The first time I saw Cameron Indoor Stadium, I walked right past it without even trying to go in. I figured anything that storied and sacred was probably locked. I was seventeen years old and too wet behind the ears to realize that in order to gain entry to the places you wanted to go in life, sometimes all you have to do is walk up to the door and knock.

Instead, I walked over to the tennis courts and watched the men’s team practice. It was September 1979, and my father was having coronary bypass surgery at Duke Medical Center on the other end of the quad.  My mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions, so I had decided to spend some time alone praying and walking off my worry. I also couldn’t help but ponder my future and wonder where I would be and what I would be doing come next year.

I played for my high school tennis team at the time, but it took less than a minute to figure out that my future would not include playing at Duke. These guys not only fired off wicked topspin groundstrokes in seemingly endless rallies, but they also called out calculus questions to each other in preparation for the next day’s quiz. Such multitasking seemed the province of young gods, not a country boy from the sticks of Virginia.

All the while, I kept glancing over my shoulder at the Gothic, gray-stoned walls of Cameron, wondering if someday I might finally get the chance to go inside. [...]

If I had a shred of innocence left in me by the summer of 1968, it was all gone by the time Mom gave me “The Talk.” No, not that talk. The one about Santa Claus.

Martin Luther King, Jr was gone and now Bobby Kennedy was dead too, and the world seem to be spinning out of control. I watched Memphis burn on TV and remember seeing the thousands of grieving onlookers who lined the tracks and payed their respects as Kennedy’s funeral train traveled from New York City to Washington, D.C.  I was a mere preschooler, but it didn’t take some preternatural sixth sense to tell that most folks thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

The men at church seemed especially bothered by it all. They would form a tight circle in the parking lot after services and fidget nervously as they fired up their tobacco of choice and discussed world events.  They stood there in their skinny black ties, summer sweat soaking through their white, short-sleeve dress shirts, and talked about the assassinations, war, and perhaps most distressing of all, the protesters and riots. The more they talked, the more agitated they became; the more agitated they became, the more they smoked.

“I always said that man was gonna go and get hisself killed,” one man said, speaking of King. “I guess that makes me a prophet.”

As if all that wasn’t enough, there was the whole matter of first grade, which loomed over me like a radioactive mushroom cloud. It was late June, far too early to be talking about Santa Claus, but maybe Mom wanted to break the news to her baby before some loud-mouth, know-it-all third grader on Bus #18 did.

She poked her head in the living room and stood there for a few moments trying to work up her nerve. I was watching “Petticoat Junction.”  Uncle Joe and his nieces, Betty Jo, Bobbie Jo and Billie Jo, were up to their usual antics down at the Shady Rest Hotel in Hooterville.  I was far too preoccupied with the idea of petticoats and the question of what exactly those girls were doing down there in that wooden water tank to notice her standing at the door clearing her throat. [...]

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill security officers and local police S.W.A.T teams descended on Duke University early this morning in a daring “snatch and grab” raid to round up all Cameron Crazies who have ever said, or who in the future will ever say, anything negative regarding Roy William’s Tarheel men’s basketball squad.

The Crazies, sans wigs and facepaint since they were arrested while sleeping, are currently incarcerated in a barbwire-enclosed, gulag-style holding area outside the Dean Dome while Judge, Jury and Executioner Coach Williams decides between firing squad, gas chamber or lethal injection as the method of mass execution.

This preemptive strike at the heart of his archrival’s fan base comes on the heels of the ejection of a “drunk” and “abusive” Presbyterian College fan (who admitted to having a grand total of TWO beers prior to the game) from the Dean Dome by coliseum security at the behest of Coach Williams. The fan apparently had the audacity to yell “Hey Deon, don’t miss it!” as Tarheel forward Deon Thompson stepped to the line for the second of two free throws with six minutes left in UNC’s 103-64 thrashing of the Blue Hose. (Video here.)

In the post-game press conference, Williams, still wearing his powder blue oven mitt from an afternoon of baking Christmas sugar cookies for his team, got all folksy and Jed Clampett on everybody when asked about the incident. [...]

Last year this time, I was hoping that he would be long gone by now, but the boy just couldn’t take a hint. You know, that boy: Captain America, Jim Thorpe and Billy Graham all rolled into one.

I was hoping that he would be safely tucked away on the sideline of some 2nd tier NFL team, doing whatever it is that former triple option quarterbacks do in the NFL (Hint: think headset and clipboard). Well, hope can do a lot of things, but it’s not going to stop Tim Tebow when he starts churning those Sequoia Tree trunk-sized legs of his for yet another run up the middle, and it’ll make little difference on 3rd and 5 when he flings a laser-guided cruise missile that comes screaming in, low to the ground, just past the outstretched fingertips of a cornerback and into the hands of a diving teammate.

No, there is only one thing that will stop Tim Tebow, and it’s not hope and good intentions, nor is it a Kryptonite-laced virgin daiquiri. More on exactly what that might be in a moment.

But first, let me say that when it comes to Tim Tebow, I am a conflicted man. I like the guy, I really do, and I’m sure I would be among the throng of True Believers if he had opted to don crimson instead of Gator blue. I’ve always said that if he had come to Alabama, that Mike Shula would still have a job there. That might be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective.  He’s a great player (THE GREATEST EVER? Meh. I don’t know about that. There’s been a lot of those) and perhaps an even greater person. From all indications, he backs the talk by walking the walk.

I know I’m taking my chances by panning Tebow even just a little bit (in The Bible Belt, it’s a little like admitting you voted for Barack Obama), but there is still just something that makes me a little uncomfortable about all the Tebow hype. I’ve expressed my misgivings before, both here and here. But I’ve tried to take it in stride, stay above the fray, and not resort to tawdry (and all too easy) Tebow-bashing. He’s just a kid, I tell myself. Granted, one that looks like a hypermasculine, cut-from-titanium, football cyborg, but a kid nonetheless.

It’s probably not so much an aversion to Tebow himself, and certainly not to what he stands for. We wear different colored jerseys on Saturday, but come Sunday I’d like to think we’re on the same team, albeit with a different style offense. Wearing scripture-inscribed eye black and pointing toward heaven every time I nail a refraction or stop a case of blindness dead in its tracks may not be my cup of tea, but who’s to say there’s not a place for that somewhere.

No, I think it’s  probably more a phobia of hype in general. Probably comes from all those times I’ve bought into some myself, only to get burned by a poor return on my money. It’s just hype, I tell myself. It’ll go away, like hype always does. Just batten down the hatches, hold on tight, and this too shall pass… [...]