Rich Yonakor didn’t make it to his last UNC-Duke game.

Not sure how I missed it, but just heard that Yonakor – the infamous “Chickie” of the 1977-80 Tar Heels – passed away on March 3, two days before Carolina turned its season around with the dramatic 94-81 upset at Cameron Indoor.

Man, time flies. More than 43 years earlier, Yonakor inadvertently created the cheer that has stuck with basketball ever since. His lefty shot from the corner cleared the basket completely, as the Cameron Crazies began chanting “Air Ball! Air Ball!”

It wasn’t all Chickie’s fault. As you may remember, Dean Smith didn’t want to play against Duke’s zone and decided to hold the ball unless the Blue Devils came out in a man-to-man defense. Near the end of the first half, with Carolina down 7-0, a tight Chickie let fly with his team’s only shot and invented something for the ages.

Yonakor is remembered for more than the “7-0 game,” in which Carolina played Duke even up in the second half and lost 47-40. One week later, the Tar Heels avenged the defeat in the championship game of the 1979 ACC tournament in Greensboro.

In 1977, after senior center Tom LaGarde was lost for the season with a knee injury, Chickie became part of Smith’s 3-headed monster – Yon-Wolf-Son – joining fellow freshmen Jeff Wolf and Steve Krafcisin rotating to give UNC some presence in the middle while Phil Ford, Walter Davis, Mike O’Koren and John Kuester did their thing all way to the NCAA championship game loss to Marquette.

Ironically, Chickie’s air ball and the whole Yon-Wolf-Sin legend might never have happened if Smith had offered a scholarship to Mike Gminski, who wanted to go to Carolina and wound up anchoring Duke’s zone as ACC Player of the Year. Yonakor’s wild style of play, flailing arms, diving for loose balls and general joie de vivre for the game actually became a model for Duke and other teams to emulate in the years ahead.

Rich “Chickie” Yonakor won five assorted ACC championships and didn’t come back much to Chapel Hill after returning to his home state of Ohio. But the floppy-haired one with the big smile won’t be forgotten.

Soon, another sad story, Ademola Okulaja, dead at 46.

 

Featured image via NCAA


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