DURHAM, N.C. — A slightly intoxicated man with a southern drawl offered some pearls of wisdom to his fellow passengers on a flight to Raleigh-Durham airport on Friday:
“The people in Carolina are real nice,” he slurred. “There’s nothing like Southern Hospitality. And the barbeque’s damn good, too.”
The drunk man, by the way, was supposed to fly out of Chicago on Wednesday, but he showed up at the airport hammered and wasn’t allowed on the flight. Then Hurricane Isabel hit Thursday, so he was grounded in the less-Windy City for another night.
So you might say it was a combination of fate, vodka, nature and Northwestern football that brought us that first — but certainly not the last — dose of Southern hospitality. And the advice on the barbeque, reinforced by a legendary Daily eater and the woman who drove us to our hotel, wasn’t bad either.
But while us civilians enjoyed vinegar-based Carolina BBQ and the kindness of southern strangers all weekend, the NU football team, in town on business to beat Duke on Saturday, wasn’t so lucky.
Their pregame meal was void of all things deep-fried, including hush puppies and fried chicken. Instead, the players ate their usual meal of (not fried) protein and pasta. Defensive lineman Colby Clark, a native Texan, looked a little bit sad at the mention of the missed opportunity to eat barbeque, but I’m willing to bet that the team’s resident health nut and defensive end Loren Howard would have had a heart attack just looking at all that fried food.
Since the team is allowed to leave the hotel only for the team walk-through on Friday afternoon, the only hospitality they received was at the hotel. And that doesn’t really count, because people at hotels are nice everywhere, even in Paris.
But Clark apparently made good use of the bus trip to and from the walk-through, making important observations along the way.
“All the women here are beautiful,” he said. “I love Chicago, but I think Southern hospitality and Southern Belles are 10 times better than the north.”
Quarterback Brett Basanez scoffed at Clark’s comment — “some of us are in town to play a football game,” he said with mock irritation — but did express some regret at missing out on a meal at Chick-fil-a.
Running backs Noah Herron and Jason Wright and defensive back Marvin Ward were late for curfew on Friday night, but the late night didn’t seem to hurt them on Saturday. Both Herron and Wright had 100-yard rushing games after spending the evening eavesdropping on a gospel choir concert at their hotel.
“We spent the night singing our favorite hymns and quoting scripture,” Wright said. “I got me a good little free concert.”
The Cats also got themselves a good little football game on Saturday, thanks in part to the Southern hospitality of their host, Duke. The Blue Devils courteously gave up more than 286 yards on the ground, while the less-courteous Northwestern defense held Duke to 90 yards rushing.
So the Cats might not have gotten a good Southern meal with all the fixins’, but they got a win they needed a lot more than a good hush puppy.
But the drunken prophet was right. The barbeque was damn good.
