Actually, I think the name "Tar Heels" originated during the Revolutionary War... and then was recycled (if you will) during the Civil War. The Revolutionary War story has something to do with Cornwallis and the Tar River, I believe. But, yes, the Civil War story is more popular.
For those that don't know the story, it involves Confederate soldiers from the state of North Carolina fighting during the war. They were in a battle with some soldiers from Virginia and a couple of other states... and for some reason, everyone retreated except the North Carolina soldiers. The Virginia folks were asking them about it after the battle -- and the NC boys said that they needed to put tar on the heels of the rest of them to make them stay and fight. General Robert E. Lee was said to have heard of their steadfastness in battle -- and apparently uttered "God bless the Tar Heel boys."
Now I'll address Deep Blue's asinine statement: "
Tar heels comes from confederate soldiers so it means they're losers." I'm not sure whether you are using "losers" in the literal sense, or just making a general statement about the type of person a Confederate soldier was.
If it's the former, then I hope you realize that the Civil War was not Union soldiers versus North Carolina soldiers. That would be like every team in Division 1-A versus UNC. But that's a moot point because the story up above shows that the NC soldiers
won the battle that earned their nickname. So, they got that name by
winning.
If it's the latter, then I hope it's clear from the story up above that the name "Tar Heels" is not rooted in slavery... nor integral to the Confederate cause. I also do not need to tell you that the Civil War did not mean that all Union soldiers were saints and all Confederate soldiers were terrible people. Yes, those that supported slavery (which wasn't every Confederate soldier, by the way) were wrong about that -- and everyone should be glad about the outcome of the war. But, there were many different issues involved with the war.
For those that might not know, I'll note here that Robert E. Lee was just as likely to fight for the Union army instead of the Confederate army -- at least as far as slavery was concerned. He almost ended up fighting with the North (he was being "recruited" by both sides, if you will). What swayed his decision was that he held more loyalty to his state than he did the country as a whole. And that, my friend, is what the Civil War was about to many, many people.
Quote:In this age of political correctness, many schools have changed nicknames that may be insensitive or just stupid, heel is another word for jerk.
This
has to be a joke. A person cannot possibly have these kinds of reasoning skills. I will respond to that part for those that wouldn't know any better -- but I'm going to
assume that you were joking here.
For the rest of you -- I hope the story up above clears up how this is a nickname for people from North Carolina and not the Confederate army as a whole. It was
used during the Civil War... but nothing about it is connected to slavery at all. It's about people from the state of North Carolina fighting in a battle. I know you're all intelligent enough not to confuse the two, so I'll just stop there.
As for the ranking from princetonreview.com, it actually comes from a category entitled "Most likely to be nostalgic for Reagan." It's a loose ranking that means a bit more than just the "conservative vs. liberal" label -- but yes, I agree that it shows that UNC is not quite as liberal as many people believe. The way I see it is there's a good number of differing viewpoints and folks at the opposite ends of the spectrum at UNC. It's because of that political diversity that the term "liberal" is so often applied to the school. Also, the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro are
very "liberal" themselves... and that results in things like non-student residents protesting in the Pit all the time and making the school look more "liberal" than it is.
-JD
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