THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 14, 1994 TAG: 9411140062
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Betty Gray
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
It's a truism that long-time residents of North Carolina are really passionate about just two things - politics and Atlantic Coast Conference sports.
Where else would a state politician make a campaign promise to require three state-supported schools to play each other in football each year?
North Carolina gubernatorial candidate and former Charlotte Mayor Eddie Knox did just that during a breakfast stopover in Washington, N.C., in 1984.
Knox, then a Democrat, promised that if he were elected governor, he would require the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and N.C. State University in Raleigh to play football with East Carolina University in Greenville, a favorite of eastern North Carolinians.
It was one of the few times in his remarks that he was interrupted by applause.
But certainly there is no more avid a sports fan in state government than Rep. Zeno Edwards Jr., the first Republican to represent Beaufort County in the state House since Reconstruction.
Edwards, 68, a retired dentist, received his bachelor's degree from Duke University in 1947 and played on the Blue Devils' football team.
His wife and most of his children are also Duke alumni.
As a freshman legislator, the controversial Edwards made quite a name for himself in the 1993-94 sessions.
He called the dean of the medical school at East Carolina University a ``dumb ass'' for inviting Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders to speak at graduation and made headlines statewide. He irked some women lawmakers early in his legislative career by making a derogatory remark about Rep. Erin Kuczmarski's anatomy. He irked black lawmakers by using the phrase, ``calling a spade a spade'' about a remark by black Rep. H.M. ``Mickey'' Michaux of Durham.
And he delighted in poking fun at Carolina graduates.
In one appropriations subcommittee meeting earlier this year, when the Duke basketball team was flourishing and Carolina languished, Edwards reportedly asked a fellow lawmaker, a Carolina grad, if a budget appropriation for the Dean Dome included money for a paper floor.
``What paper floor?'' asked the lawmaker.
``Well,'' Edwards replied, ``Dean Smith (coach of the Carolina basketball team) has been saying all year that Carolina plays better on paper.''
This year, the Republicans have scheduled their caucus in Salisbury on the same day as the Duke-Carolina football game.
Edwards, Blue Devils fanatic and outspoken conservative Republican, was put to the test.
Should he miss the Duke-Carolina football game - one of the most intense rivalries in the ACC - in a year when the Blue Devils are having a super season?
Should he give up the chance to likely watch Duke trounce its hated foe? Or, should he pass up the chance to schmooze with the GOP and give up the chance to affect Republican Party strategy for the next two years?
Until Tuesday, the choice was clear.
Edwards was going to the football game.
Then the Republicans gained control of the state House of Representatives in an election that has turned North Carolina politics on its ear.
And Edwards changed his mind.
On Thursday, Edwards' son and namesake, Zeno Edwards III, also a Duke graduate and a dentist, told me that he has been given his dad's tickets to the Duke-Carolina game.
I'm still trying to make sure I'm not dreaming.
Zeno Edwards is putting politics before the Duke-Carolina rivalry?
Duke's football team has a winning season and, probably, a post-season bowl bid?
Republicans are in control of the state House of Representatives?
Hand me a copy of Revelations.
For surely the end of the world is here. by CNB