CHARLOTTE -- Dennis Smith Jr. is as North Carolina as they come.
He feels about his home state the same way most Texans feel about the Lone Star State.
So he said coming back to his stomping grounds -- his hometown of Fayetteville is about 140 miles from Charlotte -- made him feel great.
"Yeah, I had a runny nose, a mean cough, my stomach was hurting, headache, a little fever, about 110 degrees," Smith said. "So when we landed, I was back to normal. Seriously."
Wesley Matthews, sitting nearby, said: "110 degrees? You'd be dead.