The school of hard knocks.(College Football)(motivation)

The buses rolled into Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C., and just about everything pure and pristine froze in the moment. We know it's bad at North Carolina--the Tar Heels couldn't even beat Duke last year--but this bad?

After three years of searching for the right motivation, coach John Bunting, in a last-gasp attempt to defibrillate a program on the verge of insignificance in the new ACC, finally turned to ... convicts. The goal of the trite--the defense went April 12, the offense one week later--was to build a family bond by understanding the reality of poor decisions. I wasn't along for the ride, but I'll take a shot at describing how it all went down. Of course, I've taken a few--ahem--liberties here and there.

Cue the wayback machine ...

The Heels walk into the prison with a little swagger. Remember, these are pampered scholarship athletes. Except there's one teensy obstacle they couldn't have anticipated: These thugs know ball.

The players cross in front of the general population ward, and there sits "Bonecrusher," in for assault and battery.

"Family bonding? How about stopping someone on defense?" Bonecrusher says. "You gave up 459 points last year and had two picks the entire season. Your coach is supposed to be a defensive whiz. Time to get aggressive in those blitz packages, girls."

At the next table, poring over stock quotes, is "Two Buck," locked up for insider trading.