Just a quick note since the conversation is headed toward UVA and UNC...

I know quite a few people from Virginia, and my mother was born in Radford, which is near Blacksburg. The hottest thread on the main board right now about the Fred Glass comments veered toward the culture of Virginia, and it makes me a bit sad that a dirty bastardization of a culture, summed up as "DC", is overtaking it to a point that people are not comfortable describing Virginia as Southern any longer. The "DC" culture is not anything really... it is the lack of a culture created by those that make their careers off of taxes in one way or another. I am not saying anything at all about the individuals in this culture, just the culture itself. It is too bad that this culture has seeped out of the District of Columbia into border states, which I think is exactly what the founders of DC did NOT want to happen when establishing those boundaries in the first place and giving them individual representation.

It is not a North vs. South, Democrat vs. Republican, Urban vs. Rural issue for me. As part of my heritage, I hate that much of Virginia does not consider themselves Southern any longer. However, I would rather them describe themselves as Northern or New Englanders than what they are now, which is just a vacuum culture. As I've said before, I want UVA more to reconnect with the state of Virginia than for any objective improvements in academics, revenue, athletics, or whatever. I think having all of our schools in conference together has helped solidify and advance what we all consider to be "Southern" even with all of the different flavors under that term. That is a big part of why I see the overlap of TV footprints as well worth it in the long run if we are truly working toward the best possible culture. The additions of FSU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, NC State, Va Tech, and Louisville (to some degree) would not likely increase revenue funding per school in pure TV dollars, but keeping one of the few public institutions which are still controlled mostly at the state level pays off in so many other ways. Anyway, this is not a proper rant for the main board, but I figured some of you would empathize.