Thursday Quickies: No More Tar Heels (?) Edition

A group is calling on the University of North Carolina to ditch the Tar Heels nickname

By Zac Oakes@ZacOakes Jul 16, 2020, 6:40am EDT

NCAA Basketball: Harvard at North Carolina

Could the University of North Carolina change the name of its athletic programs?

A group made its way to campus this week to advocate for such a move, arguing that the Tar Heels name has ties to the Confederacy and white supremacy, according to the Charlotte News & Observer.

The group wants UNC to change its name to the Rams, which would allow the school to keep its current mascot, which is named after a former player.

UNC has explained the Tar Heels as “workers who distilled turpentine from the sticky sap of pine trees and burned pine boughs to produce tar and pitch often went barefoot during hot summer months and undoubtedly collected tar on their heels,” according to the university’s website.

However, a UNC history professor contends that the term was later turned into a symbol of Confederate pride and loyalty.

I won’t go into all the details here of the complicated history (you can check out the News & Observer detailing it more here) but it seems that one of Kentucky’s basketball rivals could become the Rams.

I’ll still take the Cats either way.