Never mind a couple college kids banging each other during a basketball game, the North Carolina – N.C. State rivalry took an exceptionally ugly turn after the game on Saturday night.
Unbelievably, a mural honoring Kay Yow, the Wolfpack basketball coach who lost a 20-year battle to breast cancer on Jan. 24, was defaced after last weekend's UNC v. N.C. State game. The mural is located in N.C. State’s “free expression tunnel” which is often the sight of various pranks by rival schools. Prior to this year’s N.C. State v. UNC football game, a group of Carolina students painted the entire tunnel sky blue with various harmless messages like “Go Heels!”
But this was entirely different.
A blue mustache and the words "cancer rules" and an obscenity were painted on the art work that depicted a portrait of Yow against a pink background.
Needless to say, Wolfpack Nation is in an uproar right along with every decent, morally centered human being on plant Earth. What kind of moron does this? What kind of twisted mind thinks this is funny?
Obviously, folks in Raleigh are pointing at Chapel Hill, and the Carolina blue crowd is doing their best to apologize, hoping it wasn’t a Carolina student or alum who is ultimately responsible. 
Two issues come into play here: a) the future of the tunnel, which has been the subject of previous controversy, and b) the vehement nature of fans – both directly and indirectly affiliated with a school.
After Saturday’s UNC basketball win, the mural was painted in the same place where racist graffiti was found written about Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.
The Obama incident prompted the University of North Carolina system to revisit student codes of conduct as related to hate crimes, and N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger also formed a cultural task force to talk about the tunnel.
“We've looked at that question (and) we've looked at whether or not we should keep the tunnel in place,” said Tom Stafford, vice-chancellor at N.C. State.
The committee was inclined to say yes.
“If you shut the tunnel down, the people who feel this way will still have those feelings and thoughts inside," Stafford said.
As a result, the N.C. State University Student Senate passed the Free Expression Tunnel Response Act after the Obama incident. The act requires campus police to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. It is not known yet if N.C. State or Raleigh police have any suspects in the Yow debacle, but the tunnel does have security cameras at both ends.
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