What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well, or the bell, or the stone walls, or the crisp October nights or the memory of dogwoods blooming. Our loyalty is not only to William Richardson Davie though we are proud of what he did 200 years ago today. Nor even to Dean Smith, though we are proud of what he did last March. No, our love for this place is based on the fact that it is as it was meant to be, the University of the people.

I had a little insight into life that most kids probably didn't have. My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father was a social worker. Through his eyes I saw the underside of society.

I was on the high school track team, believe it or not, and played baseball, poorly but passionately.

It takes an earthquake to remind us that we walk on the crust of an unfinished planet.

America is a great story and there is a river on every page of it.

TV critics, who traditionally hate television and make their living writing about it, often didn't like what I did on the air.

It's best to leap into something you know you love. You might change your mind later, but that is the privilege of youth.