Football training camp had broken that August day in 1976 and a sizeable number of players had spent Saturday evening carousing at the Franklin Street watering holes of the day: Town Hall, Kirkpatrick’s, the Bacchae. It was very late that night when the quiet on South Campus was interrupted by a chorus of football players clustered in the courtyard behind Ehringhaus Dormitory, singing in hearty unison their knockoff of a popular Top 40 song of the era by Bobby Sherman.
“Dooley, Dooley, Dooley do ya love me?” they chortled. “Dooley, Dooley, Dooley do ya care?”
That was a popular refrain among players from the 1967-77 Bill Dooley era of Carolina football—even the most outstanding player was always a little insecure of his spot in a program that ran on structure, discipline and old-school values.