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A two-year commitment went away in two weeks.
The offshoot of what is happening in college athletics hits harder at Carolina than perhaps any other school in the country. The Tar Heel brand has shined well beyond the numerous national titles UNC has won in many sports.
It has been one grounded in family and loyalty and togetherness from Frank McGuire to Dean Smith to Roy Williams, three Hall of Fame coaches who have been tethered to each other for more than 60 years.
McGuire became the head basketball coach here after serving in Navy pre-flight school in Chapel Hill during the 1940s, making friends in town and eventually admirers when he brought his St. John’s teams down South to take on Everett Case and N.C. State and Adolph Rupp and Kentucky.
He became the chief target of Bill Friday and Billy Carmichael Jr. when the Johnnies upset the Wolfpack and Wildcats in the 1952 East Regional in Raleigh. And, of course, he came and turned this from a football state to a basketball hotbed by running the table in the magical, 32-0 season of 1957.
Two years later, he hired Dean Smith as his assistant, and Smith double-downed on McGuire’s tenets of protecting his players and rebuilding the brand when McGuire left in semi-disgrace after the NCAA probation-riddled 1961 season. In 10 years, Smith surpassed McGuire on the court and was on his way to joining the Irishman in the Hall of Fame for far more than his record.
Smith had groomed a former walk-on in Western North Carolina but could not have imagined just how much when he hired Williams as a part-time assistant coach in 1978 for a paltry salary of $2,700. But Ol’ Roy modeled his program after Smith, also honoring the fabled Carolina basketball family. He knew no other way.
Granted, all this happened in an era where most players stayed for four years, and when they didn’t Smith and Williams walked them out the door to the NBA because they were ready. Their teams remained part of the Chapel Hill and North Carolina fabric, and if players were beaten out they didn’t transfer.
Now, with NIL inducements and the transfer portal creating a form of free agency, the celebrated heritage doesn’t seem to matter as much anymore.
Certainly, Hubert Davis told Simeon Wilcher and his parents that the plans they first discussed had changed with a 5-star recruit wanting to come early. And wherever Wilcher winds up, we can only speculate about how that will compare to if he had not changed his two-year commitment in two weeks.
The light blue, the history and those making it still shine, but just not as brightly.
Featured image via Todd Melet
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The real key here, like always now, don’t blame Hubert. Everything always is everyone else’s fault but never Hubert. It isn’t like he runs the program or we just had the most disappointing season in basketball history or most of his roster didn’t want to play for him. No not his fault and anyway we got a bunch of players from really bad teams so see how great Hubert is.
That’s the nuttiest comment I think I’ve ever read here, but then so is the moniker.
As I have repeatedly stated, here and elsewhere, the NCAA’s NIL will be the ruin of college sports. It could have been managed better, it could be mollified with contractual obligations.
But the effect on Carolina is greater than many of the other schools that never had the cohesive sports program for student athletes that Carolina has always nurtured and supported.
Maybe the blue still shines a little too brightly for some. UNC basketball, with its great legacy, has nothing to apologize for. Hopefully, current and future players will embrace the challenge of building that legacy not just adding to their own.