‘The Ballad of P.J. Hairston’

Was working on ‘The Ballad of P.J. Hairston’ this morning, before I headed out to church…Goes along like the ‘Ballad of Jed Clampett’, theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies…

Come and listen to my story about a kid named Sam,
changed his name to P.J. and got caught up in a scam…

You see one day he was shooting up some hoops,
and up through the ground came a bubblin’ poop…

Tar that is, Fools Gold, UNC, Fast Cars…Sticks to your Heels….

Well the next thing you know ‘ole Sam is thinking about being a millionare, and his kin folk say P.J. move away from here(Greensboro)….

They said Orange County is the place you ought to be, so they loaded up the van and Sam went to UNC….

Dean Domes, Coach Roy, Fats Thomas, and Fast Cars…

It’s the Chapel Hill Sillies….Not the Beverly Hillbillies…The Chapel Hill Sillies…

Now it’s three years later and P.J. wants to play, but in steps trouble and the NCAA….

You’re outta here says Bubba and you’ll have to move away…

Now our man P.J. will look toward the NBA, and you just gotta hope it will all work out OK….

What do you say???

Is it the Chapel Hill Sillies or what???

21 thoughts on “‘The Ballad of P.J. Hairston’

  1. Just like a Hollywood story, many dreams are realized and die in Chapel Hill. Parents always tell their kids to be careful what you chase and who you associate with but unfortunately most kids think life is forever and they are untouchable. PJ found out the hard way that everyone is touchable. I hope other kids are looking at this and will from it. There is no point associating with people going in a different direction that can kill your dreams.

  2. What I have not heard about PJ’s situation is what girl is behind or apart of many of PJ’s missteps? Often when a guy gets into such mess there is a female riding along with them as their life gets out of control. I would be willing to bet there is a female attracting more of PJ’s attention than the lessons he was taught from home or from his coaches. A few lines from the Fast and Furies may be more appropriate than the Beverly HIllbillies.

  3. UNJ AD Bubba Cunningham said PJ would play for the Heels this season, just not all of the games….Looks like Bubba and UNC were the ones playing the games on this one…

    What about all of that practice time and the extra running he was forced to do??? All of the work that was done above and beyond his regular requirements, really got him nowhere at all, except back on the team in practice uniform only….

    How could they apply for reinstatement with the NCAA when the NCAA didn’t sit PJ down, UNC sat him down under their own terms and not under the terms of the NCAA, but under the terms of UNC and AD Bubba Cunningham….

    Bottom line, UNC should have kicked PJ off of the team back in the Summer of 2013 and both parties would have never had to go through all of this mess….

    Why drag it out over 6 months when UNC and Cunningham knew all along that they were not going to let PJ back on the team??? And then UNC tries to put all of their actions on the NCAA…UNC was using the NCAA to cover their tracks and their backs….

    Just one on-looker’s way to slice this Christmas Turkey and I know the majority of you are ready to agree with me now….

    After you read this, you will be ready to say, YES AD….And that is AD/Andy Durham and not AD Bubba Cunningham…And I also remember they used to say YES JB, as in Jethro Bodine, quite a bit back, on the Beverly Hillbillies show…..

    There you go and you can take that to the coutt, the basketball court that is….

  4. Not an attack at all…Several key points made on behalf of PJ…

    The problem as I see it, was/is with UNC AD Bubba Cunningham…..I think Coach Williams was following much of the lead set up by the AD and the AD will have answer for what happened here….

    The NCAA was being used as a so-called holding cell….

    What PJ had to go through was about as bad as serving some time, and he did serve time, from the time practice started until he was finally released….

    Hate it for the kid…He did do wrong, but this whole ordeal was handled wrong from the very start….

    Again, they should have let him go back in July, if they were going to run the show like this….

  5. i still cant believe they let old mcdonald off with a slap on the wrist-the whole program over at unc is in trouble with football or basketball issues-i dont think andy is attacking anybody -it is what it is-if you do go against the rules and you get caught you have to pay the price-roy williams and butch davis are not any better than anybody else-the duke lacrosse team is still paying the price for their actions

  6. Very un-classy andy…………..and hypocritical since we aren’t allowed to voice our opinions freely without you locking down the site. Church folk…….

  7. Facts to note.
    1) UNC athletics is on probation for a FAILURE TO MONITOR CHARGE from the NCAA. Social media(from athletes) is what they failed to monitor.
    2) PJ is driving rental cars provided by Fats Thomas.
    3) It was on Twitter when he had a Mercedes Benz.
    4) He acquired several parking tickets on campus with 4 different vehicles.
    Question: Why is the NCAA only suspending PJ and Leslie McDonald and not giving the school either another FAILURE TO MONITOR charge or LACK OF INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL?

  8. Andy, you are completely off base. The school tried their best to help P.J. retain some amount of eligibility. More and more information was learned through the process. Fats Thomas finally talked to UNC and the NCAA within the last two weeks. The value of the impermissible benefits grew too large to salvage P.J.’s eligibility, so they did not apply for reinstatement – per the conversations with NCAA staff.
    Not sure what your deal is with Cunningham, but he is a pro. Cunningham wanted Hairston gone after the Durham arrest, but Roy went to bat for Hairston with the administration. That’s on Roy, not Cunningham. P.J. knew what he was doing was wrong, so he has no one to blame but himself.

    UNC scandal follower, the NCAA didn’t suspend Hairston or McDonald, UNC did.

  9. smh said,
    UNC scandal follower, the NCAA didn’t suspend Hairston or McDonald, UNC did.

    That is the same thing I have been saying and when you look at the situation, UNC was stringing P.J. along, like they were going to reel him in and bring him back, but they never had any intentions of bringing him back, they just hung him out to dry….

    Maybe Roy was looking out for P.J’s best interests, but I don’t think Bubba Cunningham was…It may have reached a point where Cunningham felt like Roy was sticking his neck out too far for P.J. and Cunningham decided to cut P.J loose because of all of the bad publicity…

    Cunningham made some statements that he did not back up and he sure turned on P.J down the stretch run….

    Just hate to see P.J. get a raw deal and the way things turned out, that looks like what he got…

    Why do you keep a kid hanging on the hook for 6 months when you only plan to throw him back in the ocean when it is time for his ship to come in….

    We will all go on and we will move on and North Carolina should be OK in the long run, but they will still have troubles/problems at the foul line, with the exception of Maruc Paige and they will also struggle from three-point range and that is where P.J. could have really helped…

    He was a fun kid to watch play since he was coming out of Greensboro and let’s hope he lands on his feet and gets a decent shot with the NBA sometine down the road…

    Why didn’t North Carolina just suspend P.J. for the 2013/2014 season and we could have seen if he would have stuck with the program and then come back on his own for another year, or if he just would have packed up and moved on from UNC and then if they did that in the very beginning, then wouldn’t have been going on about this forever…

    As long as P.J. is still out there trying to make it playing basketball, we will talking about him because he was so much a part of the fabric of this community while he was growing up and playing ball in ball in Greensboro….Pretty much everybody knew P.J. Hairston….

    And that’s just my two/ten cents worth….

  10. Andy,
    Your bias against Carolina is rather transparent and childish.
    Hairston got a raw deal? You sound like K calling Henderson “the real victim” for breaking Hansbrough’s nose. Hairston made his bed. They tried to help him, but more than $10,000 in impermissible benefits is automatic ineligibility. They didn’t find out the complete story until the last few weeks.
    To try to make Carolina out as the bad guys here is laughable, but also quite predictable. Grow up and be a real journalist.

  11. PJ had to take the fall when all the information came out. They needed PJ to finish the semester as well. And unc needs this to go away. My issue is why did unc lead everyone along and let us think PJ was coming back when that was not the case. Unc never even applied for his reinstatement yet was telling everyone he was coming back. Smh says unc suspended him, not the NCAA, but did unc really have a choice? I can only blame PJ so much. He was simply taking his share as part of the Carolina Way.

  12. I want to know if he’s off the team why was he on the bench the other night after his dismissal was reported?
    He doesn’t deserve to even be on the bench!

  13. I enjoy following North Carolina Tar Heel sports….I follow the football and basketball teams very closely and listen to as many games as possible on the radio and on the internet….

    It is fun to keep up with the kids from Greensboro that play there and have played there in the past…

    TJ Logan, Eric Ebron, PJ Hairston, Ray Harrison, Bill Chambers, Ethan Albright, William Graves and the list goes on and on and I just learned yesterday that former Heel hoopster John Henson was born in Greensboro…Had heard that before, but don’t know much about it…

    You may follow another team and pull for another team, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t follow other teams and I do follow the Heels….So many local kids have gone through there, you have to be interested….

    And concerned too when you feel things could have turned out better for one of our locals….

    N.C. State may be North Carolina’s biggest rival, but that doesn’t mean we can’t follow and talk about each other on a competitive basis too….

    P.J. Hairston needed ‘Carolina Closure’ long before Christmas Morning….

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