Jan. 3, 2003

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The following is from the most recent issue of the magazine.

By Mick Mixon

The student bartender working the holiday party had just handed me a plastic cup of Diet Coke when three esteemed employees of the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communications rushed over and braced me up against the wall.

"Okay, give," one of them said, his ranch dressing breath hot against my face.

"I gave at the office."

"Aw, come on!" insisted another. "Give details! The scoop! What's all this we're hearing about our basketball team!!"

"Oh, that," I said. "Why didn't you say so? Ahem, let me see, where do I start. Well, it is the 15th of December and we are 5-2 and nationally ranked. We have wins over second-ranked Kansas and highly regarded Stanford. We came from 11 down with seven minutes to play against Rutgers for a confidence building victory. We beat a decent ODU team at their gym in a rowdy atmosphere. Our two losses have come to a terrific Illinois team in Champaign Urbana and to a veteran, hot-shooting Kentucky squad at the Smith Center. Rashad McCants is the ACC's scoring leader, Raymond Felton is the real deal, and Sean May has better hands than David Copperfield. The sophomore class seems much improved. The practices I've attended have been upbeat and positive. There, I guess that pretty well sums it up."

"No, no, no," the third one said. "We're not talking about that. We know all that. We're talking about the rumors, man! Like I heard that the players are all upset at Coach Doherty for being too intense and that he yells at them if they don't hustle, box out, dive after loose balls or get back on defense."

"What SHOULD he do, send them a box of Omaha Steaks and a thank you note?" I said. "Look, I haven't heard any of this. Where are you getting your information?"

"Well, for one, my son said he saw it on the Internet."

"Oh well if it was on the Internet, take it to the bank then. The prosecution rests. Case closed. Shoot, it might as well have been the lead story on 60 Minutes. Everybody back up a second. We all work for the School of Journalism, right? And all of us have signed up to try, each in our own way, to train the journalists of tomorrow to think for themselves, right? To check EVERYTHING. To report only what they can confirm. And especially, not to believe what they read on the Internet, right? In fact, a few of you are the same people who, at this very school 25 years ago, lectured my classmates and me of the insidious nature of rumors. Right?"

"Aw, cut the crap," one of them said with a smile. "Just give us the straight skinny."

"Okay, I'll try. Again, I have not heard those rumors nor have I observed any behavior to suggest that they might be true. And the 'straight skinny,' as I see it, is simply this: In the summer of 2000, Matthew Francis Doherty stepped into an extremely complicated situation. He was chosen to follow a coaching legend AND that legend's legendary top assistant. The old regime is not on stage any more but nor have they left the building. Doherty did inherit two NBA first-round draft choices, Brendan Haywood and Joseph Forte, and he had them for one season, but where were the sure-fire pros in the freshman, sophomore and junior classes?

"As for the intensity part, Coach Doherty is exactly what he appears to be. He takes the responsibility of his job very seriously and sure, he is intense and makes no apologies for it. He is also competitive, driven, fiery, passionate, engaging, bright and funny. He is solitary in some ways but very social in others. He's wildly confident in some areas, less so in others. He is a talented young colt of a coach, still growing, maturing and learning.

"I swear, you guys, Doherty's job is much more difficult than you might imagine. Does he kick the team in the butt or pat them on the back? Stay with the man-to-man or mix in some zone? Call a set play or stick with the free-lance offense? Sit down and enjoy the last few minutes of a win or stand up and coach the game all the way out? Offer the scholarship to the lesser player who will commit now and stay four years or hold out for the high school stud who might be one and done? Slip a tricky question from a reporter or tackle it head on? Of course, he is handsomely paid, but the pressure on him is unrelenting and if he does make a mistake, chances are good he makes it on national television, not to mention print, the Internet and talk radio.

"Now, if people insist on comparing him to Dean Smith, it is only fair to compare them both after three years, where their respective records are pretty similar. (Smith 35-27, 56%. Matt Doherty 56-42, 57%)

"Is it necessary for players to LIKE their coach? Probably not. If the team is too happy, the coach may not be pushing them hard enough. You would rather have the players like each other. But is it critical for the team to RESPECT their coaches? Absolutely. And the early indications are that Carolina is off to a great start this season, on and off the court. So Tar Heel fans everywhere should ignore the rumor mill and celebrate the progress that has been made since last year. Period. End of story."

This seemed to satisfy my colleagues, at least temporarily. But driving home that night, two thoughts kept bouncing around inside my head.

One, if the crowd was that rough at a party of JOURNALISM teachers, what is it like out there in the barbershops, office buildings and message boards when Carolina basketball is discussed?

And two, maybe it is journalism itself that calluses and jades those who make it a profession. Like the old saying goes, "If three reporters wrote the game story on the Second Coming, two of them would be critical of it."

Mick Mixon joined the Tar Heel Sports Network in 1989 and has served alongside Woody Durham on radio broadcasts of men's basketball and football games ever since as a color analyst. Email Mick at mmixon@tarheelsports.com.