NCCU - No excuses will be accepted
by Craig R. Turner
bluedeathvalley.com
Oct. 3, 2008
It’s getting late on Friday night and it’s been a long week, so let me go on the record about this week’s game against North Carolina Central tomorrow night in Charlotte.
I am stepping away just this once from my usual analysis this week because I’ve got some things I need to get off my chest. So let this pep talk go out to the Aggie Football team and to our loyal readers of this web site. I am about to go “postal” partisan.
I don’t like NCCU. I don’t like maroon or gray. I don’t like their mascot. I don’t like their cheerleaders. I don’t like their campus. I don’t like anything about their band. Their fans are insufferable. I don’t eat chicken in any form at all during Central week.
Hell, I don’t even try to drive anywhere near the city of Durham if I can find an alternative route to work each day; the place smells.
I have not and never will forget or forgive the despicable post game shenanigans and totally unsportsmanlike conduct that the Eagles displayed in Aggie Stadium last year when a near riot broke out from their taunting and gesturing after a hard fought, last minute 27-22 win by the Eagles.
I won’t rehash all the particulars but this is not just another football game. Oh, the coaches can say whatever they want about not putting more emphasis on this game than another.
But before this coaching staff goes that route, let me remind them this is Central. This game even outweighs homecoming in many respects because this rivalry goes so deep, straight to the bone and straight to the soul. Like it or not, there is a genuine dislike between these two teams.
I, like many Aggies, have been waiting an entire year to get another crack at the Eagles, probably more so this year than any other. It’s not just losing to them that upsets A&T fans but the it’s the continuous year-long rant by the Eagle fans that rings in the ears of Aggies almost each and every day.
Its hard not to run into one of these yard birds in the course of a week and all you hear is how “we (NCCU) punked you in your own house last year.”
Now normally stuff like that is something I simply ignore. I get it from a few Winston Salem State Rams from time to time but always in a good natured way and I have a lot of friends at WSSU both professionally and personally. But I got that mouth run at me all day long in the office from a bunch of cackling hens from NCCU….and frankly, I have had enough.
For some unknown reason Central seems to have always had a axe to grind with A&T, dating all the way back before the days of face masks on helmets.
I can’t exactly put my finger on it. Well, that really isn’t true. I indeed can but you will have to ask me personally to find out because I can’t put it in print in a public forum.
I’ll just put an extra $10 in the collection plate on Sunday as part of my penitence for bad thoughts.
Pay attention Coach Fobbs and listen very carefully. This is a game you do not want to lose. I don’t care if you have to work the refs until you’re hoarse, whether you suit up half the water boys and borrow some of Sheriff B.J. Barnes work release inmates, or even come off the sidelines and make a tackle yourself.
Like my late dad use to tell me - “Don’t go into a fist fight and come back without some blood on you to show something for it. If you, do then don't come back.”
In closing, let me paraphrase the late actor and Oscar winner George C. Scott from opening scene from the Academy Award winning movie “Patton” -
“Hold'em by the nose and kick’em in the ass. Now, you S.O. B. s, you know where I stand.
That is all.”
PREDICTION:
N.C. A&T 34
NCCU 20
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