Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
Lucas: Forever
November 29, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
The return of the 1993 and 1957 teams was a reminder that these players are forever.
By Adam Lucas
Serge Zwikker is a 44-year-old man, and there will never be a time—ever—in my life that I see him and don't picture him wearing a headband, shooting a baseline jumper.
This is the reality of being a Carolina basketball player. During Wednesday night's 86-71 win over Michigan, the Tar Heels honored members of the 1993 championship team. It was 25 years ago that they won the national championship, beating these same Wolverines. That elapsed time makes absolutely no difference. When they walked out on the Smith Center court on Wednesday night, no matter what else they've done in their lives since then, these were the very first thoughts that came to mind:
Dante Calabria: Dick Vitale going crazy about his hair. "Oh ladies, can you believe it!!!"
Donald Williams: That slight airborne hesitation before he released yet another deadeye three-pointer in the 1993 Final Four.
Phil Ford: To my generation, he's a coach and not a player. So I will never forget him doing a near-backflip after Brian Reese missed the dunk at the end of the Cincinnati game in 1993. Asked about it Wednesday night, Ford said, "Well, I don't know if 'flip' is right. It was more like a roll." It was that generation's Bobby Frasor-falls-over-after-Wayne-Ellington's-shot. Same outcome in both games, of course.
Dave Hanners: An assistant coach in 1993. Every single time I encountered him in the lobby of a team hotel, he never failed to suggest when the players might be coming through the lobby so I could get autographs. I can't imagine how annoying I was. He can't imagine how helpful he was, and how that simple gesture helped persuade a kid he could love this program for his whole life.
Marc Davis: The team trainer. All we fans knew about him was that the players mysteriously called him "Skate," which seemed like just the sort of cool nickname a Tar Heel trainer would have.
Travis Stephenson: The former walk-on (and accomplished fisherman) made a midrange jumper early in the Senior Day game against Duke. You wonder why Carolina always starts the seniors on Senior Day? Because you never know when they might have a moment we still remember 25 years later.
Larry Davis: The freshman was a scoring machine. I realize this is an odd comment about a player who averaged 2.1 points per game and eventually transferred to South Carolina. But Davis had one of the quickest triggers in Tar Heel history. We used to sit in the stands and guess how long it would take before he hoisted a shot upon entering the game. It usually didn't take long. And it's one of the purest examples of the Carolina family that even after transferring, Davis still returns as part of the fraternity, and is still remembered in Chapel Hill.
Eric Montross: That buzz cut. That hook shot. That bloody head against Duke. And outdueling Juwan Howard and Chris Webber in the national title game.
Most of the rest of the 1993 squad has coaching obligations across the country and couldn't be in Chapel Hill on Wednesday (they returned en masse for a football game this fall, where the entire team was honored). But no matter where they were, it's likely they stopped and had very similar thoughts to those of starting point guard Derrick Phelps.
"It was really good memories watching the game," Phelps said from San Francisco, where he's an assistant coach (of course he's a coach) for the University of San Francisco. "Just remembering how great of a team we were back then. That team put all our sweat and tears on every possession of both ends of the floor. Every member of that team knew their roles and we understood what Coach Smith wanted from us."
I promise you there is no one who was a Carolina basketball fan in 1993 who when I say Derrick Phelps, doesn't immediately think: lefty, lockdown defender, tough. I don't know what he was before he came to Chapel Hill. But I know what he was when he left, and that's what he will forever be here. My wife can absolutely confirm this for you: I can remember specific plays and sequences from the 1993 season far better than I can remember where she told me I can find last year's Christmas decorations...and, most maddeningly to her, I feel pretty good about that.
About a half-hour after the 1993 team was recognized, the remaining members of the 1957 national champions were also celebrated. Most of us may not remember the actual plays, but we've seen the grainy footage. Maybe Joe Quigg went on to become a dentist and is known as Dr. Joe Quigg to his patients. When he stands on center court, with those same 1993 national champions standing in the stands applauding him, he is forever the kid who made the two biggest free throws in UNC basketball history, just as anywhere Lennie Rosenbluth goes in Chapel Hill, he is one of the greatest players in the Tar Heel pantheon.
None of this is meant to make you feel old—just experienced. And wise. And, well, OK, some of us are getting old. Which is about when we start thinking that, sure, Carolina won a game on Wednesday. But they're going to play again on Friday, and then again on Sunday, and then again…
Well, it just seemed like a good time to remember: these guys are doing something we'll never forget. Carolina had players from three different championship teams in the building on Wednesday. Most programs can't do that even if the entire program is called together for an emergency session. Here, it's a nice halftime diversion before the Frisbee dog.
I sat in the seat next to my dad for Carolina-Michigan at the Superdome in 1993, and I sat two seats over from my dad for Carolina-Michigan at the Smith Center in 2017. A lot has happened—life and death and kids and jobs and bad choices and good choices—in the subsequent 24 and a half years. But we've got those two nights, and we saw those two teams, and we both know there's no way we will ever see Donald Williams anywhere, anytime without picturing Dad's parents/my grandparents standing up at a Carolina game and yelling, "Go, Garner!" when he swished another three-pointer, because they were so proud that he was from their hometown.
So much has changed since Dad and I wandered down Bourbon Street after that game in 1993. And yet, here we all are, under these banners, cheering these same individuals who have given us some of the very best times of our lives.
Some of the freshmen are still getting used to the idea that they're part of this illustrious group we call Carolina basketball.
"It hits you sometimes," said Garrison Brooks, whose sole knowledge of 1993 comes from ESPN's 30 for 30 and the fact that his uncle once bought him a Chris Webber jersey. "I'm walking in the gym where some of the greatest players ever have played. I don't think it's going to feel normal until the end of my freshman year."
If you're lucky, Garrison, it will never feel normal. Although they don't like to think about it, Pinson and Berry have very few games left in this building. They've already established a legacy, of course.
One day, it'll be them out there. Twenty-five years from now, if we're lucky, we'll get to see Theo Pinson and Joel Berry stand at midcourt. When that happens, you'll nudge the spouse maybe you haven't met yet or the kid you haven't even dreamed of yet and say, "I saw them play."
Or, even better, "I saw them win."
"To be mentioned with those guys for hanging up a banner and being part of a national championship team," Pinson said. "That's what I came here for, bottom line."
Don't worry, Theo. We'll remember.
Â
Serge Zwikker is a 44-year-old man, and there will never be a time—ever—in my life that I see him and don't picture him wearing a headband, shooting a baseline jumper.
This is the reality of being a Carolina basketball player. During Wednesday night's 86-71 win over Michigan, the Tar Heels honored members of the 1993 championship team. It was 25 years ago that they won the national championship, beating these same Wolverines. That elapsed time makes absolutely no difference. When they walked out on the Smith Center court on Wednesday night, no matter what else they've done in their lives since then, these were the very first thoughts that came to mind:
Dante Calabria: Dick Vitale going crazy about his hair. "Oh ladies, can you believe it!!!"
Donald Williams: That slight airborne hesitation before he released yet another deadeye three-pointer in the 1993 Final Four.
Phil Ford: To my generation, he's a coach and not a player. So I will never forget him doing a near-backflip after Brian Reese missed the dunk at the end of the Cincinnati game in 1993. Asked about it Wednesday night, Ford said, "Well, I don't know if 'flip' is right. It was more like a roll." It was that generation's Bobby Frasor-falls-over-after-Wayne-Ellington's-shot. Same outcome in both games, of course.
Dave Hanners: An assistant coach in 1993. Every single time I encountered him in the lobby of a team hotel, he never failed to suggest when the players might be coming through the lobby so I could get autographs. I can't imagine how annoying I was. He can't imagine how helpful he was, and how that simple gesture helped persuade a kid he could love this program for his whole life.
Marc Davis: The team trainer. All we fans knew about him was that the players mysteriously called him "Skate," which seemed like just the sort of cool nickname a Tar Heel trainer would have.
Travis Stephenson: The former walk-on (and accomplished fisherman) made a midrange jumper early in the Senior Day game against Duke. You wonder why Carolina always starts the seniors on Senior Day? Because you never know when they might have a moment we still remember 25 years later.
Larry Davis: The freshman was a scoring machine. I realize this is an odd comment about a player who averaged 2.1 points per game and eventually transferred to South Carolina. But Davis had one of the quickest triggers in Tar Heel history. We used to sit in the stands and guess how long it would take before he hoisted a shot upon entering the game. It usually didn't take long. And it's one of the purest examples of the Carolina family that even after transferring, Davis still returns as part of the fraternity, and is still remembered in Chapel Hill.
Eric Montross: That buzz cut. That hook shot. That bloody head against Duke. And outdueling Juwan Howard and Chris Webber in the national title game.
Most of the rest of the 1993 squad has coaching obligations across the country and couldn't be in Chapel Hill on Wednesday (they returned en masse for a football game this fall, where the entire team was honored). But no matter where they were, it's likely they stopped and had very similar thoughts to those of starting point guard Derrick Phelps.
"It was really good memories watching the game," Phelps said from San Francisco, where he's an assistant coach (of course he's a coach) for the University of San Francisco. "Just remembering how great of a team we were back then. That team put all our sweat and tears on every possession of both ends of the floor. Every member of that team knew their roles and we understood what Coach Smith wanted from us."
I promise you there is no one who was a Carolina basketball fan in 1993 who when I say Derrick Phelps, doesn't immediately think: lefty, lockdown defender, tough. I don't know what he was before he came to Chapel Hill. But I know what he was when he left, and that's what he will forever be here. My wife can absolutely confirm this for you: I can remember specific plays and sequences from the 1993 season far better than I can remember where she told me I can find last year's Christmas decorations...and, most maddeningly to her, I feel pretty good about that.
About a half-hour after the 1993 team was recognized, the remaining members of the 1957 national champions were also celebrated. Most of us may not remember the actual plays, but we've seen the grainy footage. Maybe Joe Quigg went on to become a dentist and is known as Dr. Joe Quigg to his patients. When he stands on center court, with those same 1993 national champions standing in the stands applauding him, he is forever the kid who made the two biggest free throws in UNC basketball history, just as anywhere Lennie Rosenbluth goes in Chapel Hill, he is one of the greatest players in the Tar Heel pantheon.
None of this is meant to make you feel old—just experienced. And wise. And, well, OK, some of us are getting old. Which is about when we start thinking that, sure, Carolina won a game on Wednesday. But they're going to play again on Friday, and then again on Sunday, and then again…
Well, it just seemed like a good time to remember: these guys are doing something we'll never forget. Carolina had players from three different championship teams in the building on Wednesday. Most programs can't do that even if the entire program is called together for an emergency session. Here, it's a nice halftime diversion before the Frisbee dog.
I sat in the seat next to my dad for Carolina-Michigan at the Superdome in 1993, and I sat two seats over from my dad for Carolina-Michigan at the Smith Center in 2017. A lot has happened—life and death and kids and jobs and bad choices and good choices—in the subsequent 24 and a half years. But we've got those two nights, and we saw those two teams, and we both know there's no way we will ever see Donald Williams anywhere, anytime without picturing Dad's parents/my grandparents standing up at a Carolina game and yelling, "Go, Garner!" when he swished another three-pointer, because they were so proud that he was from their hometown.
So much has changed since Dad and I wandered down Bourbon Street after that game in 1993. And yet, here we all are, under these banners, cheering these same individuals who have given us some of the very best times of our lives.
Some of the freshmen are still getting used to the idea that they're part of this illustrious group we call Carolina basketball.
"It hits you sometimes," said Garrison Brooks, whose sole knowledge of 1993 comes from ESPN's 30 for 30 and the fact that his uncle once bought him a Chris Webber jersey. "I'm walking in the gym where some of the greatest players ever have played. I don't think it's going to feel normal until the end of my freshman year."
If you're lucky, Garrison, it will never feel normal. Although they don't like to think about it, Pinson and Berry have very few games left in this building. They've already established a legacy, of course.
One day, it'll be them out there. Twenty-five years from now, if we're lucky, we'll get to see Theo Pinson and Joel Berry stand at midcourt. When that happens, you'll nudge the spouse maybe you haven't met yet or the kid you haven't even dreamed of yet and say, "I saw them play."
Or, even better, "I saw them win."
"To be mentioned with those guys for hanging up a banner and being part of a national championship team," Pinson said. "That's what I came here for, bottom line."
Don't worry, Theo. We'll remember.
Â
Players Mentioned
F
/ Men's Basketball
F/G
/ Men's BasketballUNC Field Hockey: Carolina Holds Off Princeton, 3-2
Sunday, September 07
UNC Women's Soccer: Tar Heels Shut Out JMU, 3-0
Sunday, September 07
UNC Volleyball: Tar Heels Sweep Oral Roberts
Sunday, September 07
UNC Football: Belichick Gets First Win as Heels Down Charlotte, 20-3
Sunday, September 07