He, not Beamer, built the foundation of VT football. He took over a Loser, and closed his time there with 7 consecutive winning teams, the last one finishing 10-2-1. Then he kicked life in Wake before retiring.
Over the years, I've gotten the impression that very few UNC fans truly understand how much old fashioned hard work was required to make Tar Heel football relevant once again. The admin reaction against former military service men playing football, and to GI Bill students in general, combined with hiring 'the most professional' college basketball coach in the country, which lead to an undefeated National Champ, followed by the death of alum (and National Champ coach at Maryland) Jim Tatum, ruined UNC football, including reducing its once large and very passionate fan base to one akin to that of Wake Forest: very small and very quiet, OK with losing year after year as long as it wasn't too embarrassing.
Mack has said that he will coach until he no longer has fun coaching. Fun and hard work aint the same thing, not close. Mack's message to players is that it is about fun. Those UNC weak sauce boys before Dooley usually had fun. They weren't haunted by losses. They lost no sleep over being bad. They clearly were not close to ready to work hard enough to win. So they quit when they had a real coach who demanded more than having fun. Dooley was all hard work, all the time, to master fundamentals and acquire the mettle to win at the end, on the raid, and against foes with larger stadiums and more highly recruited players.
Dooley took over UNC football at its worst stretch ever. Dooley never had the most overall talent in the ACC, but he won 3 ACC championships and left UNC an opponent to be feared: nobody had fun playing against Dooley's teams.
And it didn't end when UNC allowed him to walk. He, not Beamer, built the foundation of VT football. He took over a Loser, and closed his time there with 7 consecutive winning teams, the last one finishing 10-2-1. Then he kicked life in Wake before retiring.
