Quote:UNC fans: Don't be afraid to boo the coach
By Caulton Tudor
calton.tudor@newsobserver.com
Posted: Monday, Oct. 05, 2009
Based on some of Sunday's e-mails and phone messages, there's obviously a misunderstanding over a point I attempted to make about the booing Saturday in Kenan Stadium during Virginia's 16-3 football win over North Carolina.

In the game column, I wrote that Carolina's offensive performance led to some "richly deserved" booing of Tar Heels coach Butch Davis and his offensive staff.

The column also questioned Davis' decision to shun the use of reserve quarterbacks during a stretch of games that have gone poorly for starter T.J. Yates.

I did not write that Yates deserves to be booed, nor do I think fans are booing him per se. In fact, about 90 percent of the discontented home-fan booing I've heard over four decades of covering Triangle college teams has never been directly aimed at players. It's almost always pointed at the coaches.

In this area, and most of the ACC for that matter, players so rarely get booed by their own fan base that it's an anomaly when it happens.

Yates wasn't being booed Saturday, and he should not have been. He was doing his best within the framework of the system and the preparation he was put through. From everything I know personally about him, Yates is a stand-up guy who all of us should be proud to have for a son, brother, teammate and friend. Hopefully, he'll succeed to the extent that he one day makes a fortune playing the game he enjoys so much.

Accountability to fans

The booing was all about the offense fans were seeing from a third-year coaching staff in a game against a winless two-touchdown underdog visitor that had been giving up an average of more than 30 points per game.

Some readers think that it's in poor taste to boo anything about college athletics, and that's certainly their prerogative. It's an admirable conviction. But when a game ticket costs 50 bucks and the coaches are getting paid millions of dollars annually, the customers have every right to be heard.

Embattled Virginia coach Al Groh made an interesting observation after the game when he said "it's a players' game."

That's accurate to an extent, sure. But it's true that the coaches and the schools that hire them are raking in billions off football and men's basketball while the players settle for scholarship money and put their health on the line to benefit even that much. It may be a players' game, but it's definitely a coaches' and colleges' bounty.

Players hear the booing, and it's only natural that they sometimes take it personally. But deep inside, most of them understand that the catcalls are more about the people in charge of the program than the players in it.