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University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: What Comes Naturally
January 9, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 9, 2008
By Adam Lucas
Over the first 85 games of his Carolina career, opponents have pushed, prodded and elbowed in an effort to find a weakness in Tyler Hansbrough.
Just to go ahead and rule this out before some enterprising team tries it, they should know that he's impervious to lasers, too. Actually, he says a good laser to the neck is quite beneficial for his body when recovering from another 40 minutes of post pounding.
Spend an hour with Hansbrough after a game--any game--and it's much more enlightening than what you see on the court. Between the lines, you see the stats (23 points and 8 rebounds against UNC-Asheville in Carolina's 12-point win). Just in case you think it's easy, just in case you think it's just a gift that has him on track to be one of the greatest Tar Heels of all time, take a look behind the scenes.
As soon as Roy Williams finishes addressing his team in the Tar Heel locker room after the game, Hansbrough gets two bags of ice--one for each ankle. Then he hobbles (hey, you try walking with two bags of ice strapped to your feet) into the weight room, where Carolina strength and conditioning coordinator Jonas Sahratian is waiting to begin their daily routine.
Early-arriving fans get a glimpse of Hansbrough's stretching routine in pregame. While other players are perfecting their 25-foot jumper, he's usually going through a series of stretches. All of Carolina's players stretch. But Hansbrough is fanatical.
"He's the only one who does it to the extent that he does it," Sahratian says. "He's a huge Marvin Williams fan, and he bought into it when he saw Marvin getting stretched. He has gotten to the point where he realizes he needs to do as much as he can to take care of his body to maximize his potential. It helps him recover from the wear and tear that's placed on him on a daily basis in practice and games. When you're doing the type of extra things he's doing, you can come back and train harder and do a higher quality of work because you're bouncing back more effectively."
Hansbrough goes through approximately 15 minutes of postgame stretching with Sahratian. First he bends one way, then the other. At one point, he's flat on his back and his right leg is 90 degrees straight up in the air. Not slightly bent, like a normal human. Completely straight.
"When I got here, Jonas called me `The Tin Man' because I was so inflexible," Hansbrough says as he stretches his hamstring. "But now I've gotten to the point that if I skip a day, I feel stiff the next day."
Recently, the stretches have also included a laser treatment used by Lance Armstrong. The company that makes the device sent the $14,000 machine to Carolina on a trial basis. Hansbrough says it made a noticeable difference, but the trial has expired and the machine is on the way back to the company.
 Hansbrough chills out with a postgame cold bath.  |
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When he finishes his stretches, he spends 10 minutes chatting with the media. Predictably, they want to talk about his dunk over UNC-Asheville's Kenny George, who stands 7-foot-9 in shoes.
The play was like something out of a Paul Bunyan tale. Hansbrough caught the ball 16 feet from the basket with only George in front of him. As soon as he received the pass, you could see what was about to happen. George was a challenge. Hansbrough likes challenge. Therefore, he dunked. It was reminiscent of the Bulls game when a fan was heckling Michael Jordan for dunking over the smaller John Stockton. Later in the game, Jordan dunked over 6-foot-11 Melvin Turpin. As he ran back up the floor, he pointed at the heckler and said, "Was he big enough for you?"
So it was with Hasnsbrough. He'd dunked on everyone else during his college career. Why not add a seven-and-a-half footer to his list?
"I wanted to try and dunk that one, and I wasn't sure if it was going to work out," Hansbrough said. "But it did."
Was he big enough for you?
When the media session ends, his postgame routine is still spinning. Tucked in a converted bathroom behind the locker room is a cold tub where the water is chilled to 50 degrees. In full uniform, he hops into the tub. Today is a cold bath day; tomorrow is likely to be a hot and cold bath instead.
"The cold bath decreases inflammation," Sahratian says. "It speeds recovery. The Eastern European countries and former Soviet Union were really advanced in recovery and restoration. I've taken some ideas from them.
 Jonas Sahratian and Tyler Hansbrough have an elaborate postgame routine. |
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"We try to do the cold bath on days that are taxing for his nervous system, like game days. Tomorrow we might use heat, because it dilates the blood vessels, almost like a pumping effect."
This is Hansbrough at ease. Most nights, he sits for 10 minutes with iPod in hand, cycling through a series of Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney, or Montgomery Gentry tunes. "Country is too relaxing for pregame, but it's perfect for this," he says.
Tonight, though, there are guests in the room, and they want to know what happens after the cold bath. He has just dunked on the tallest player in the history of college basketball. Will he go home and watch ESPN until he sees his face?
"Eh, I don't know," he says. He is completely disinterested. But this sparks a memory.
"Hey, did you see Bobby fall the other night at Clemson? That one I went home and watched. I probably watched it 20 times. When people came over to the house, I played it for them."
 "Did you see Bobby's fall?" |
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He is talking about his roommate, Bobby Frasor, who went down in a heap on the Tar Heel sideline after over-celebrating Wayne Ellington's game-winner. It has been a source of tremendous humor in the Carolina locker room--it was the first and last play the team watched in their Monday film session.
"Not for Wayne's shot," Frasor says with a grin. "For my fall."
With his stretching, cold bath, and a forthcoming NCAA-approved protein shake (it tastes like mint chocolate, according to Hansbrough), the Poplar Bluff big man says he is lacking for just three things:
1. A hyperbaric chamber. He read that Terrell Owens uses one.
2. An altitude tent. He read that David Boston sleeps in one.
3. A flat screen television for the wall in front of his cold tub, where he's spending roughly 20 minutes every day.
Can someone please get the man a flat screen?
With that, his night is finished and he's ready to leave the Smith Center. Don't worry, though. His work isn't done. At night, he sleeps on a contraption called an earthing pad. The purpose, Sahratian says, is to "reduce inflammation, normalize cortisol levels and eliminate free radical damage." Hansbrough and Sahratian often throw around words like that, as though everyone else understands their foreign language.
Tonight, Hansbrough passed Mitch Kupchak, Hubert Davis, Jawad Williams, and Eric Montross to move into 18th on Carolina's all-time scoring list. He now has 700 rebounds and soon will be in the career top 20 in that category, too.
But Sahratian doesn't need to see those numbers to gauge Hansbrough's production. "In terms of taking care of himself, he's the most dedicated player I've ever seen," he says.
The routine began because of Hansbrough's affinity for Marvin Williams. What he doesn't realize is that it's a mutual admiration society. Tomorrow, Sahratian's office phone will ring, just like it always does after his pupil has had another particularly impressive performance. On the other end of the phone will be Marvin Williams.
He will have only one comment.
"Man," Williams will say, "Tyler is a beast!"
Adam Lucas most recently collaborated on a behind-the-scenes look at Carolina Basketball with Wes Miller. The Road To Blue Heaven is available now. Lucas's other books on Carolina basketball include The Best Game Ever, which chronicles the 1957 national championship season, Going Home Again, which focuses on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.
