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CHAPEL HILL -- Just as people began to wonder when the parade was going to start, the pounding drums of the Tar Heel marching band could be heard coming around the corner.
And from that moment on, things were jumping in Chapel Hill Saturday.
With a Carolina blue sky above, and thousands of UNC fans wearing Carolina blue wandering through the town and campus, the day began as people lined downtown Franklin Street to watch the parade, led by the 375-member marching band playing the Carolina fight song.
It was followed by a few floats and various student groups, that ranged from a couple of people and a dog to Carolina Fever, the student fan group that encouraged people on each side of the street to alternately yell "Tar" and "Heels."
"I was so happy they're doing a parade again because I grew up in Chapel Hill, and I remember the Beat Dook parade, with Duke spelled Dook," said Shannon Pace. "In my childhood memories, the whole town turned out and all the sororities and fraternities built floats."
Although the fraternities and sororities didn't build floats this year, Pace and others hoped the parade will return and be even bigger next year.
Meanwhile at the Old Well, cable TV's The Weather Channel was broadcasting live for their Saturday game day coverage.
Chancellor Holden Thorp predicted the weather and later the UNC cheerleaders surrounded meteorologist Adam Berg and jumped up and down as Berg gave the local forecast. The prediction? Carolina Blue skies all day long.
The Weather Channel wasn't the only network on campus this week. On Thursday, the Food Network filmed a segment on campus with guest chefs Patti Thorp, the chancellor's wife, American Idol sixth place finisher and UNC Chapel Hill alum Anoop Desai, and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Winston Crisp.
After the parade ended, some people wandered over to fraternity and sorority houses or The Carolina Inn for lunch. In Big Frat Court, two bands, each in the front yard of a different fraternity, played as loudly as they could to try to drown out the other band as the smell of barbecue seeped out of big black cookers.
Behind University Square, groups of people paid $20 to park in the lot and tailgate.
"We've got brats, smoked sausage, hamburger, home-made guacamole and hummus," said Richard Foxworth of Atlanta.
He and seven of his friends, who came from Wilmington and Baltimore, were excited about getting together before the game. One of their friends, a Duke fan, was allowed to sit with them but was not allowed to wear any Duke paraphernalia. And he had to sit at the edge of their circle.
Back at the Old Well, people gathered to await the arrival of the Tar Heel football team for its campus walk to the stadium. One family had three generations of Tar Heels at the game.
Dave Pollock, Class of 1961, and his wife, Frances, pointed at Old East Dorm, where Frances Pollock's grandfather lived when he was a student at UNC.
Frances graduated from Women's College, now UNC Greensboro, but met her husband when they used to bring bus loads of women from Greensboro for dances at UNC's Woollen Gym.
The family watched the Tar Heels exhibition basketball game Friday night, got up Saturday to watch the parade, then headed over to Kenan Stadium for the football game.
"... An ideal weekend," Pollock said.
Across the street at Polk Place, kids jumped in balloon houses, tossed footballs and posed with the Victory Bell as they waited for the football team to arrive.
Three coach buses, escorted by sheriff's deputies blowing their sirens, drove up, and the players, most dressed in khakis and sports coats, began the march through the autumn leaves through Polk Place to the stadium.
The band played, drums on one side of the brick sidewalk, tubas and horns on the other side, as players walked through campus, people cheering, children shouting.
A perfect day for a football game.
