Jim Lampley has returned to Chapel Hill. Aren’t we lucky?
Of the numerous UNC J-School graduates who have gone on to be rich and famous, Lampley’s story is within reaching distance of the top of the Bell Tower, if not perched at its height.
He teaches a course in the Department of Communications called the “Evolution of Storytelling in American News Media.” Mainly, he talks to his students about how this country has been bitterly divided by the media ecosystem, where everyone seems to take a side and stay there, never to care about the other side of the story – which has always been journalism in its truest form.
Jim Lampley, a WCHL alumnus, in the mid-1970s.
The Hall of Fame broadcaster for boxing and a 45-year veteran of every TV network in the alphabet soup of the industry still loves sports most. Over a quick lunch at the Carolina Coffee Shop, Lampley threw out an intended provocative question: In the rise of Carolina basketball under Dean Smith, who was the most transformative recruit?
Not Charlie Scott, who broke the color barrier that would eventually be broken; not Rusty Clark, who gave Smith the first quality big man on whom Smith could start living by the high-percentage shot. Not even Phil Ford, who was responsible for the Four Corners brand.
“It was Dick Grubar,” Lampley said of the 6-4-point guard on teams that won three straight ACC and Eastern Regional titles and reached the 1967, ’68 and ’69 Final Fours. True Tar Heel aficionados will know Grubar’s name but not the casual under-50 fan.
Lampley knows he will get lots of pushback on that, which is kind of why he threw it out there. But he does have some sound reasoning based on the biggest mountain Smith had to climb in his early years; beating Duke, which he lost to seven straight times and went 2-10 against before Grubar, Clark and Bill Bunting arrived as sophomores.
“We weren’t beating Duke because they had players like Bob Verga and Steve Vacendak,” Lampley said. “Grubar was quick enough and tall enough to stay with Verga and bother his shot. And, as a point guard, he got everybody in the right place and had that unifying quality without having to score, like Vacendak.”
Typical Lampley. Start those cards, letters (and emails) coming.
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