Ty Lawson Message Board Madness

I'm going to get a lot of nasty comments about this post. Or I would, if more than two people read it.

Here it is: people post stupid things to message boards. This apparently applies to any message board. For instance, I sometimes go to the Lost message board in order to see if people have interesting insights about the latest episode. What I usually find is something along the lines of:

1) This week's episode was the worst episode ever. The writers are way off track. Why aren't they answering any of my questions? I think I'm going to stop watching this stupid show.

(Which would be fine, except that the same person will say the exact same thing the next week)

or

2) Why aren't they showing more of Sawyer? He's soooo hot!

But since this is a sports blog, I'll stick to sports-related message boards. In particular, I'm going to focus on the message boards that UNC and NCSU fans tend to frequent. I don't post to them, but I sometimes read them to see what people are saying. What I see is not any better than the Lost board. Since we're all supposed to be intelligent folks in the Triangle area, I'm calling for people from both schools (and ECU fans, who like to troll the NCSU boards) to stop making stupid comments on message boards.

Here's yesterday's scenario:

UNC and NCSU played an exciting game that everyone should remember for a long time. The fact that NCSU made it to the final game was a great story, and most UNC fans that I know were rooting for the Wolfpack until they played the Tar Heels in the final.

With less than 10 seconds on the clock, UNC rebounds the ball. It ends up in Ty Lawson's hands. Lawson sprints down the floor and dunks the ball, which we all thought was funny because we always joke that he can't actually do that since he usually lays it in.

After that, my fiancee and I looked at each other and said, "The State fans are going to say that that was classless."

Which they did, repeatedly.

Well, okay...I'll admit...maybe he shouldn't have done that. But according to the NCSU message boards, Lawson's dunk was not the result of an excited freshman celebrating the Tar Heels' first ACC championship since 1998.

Oh no. It was a sign of disrespect directed specifically at the Wolfpack. State fans know this, because at the end of the Boston College game, the Tar Heels elected to take a shot clock violation instead of running up the score. Therefore, Lawson dunked the ball because he was playing State.

I don't know Ty Lawson, and I haven't drilled him about the reasons that he dunked the ball. But my guess is he didn't do it as a sign of disrespect toward the Wolfpack.

I think this because I think players respect one another a lot more than fans respect one another. You see, many of the players on opposing teams don't despise one another as much as the fans want them to. Some of them went to high school together. Some of them played on McDonald's teams together. Some of them know each other for other reasons. They don't go around stealing each other's mascots, spray painting other schools' property, or writing maniacal diatribes on other fans' message boards.


So let's end that thread now.

Here are my other gripes about the message boards:

1) Is it really necessary for UNC fans to comment on NCSU boards or vice versa? Doing so accomplishes nothing but creating a flame war. It doesn't matter if you compliment the other team or if you go in guns blazing. Then again, maybe that's what people are going for.

2) NCSU fans should not whine about "Carowhina" fans. Think about it.

3) Make sure you say something somewhat intelligent (or at least make sure you don't say something retarded). Example: An NCSU fan, in response to a thread that Roy Williams and/or Ty Lawson are classless, wrote: "NC = No Class" Think about it.

I'm willing to give some benefit of the doubt that a trolling ECU fan wrote that.

4) Furthermore, there was not a conspiracy to put UNC in the hardest bracket (although there is a legitimate argument that they are in fact in the hardest bracket). They're a #1 seed. If someone wanted a conspiracy, I don't think the #1 seed would have happened. Along those lines, Tyler Hansbrough's broken nose did not cause Carolina to be in the hardest bracket. Let's be reasonable here.
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End rant. Why post to message boards when I can rant on my own blog?

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UPDATE
I saw some of these comments last night and for some reason didn't mention them, but WRAL did.

So...

5) Don't make racist comments on message boards. That goes for UNC fans, NCSU fans, and Duke fans.

And anyone else for that matter.

Sheesh.