Return to the 1900 season page

Initially, Chapel Hill opened the year expecting to play its regular slate of matches against many of the teams of North Carolina. Their schedule called for home games against Guilford on September 29th, A&M on October 6th, Oak Ridge on October 13th, and then an away game at A&M on November 17th, in addition to a new gauntlet of SIAA teams, including Virginia Tech (then known as VPI, Virginia Polytechnic Institute), Tennessee, Vanderbilt, and Sewanee, plus a game against Georgetown in Washington, DC, to close the season (The Tar Heel, September 27th, 1900, p. 1).

Unfortunately for Chapel Hill, their schedule had to be completely changed due to the formation of a new in-state football league: the North Carolina Athletics Association. The Association required that any game played by a member be played by a time who would abide by their rules, which at the time were very stringent in terms of player eligibility, "professional" status of players, and the neutrality of referees. UNC refused to agree to the rules, claiming that the rules would hinder them from playing competitively against their new SIAA foes. Because of this, North Carolina had to cancel her first three games of the season, and entered SIAA play having faced only the Morganton-based North Carolina School For the Deaf, at the time frequently called simply the Deaf and Dumb Institute. Chapel Hill whipped the "mutes" 38-0 in their first game of the season.

Chapel Hill could have agreed to meet the rules of the NC Athletics Association for just their games against their members--a strategy that fellow non-member Davidson took--but instead decided to cancel the games, writing "Of course where the University is forced to make this choice between the schools of the State and the greater institutions outside, there is but one course for her to pursue, however much genuine regret we must feel in not meeting the schools again in friendly and pleasant contest" (The Tar Heel, October 3rd, 1900, p. 1). Ironically, fellow SIAA-member Georgia did agree to play under NC Athletics Association rules, and met against A&M on November 19th, a fact that somewhat invaludates UNC's refusal to play against members of the association and calls into question her reasoning for cancelling her scheduled games that season.

To replace the canceled UNC-A&M game in Raleigh, a game was added between Chapel Hill and the University of Georgia for the same date. The Tar Heels went on to defeat the Georgians 55-0.

A quick snippet written in the Technician to celebrate a century of sports at NC State by historian Bill Beezley (who had prevously written a comprehensive history of NC State athletics in 1975 entitled The Wolfpack: Intercollegiate Athletics at North Carolina State University) wrote that the reason UNC refused to play A&M for the next "several years" was because of the tie the team had earned in 1899. Though the comment was likely at least partially tongue-in-cheek (as he made no mention of it in his book), the myth has been perpetuated by others. The official break in relations did not come until 1906, with the teams not playing starting in from 1906 until 1919. That severance, which came after 3 of the last 4 and 4 of the last 7 games between the two teams had resulted in a tie, was caused by A&M refusing to remove Wilson from her team (Technician, March 16th, 1987, p. 10).