In the days preceding the Wolfpack’s basketball game against the Tar Heels Saturday, UNC-Chapel Hill fans painted our Free Expression Tunnel Carolina blue.
In apparent retaliation, vandals, who we assume to be N.C. State fans, spray painted several structures in Chapel Hill. The fans painted the block S logo on the Dean Smith Center. State fans also painted “NCSU Go Pack” on Chapel Hill’s town sign, which isn’t located on UNC’s campus.
By Monday morning, Tar Heel fans had painted “UNC” on the wolves in Wolf Plaza using baby-blue paint.
The Free Expression Tunnel exists to combat graffiti on campus. Just because UNC doesn’t have an equivalent designated space on its campus doesn’t give N.C. State fans the right to paint UNC buildings or signs. Similarly, UNC fans shouldn’t have vandalized the wolves when there is a tunnel designated for free expression within 100 feet of them.
Students from both universities have taken to social media to voice their complaints about the classlessness of the other, encouraging revenge in the name of rivalry.
The paint war is childish, and we should realize that we are both in the wrong.
The vandalism has simply burdened the universities’ facilities workers who had to clean up the mess caused by a handful of immature actors. Nothing beneficial can come from this paint war. Such vandalism is juvenile and inconsiderate. Tar Heels and members of the Wolfpack should be embarrassed by the actions of their (assumed) fellow students, not encouraging further vandalism.
It goes without saying overwhelming school pride shouldn’t turn us into criminals. Moreover, school spirit shouldn’t make us forget our morals. Pride for one’s own school isn’t to be mistaken for hatred of one’s rival school.
There’s an old adage that says something to the effect of “maturity is seeking to understand the circumstances that led somebody to hurt you. It is not seeking to hurt him or her back.”
Rather than defacing historic landmarks in an attempt to get back at whoever painted our Free Expression Tunnel blue, we should’ve taken that act for what it was—a confirmation of the rivalry that is so often denied by Tar Heel fans.
Send your thoughts to the editorial board at technician-viewpoint@ncsu.edu.
