A lifetime of Carolina basketball

by | Apr 4, 2017 | Editor's Blog | 6 comments

I’ve spent my whole life pulling for Carolina basketball teams. As a boy, I listened every year as my parents rehashed the 1957 triple-overtime win against Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas. I yearned for such a victory and I cried when Carolina fell short, year after year.

There were some celebrations. I remember winning the NIT when it was still a big deal. Back then, only the winners of conference tournaments went to the NCAA and we knew UNC had one of the best teams in the country. Our victory was our vindication after losing the ACC tournament.

I also remember a host of heroes. My earliest memories were of Charlie Scott who integrated UNC basketball and led the team to two final fours at time when freshmen couldn’t play varsity ball. In the rural South in the late 1960s, he was a big deal but I just remember you could always spot him on the court, dominating a sea of white players.

I was watching when Walter Davis scored a game winning shot against Duke after being down eight points with seventeen seconds left and no three-point line. And then we watched it again and again and again because every game for the next few years featured it as a highlight.

A few years later, Phil Ford was dazzling while running the four-corners offense. Other teams booed but we loved it. He would protect a lead and run down the clock with players literally chasing him around the floor. We were sure UNC was the best team in the country and Ford the best player. Coming up short against Marquette was soul-crushing.

When I finally got to watch my first NCAA championship victory, I was a freshman at Carolina along with Michael Jordan. Jordan hit the game winning shot against Georgetown and Patrick Ewing and we poured onto Franklin Street. For years, I kept an old Air Force shirt covered in blue paint. I wish I knew where it was now.

In 1993, I watched by myself from an apartment in Shelby, NC. We had moved in over the weekend, coming from Chapel Hill. It was a bit of a let-down not to be in the thick of the celebration and feeling like Michigan lost more than we won.

In fall of 2004, I bought a basketball signed by the whole UNC team for $100 at an auction. I knew they were one of the best teams in college basketball and I am sure to this day that my vote of confidence carried them through the season. That was the last time I’ve been to Franklin Street to celebrate. I bicycled uptown after the win over Illinois and stood on the edge of the crowd, briefly reliving that first championship celebration from 1982.

By 2009, we were watching games on a big screen in my front yard. People who I had never met showed up to watch the game projected on a bed sheet under the stars. They were a fun team to watch with Tyler Hansbrough a dominant player in the league and Ty Lawson a master point guard running a fast offense.

Last night brought all of it back. It was not a pretty game but it was beautiful win. For the first time, I had twitter to check. The game brought together people of all political persuasions, if just for a moment. Republicans and Democrats cheered the Heels; and Republicans and Democrats derided them equally. We need more sports in our politics.

It was great season and fun a team to watch. Thanks for more memories. Go Heels!

6 Comments

  1. Teresa Hawkins

    I am perplexed over how UNC could even be competing in the NCAA tournament with the NCAA investigation into UNC’s admitted phony classes, phony grades, phony tests and papers etc by Carolina basketball and football players over many many years. All of this cheating gets swept under the rug for UNC. Any other NCAA sanctioned University would have been punished severely with no NCAA appearances, loss of revenue, and other sanctions for years. Unbelievable that a blind eye is always turned when it comes to Carolina and their cheating ways.

    • Renee Dagenais

      Williams kisses up to NCAA.

  2. Renee Dagenais

    Now, what does any of this have to do with politics? Shouldn’t this be on a sports website?

  3. Charles Coble

    I actually skipped out of a Boy Scout Camping event in Stanly County to see the back to back triple overtime victories in the first-ever televised National Basketball Championship. I think that galvanized the entire state around college basketball, which reigns King to this day in North Carolina.

  4. Norma Munn

    Nice article. Thanks.

  5. Brendan

    Go Heels! GDTBATH!

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