The text from my father on Sunday was almost a rhetorical question. “Want to come over Monday for the game?” My reply instead: “I actually thought about how I would answer this last night.”
My father graduated North Carolina in 1969. I graduated N.C. State in 1995. This has little to do with an interfamilial rivalry, though. I’ve watched Carolina basketball games with him, watched with him as Carolina beat State repeatedly, watched the few times we’ve gotten our revenge, no problems. He and I took in the national final last year, and Dad was the picture of grace in such a gut-wrenching defeat.