This is Carolina Basketball
A perspective from Andrew Foster
“The effort is the big thing. If we play hard, the best I think we can, and still lose, then I have to be pleased regardless of the outcome.” – Coach Dean E. Smith
I moved to Chapel Hill in the fall of 1992 and celebrated the University of North Carolina Tar Heels’ third national championship in Men’s Basketball in the rain on Franklin Street with tens of thousands of other fans as blue paint ran in the gutters. From that moment on I have been a Tar Heel. We have season tickets. We travel for games. We have the obligatory Carolina flag on our house and a blow-up Ramses for our yard. We are a Carolina family.
Like all fans of Carolina basketball, I have been privileged to witness so much success. More than 2,000 wins. Seven national championships. Twenty Final Fours. Eighteen ACC Tournament Championships. Ten National Players of the Year. UNC has a record of sustained excellence that few, if any, other men’s college basketball programs can match. Certainly, I was not there to see it all, but I’ve been there for a lot and there are so many good memories.
1998 – beating Clemson in a game where the Tigers committed so many fouls that they only had four players on the floor at the final buzzer.
2005 – Marvin Williams game winning put back to beat Duke. Has the Dean Dome ever been louder?!
2011 – Harrison Barnes scoring 40 to lead Carolina to an ACC tournament win over Clemson.
2005, 2009 and 2017 – Being on Franklin Street with my family to celebrate national championships with thousands of other deliriously happy Tar Heels.
Of course, this kind of joy cannot exist without some heartache. Losing to Chris Paul’s Demon Deacons in three overtimes in 2005. Austin Rivers’ buzzer beater to complete Duke’s comeback in 2012. Kris Jenkins’ game winning shot to help Villanova beat UNC in the 2016 National Championship. But in the grand scheme these moments seem like aberrations; the inevitable bad breaks that come with competing at an elite level for nearly seventy years.
So, what to make of this season? Currently, Carolina is 10 -16 overall and 3-12 in the ACC. UNC is in last place in the ACC. Even in the 2001 – 2002 season, when Carolina went 8-20, the team finished seventh in the conference, ahead of both Clemson and Florida State. This is a historically bad season by any measure.
Moreover, it isn’t just the fact that this team has lost more games than it has won, it is the nature of those losses. Carolina has lost its last six games and of those, four were on last second shots. And Duke did it twice – at the end of regulation and in overtime. This is also the first Carolina team to ever lose to Clemson in Chapel Hill. It truly is a season that is hard to comprehend for anyone who cares about Carolina Basketball.
All of this has forced me to think hard about my connection to UNC Basketball and why I care so much. Is it just because it is easy to love a winner? Does the Carolina Way only mean something because of the National Championships,
or does it represent something more? When a team comprised of truly elite athletes plays hard, plays smart and plays together, more often than not, they will win. What are we to make of a team that in the face of real adversity simply keeps playing hard and sticking together? Does that matter? Does it count?
If you have ever been to the UNC Basketball museum, the first exhibit simulates what it is like to come out of the tunnel from the locker room into the Dean Dome. I get chills every time I go through that exhibit. It is an unbelievable experience and it is just a simulation! Imagine what it must be like to run into the roar of 20,000 fans in real life.
Now imagine doing that as a member of this team. Running into the expectations of 20,000 people who have not worked as hard as you, but still boo when you miss a shot. Running into a gym filled with the jerseys of players like Lennie Rosenbluth, Charlie Scott, James Worthy, Michael Jordan, Tyler Hansborough and now, Joel Berry. So many people living through you, so much to live up to.
This is not to romanticize this team. I was in the Smith Center in January for the game against Georgia Tech. The team did not have a basket until more than 13 minutes into the game. It was terrible and as unlike the beauty and flow of Carolina Basketball as anything could be. There were the missed free throws against Duke, the end of game turnovers against Clemson, the moving screen against Notre Dame. There have been bad shots, poor decisions and, at times, an apparent lack of energy and focus. But every time, this team somehow finds a way to come out and play.
I know winning matters, but it is not the only thing that matters. We all fail. We all have bad days. Few of us, however, have to do it in the public eye. Few of us, however, have to do it with the weight of history and the hopes and dreams of thousands of strangers on our shoulders.
Theodore Roosevelt once said:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
This team has demonstrated unbelievable resilience and strength of character. That is why this team exemplifies for me what is best about Carolina Basketball. A clear and unconditional commitment to each other. The resolve to persist. The willingness to compete; to be in the arena daring greatly.
Because that is how I see this team, when I think about the 2019-2020 season, I won’t remember the mistakes, the missed shots or the last second losses. Here is what I’ll remember:
Christian Keeling stepping to the line at the end of the Virginia game and hitting three free throws to take the lead.
Garrison Brooks taking on the responsibility of becoming the team’s primary scorer after two years as a “defensive specialist.”
Jeremiah Francis returning to play point guard after more than a thousand days away from the game.
Justin Pierce and Andrew Platek, among others, always being willing to face the media after games, no matter the outcome.
Cole Anthony coming back to play after his knee surgery without regard to how it would impact his draft status.
KJ Smith, Walker Miller and Robbie O’Han coming in cold at critical times in critical games and making key plays.
Armando Bacot coming back to play 25 minutes against Virginia after a brutal ankle injury in the Ohio State game because his team needed him.
Leaky Black playing forty-one minutes out of position at point guard against Clemson and assisting on nearly twenty percent of Carolina’s baskets.
Brandon Robinson, in his suit, walking onto the court with his teammates after every break in the Duke game to support and exhort them.
Anthony Harris smiling and cheering on the UNC Women’s basketball team just a few weeks after having a second knee surgery following his injury in the Yale game.
Garrison Brooks with his arm around B-Rob, comforting him after the final missed shot against Notre Dame.
In a normal year, of course, these are not the kind of memories Carolina fans would hold on to. In those years, it’s the joy of roaring back against Sam Cassell’s FSU team and showing him how loud a wine and cheese crowd can be. It is the elation of Tyler Hansborough and his teammates never losing in Cameron. It is the emotion of being in the Dean Dome on a Tuesday afternoon with ten thousand other fans also skipping work and school to celebrate a national championship team.
But this is not a normal year and it will provide different kinds of memories. Even more important, this team is giving all of us the blessing of learning different lessons. Would that we would all behave with the fortitude of this team when faced with hard times in our own lives. This is courage. This is persistence. This is family. This is Carolina Basketball.
Go Heels!
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