About North Carolina Tar Heels
Since University of North Carolina is the oldest public university and collegiate team in the Carolinas, the school is nicknamed “Carolina”. The football program arrived in 1888 and Carolina is credited with contributing to the game of football the modern use of the forward pass as they were the first college team to use that play in 1895.
Basketball, a very popular sports team at the university had its first season in 1910.
The Tar Heels are members of Coastal Division in Atlantic Coast Conference,NCAA Division I (FBS for football). The university colours are Carolina blue and white. The mascot representing the Tar Heels is a costumed ram that goes by the name of Rameses. There is also a live Horned Dorset Sheep attending the games.
The university main rivals are South Carolina, Duke Blue Devils and NC State Wolfpack. Since its inception the Carolinas have an all- time record of 679-505-54 and overall 9 conference titles and two divisional championships to their names,
The Tar Heels took part in 32 Bowl games beginning in 1947 with a loss to Georgia at Sugar Bowl. Carolina’s all time record from these contests is 14-18.
With not so much success the university has had fielding football teams, there have been quite a lot of players that found themselves well in the NFL including over 30 Super Bowl winners such as Jeff Saturday or Hakeem Nicks.
Saturday is best known by who he snapped the ball to, his quarterback of many years, Peyton Manning. Saturday won Super Bowl with Colts, was 6 times Pro Bowler, two times First- Team All- Pro and recently he was inducted into Colts Ring of Honor.
Nicks, wide receiver won his Super Bowl ring playing for the Giants who picked him in first round of 2009 draft. He was NFL Alumni Wide Receiver of the Year 2011, the same season his team won the championship.
Basketball at University of North Carolina is just something else, out of this world matter gathering huge following. The Tar Heels were pre tournament champions once winning Premo- Porretta and Helms championships and once the NCAA tournament was established, the Carolinas won five championships, making them tied for the third place in most championships all time. The Tar Heels took part in 47 NCAA tournaments and have 30 conference regular season championships and 18 conference tournament titles to their name.
The program is well known for producing many skilled basketball players through the years including one of the best, if not the best basketball player ever, Michael Jordan who took NBA and the basketball to another level during his playing time in the eighties and nineties. The list of Jordan’s accomplishments in NBA is probably as long as the Carolinas basketball program history.
The basketball rules at the University of North Carolina and despite its best attempts the football programs will struggle to ever reach the level of craze the basketball teams here ever have.
