3,920 miles away from the Dean Smith Center, one UNC basketball fan is gone to Carolina in his mind. George Harmer is from Norwich, England, but still keeps up correspondence with UNC basketball legends like Joel Berry and Tyler Hansbrough. You may know him by his Twitter name: British Tar Heel.
Harmer hosts The Tar Heel Show, formerly the Ceiling is the Roof Podcast, featuring guests from UNC basketball past and present. He’s not a UNC alumnus, nor is he a North Carolina native living abroad. So, how did George Harmer become a Tar Heel fan in the first place?
It started through a program in the United Kingdom called ‘Camp America,’ which gives young adults the opportunity to work for a summer in the United States. Harmer, then 18 years old, entered his name in the program. He indicated his interest in teaching sports, and ended up at a camp in Hendersonville, N.C. Harmer told 97.9 The Hill coming to America was a bucket list item.
“Basically, the reason I wanted to go to the States was, I fell in love with America,” he said. “I liked American sports, I liked basketball, the NBA. And then my mom, she basically was like, ‘Alright. If you love it, go.’ So as an 18-year-old, she sent me off. So I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll go then.’ Didn’t know much about North Carolina whatsoever. After I got offered the job, I Googled it. And now my life is surrounded by North Carolina, so it’s all good.”
Once Harmer got to North Carolina, it was only a short matter of time before he became a Tar Heel.
“Basically, I was playing pickup [basketball] with some of my colleagues, and I was like, ‘OK, who’s my team? What college team do I need to follow?’” Harmer said. “And they were all UNC students. So, how the story goes, we always joke about ‘Wal-Mart fans,’ but I ended up going to Wal-Mart that week, bought my first pair of basketball shorts that I’ve still got today, UNC basketball shorts, and the rest is history.”
“I don’t think [my colleagues] realized what they did for me that day, when they told me to follow UNC,” Harmer went on. “Because now it is the main team in my life out of everything. And that’s hard for my father to hear, because obviously we’re soccer fans over here. But he understands now. So it’s OK.”
More than a decade later, Harmer is still cheering for Carolina, often into the wee hours of the morning due to the five-hour time difference in England.
“I remember cheering at 4 a.m. against Gonzaga [in the 2017 national championship],” he said. “Waking up the whole neighborhood… I remember the year before, at like 4 a.m., Villanova. And that was, by yourself at 4 o’clock in the morning crying, it’s not really a nice thing.”
But it wasn’t until the pandemic hit England that he began to experiment as a content creator. In fact, it wasn’t his idea at all. Rather, his partner took note of the sports memorabilia covering his room, and suggested Harmer write a sports blog.
“It was the third national lockdown here in the UK, and I needed something to do,” he said. “I think I was just talking too much about UNC to my partner. And she didn’t know anything about it, bless her. She’s learning now. But I just needed to talk. My goal was to write about UNC and speak to a few more people about North Carolina.”
Once Harmer began giving updates on UNC basketball alumni playing overseas, his website, now tarheelinternational.com, began to get more traction. The players appreciated his interest, and used his coverage to keep up with former teammates. Still, Harmer didn’t quite make it big until Roy Williams announced his retirement in April.
“I wrote a letter to Coach Williams, was basically what it was. It was ‘A Letter to Coach Williams From a Guy He’s Never Met,'” Harmer said. “After that, it just blew up. It was like, within like two days, 15,000 people plus read the letter, and I was like, ‘Oh wow.’”
His work now gone viral, The Tar Heel Show came next. Harmer’s rapport with the UNC basketball alumni paid off, and he soon landed guests such as former national champions Joel Berry and Tyler Hansbrough. Harmer mentioned Berry as one of his three favorite Tar Heels ever, along with Kendall Marshall and Marcus Paige. When looking at the big picture, Harmer said he’s grateful for, and still in a bit of disbelief about the opportunities he has.
“I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how this guy from Norwich, England is able to speak to these North Carolina Tar Heels. It’s exciting. I don’t know what will happen this time next year, I don’t know where the podcast will be. But… we shall see.”
Exciting times are indeed ahead for Harmer, as he recently bought tickets to attend his first two UNC basketball games this coming January. He said he thinks he’ll need a second game because emotions might get the best of him during the first one.
Featured image via George Harmer
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