College football returns in NC, but only underscores abnormal in the pandemic
The college football season began here on Saturday afternoon with the stadium gates closed, signs posted outside that said “no fans” and “no tailgating,” and a pervasive, quiet still throughout a campus that had already been mostly empty for weeks.
Six months earlier, the men’s basketball teams from UNC-Chapel Hill and Syracuse competed in what turned out to be one of the last college sporting events of the season. The next day, the ACC canceled its conference tournament amid the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since, COVID-19 has claimed nearly 200,000 American lives. It has upended the economy. The virus has changed almost every facet of American life and yet, after months of doubt, the college football season began in earnest on Saturday, and began here with UNC’s game against Syracuse.
In some ways, its return brought some semblance of normalcy in this most abnormal year. And yet its presence, too, offered a reminder that nothing is the same, and likely won’t be for some time. A few minutes past noon, the UNC fight song began playing over stadium speakers, and the national anthem followed. They were only recordings, though, because the marching band, a college football staple, was not allowed inside.
Neither were most of the parents of players who’d arrived in Chapel Hill throughout the week, hoping to support their sons by filling some of Kenan’s 51,000 seats. Gov. Roy Cooper recently moved the state into Phase 2.5 of its reopening, which limits outdoor gatherings to 50 people.
In Orange County, home to UNC, officials implemented stricter measures, limiting attendance at outdoor events to 25 people. Parents of players at UNC and schools throughout the state petitioned Cooper to allow them entry to their sons’ games. The request was denied.
“We haven’t even gotten an answer as to why,” Shannon Jones said Saturday.
Her son, Dilan Gonzalez, is a reserve linebacker on the UNC football team. Jones stood outside of Kenan Stadium on Saturday, not long before kickoff, and vented her dissatisfaction about not being allowed inside. She’d moved to North Carolina from Colorado in January, she said, so that she’d be closer to her son, and so that she’d be able to attend his games.
“I have never missed one game my son’s entire life,” Jones said. “Which I’m pretty sure that almost every one of these parents could say the same. He has been playing football since he was 4 years old. I have never missed one game, for anything.”
Jones and most of the team parents watched UNC’s 31-6 victory from a large event space across the county line, in Chatham County, where gatherings of up to 50 people were permitted.
Some of the parents of the seniors on the team, meanwhile, were among the 25 spectators allowed inside. Greg and Tammy Corrales arrived in Chapel Hill on Friday. They’d come from Texas to watch their son, Beau, who is a senior receiver for the Tar Heels.
“We’re grateful to be here,” Tammy said. “Everything is so surreal right now. This whole year has been this way. I’ve been saying for months, if they just get to play I’ll be grateful.”
Her husband, Greg, couldn’t help but share his frustration.
“This is just solely political,” he said. “Solely political. You know, we’re from Texas — they’re going to have 25,000 people in the stands. And you look at the numbers, everyone is not having any issues. Most of our family and friends have had COVID. It’s a serious thing, but if you look at these athletes ... what’s more dangerous, going to a football game or getting into your car?”
He’d come bearing provisions: “Good thing is they let us bring our cooler,” he said.
Soon, he and Tammy made their way to the one open stadium gate, where the few people allowed inside entered. Roy Williams, the UNC men’s basketball coach, was among them. During the television broadcast of the game, a camera found him watching from a suite, wearing a Carolina blue polo and a face mask.
Outside, other gates remained closed. Stadium Drive, the road bordering Kenan Stadium, was blocked off. A pair of tow trucks stood ready. Security guards sat in chairs, keeping watch, but there wasn’t much to see. Campus remained empty, as it has since virus clusters forced students out of residence halls, and classes to move online.
After the fight song and national anthem, the sounds of a game began filtering through the pines: the public address announcer describing plays; the distant shrill of a referee’s whistle. When the Tar Heels scored a touchdown on their opening possession, artificial, celebratory crowd noise echoed across a deserted campus.
This story was originally published September 12, 2020 at 4:40 PM.
