Chansky's Notebook: Missing The Big Man

Summer is going to pass without my favorite phone call.

I looked at my calendar the other day to see that this was, indeed, the last week in August. And it would be a different kind of month than I have had for the last so many years.

When students returned to school and classes started, I could always count on a phone call from Hugh Donohue, with his thick New York accent, asking about what’s going on down in Chapel Hill and how do the guys look.

The “guys” were Carolina basketball players, of whom Donohue was one. He played on Dean Smith’s very first team in 1962 and spent many summers thereafter working at Smith’s camp, where he honed his refereeing skills. Big “Hughie” as he was known, became a good college official but did not work any ACC games, largely because he played at UNC and had to stay away from the Tar Heels’ league.

Donohue was better known as the owner of Four Corners, the sports bar on Franklin Street that I started with some friends in 1979. Five years later, we sold it to Donohue, who had been working in New York and was ready to return to Chapel Hill.

If there is such a thing as a legendary bar owner, Donohue was it. He made Four Corners a big success because he was a big presence behind the bar, a 6-foot-8 barrel-chested man with a warm smile and hearty laugh. He had two sons and a daughter at Carolina who all worked at Four Corners, and that was part of Donohue’s success. Someone was always watching the house.

It became a haven for Tar Heel athletes more than ever. Basketball players went there, but baseball, lacrosse and wrestlers were regulars. Donohue took care of them all with a drink and a meal here and there, but his volume could afford it.

Even after he and his wife Mary sold the bar and retired back to New York, every August Donohue called his friends in Chapel Hill and asked about the sports teams, especially basketball. He and Mary still popped up at games, and he always wanted to know about the returning players and new recruits. But he seemed to know the answers from talking to everyone.

Big Hughie died last year after his big body began to fail him. But as long as he could still call his contacts, Donohue stayed connected. It will be our first summer without him.

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Chansky’s Notebook: Missing The Big Man

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