Lucas: Family Time

By Adam Lucas

Back together again for one of the first times since winning a national title, it was almost like the 2017 Tar Heels had never been apart.

The latest Carolina national champions had mingled with nearly two dozen other Tar Heel national champions at a pregame tailgate party. Fans hung over the rail of the Blue Zone to snap their photos before the game, tossing down magazines for autographs and then shrieking with glee as the players tossed them back.

With a couple minutes left in the first half of the Carolina-Louisville football game, the 2017 team lined up just outside the end zone. The Kenan Stadium video boards showed a championship tribute video. On the screen, Theo Pinson dunked and Joel Berry hit a three-pointer and Isaiah Hicks scored and Kennedy Meeks blocked and Justin Jackson capped it with a dunk.

On the field, as they looked up at the video boards, the players seemed to have almost as much fun reliving it as they did experiencing it the first time. "This video is about to make me cry," Meeks said.

Then, as they received their final instructions for the ceremony before taking the field, Pinson pounded his teammates on the back. "We're about to get those rings!" he shouted.

Hypnotized ??#NationalChampions pic.twitter.com/M3WjQdP8Bg
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) September 9, 2017

The rings, which are enormous, are a dazzling token of the title. But to paraphrase a famous line from Danny Green—he was there, of course—did you see how they got those rings?

Members of every Carolina NCAA title team were on hand, from Lennie Rosenbluth and Joe Quigg and Tom Kearns in 1957 all the way through Green, Bobby Frasor, Wayne Ellington and Tyler Zeller from 2009. Each former champion was introduced to roars from the Kenan crowd, most of whom hadn't seen a complete list of the former players in attendance. That meant that a buzz greeted each new name: Lennie is here? Raymond Felton is back? James Worthy traveled all the way from California to present a ring to Roy Williams?

For the first time ever, all five Tar Heel Final Four Most Outstanding Players were in the same place at the same time. How big a deal was that? When Roy Williams mentioned it as the current and former players gathered around him, the room full of national champions broke into applause. As James Worthy, Donald Williams, Sean May, Wayne Ellington and Joel Berry were posing for a photo, Matt Doherty tapped Lennie Rosenbluth on the shoulder. "Wait a minute, you didn't win it in 1957?" he asked.

"They gave it to (Wilt) Chamberlain," Rosenbluth replied.

"But you got the ring," Doherty said, and both Tar Heel champions grinned.

First time ever the five @unc_basketball Final Four MVPs have been together. ?? worthy williams may ellington #berry

A post shared by Adam Lucas (@jadamlucas) on Sep 9, 2017 at 11:02am PDT

It was the rare day when every person in the room had a ring. The former players loved any excuse to come back to Chapel Hill, especially to celebrate another championship. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is normal or that any other program could have pulled it off (huge credit to director of player development Eric Hoots for making it happen). The Tar Heels had exactly three NCAA titles in the first 65 years of the event. Now they've won three in the past 13 tournaments. The good old days are right now. It's entirely possible we will never see another collection of national champions like we saw on the Kenan turf Saturday afternoon.

The current players still haven't quite accepted that they're in that rarefied company. Somewhere, there's a young future Tar Heel who one day will talk about the 2017 team the same way these players do about the 2005 and 2009 groups. "It still hasn't sunk in," said Nate Britt, his ring glittering on his right hand. "This whole day took me back to that moment. All over again, I'm remembering how hard we worked and how it became reality. It's so cool to see how happy the former players were for us. It really made it sink in that we didn't just win for us. We won for everyone—the Carolina basketball family, the University and the fans."

Worthy was back in Kenan Stadium for one of the first times since he walked out onto the grass with his 1982 teammates the day after defeating Georgetown for the national title; everyone knew Carmichael Auditorium wouldn't be big enough to stage a welcome-home celebration, so it was held at Kenan. In those days, Worthy wasn't a Hall of Famer. He was just a college junior who was occasionally tutored by Wanda Williams, the wife of a young UNC assistant coach named Roy Williams.

Since then, he's been a top draft pick and a world champion and a member of the game's elite. He's enjoyed all the very best you can experience in the game of basketball.

"But for me," he said, "Carolina is number one. This is where it started for me. It all started with Coach Smith, with him treating every individual player and manager the same, and reminding us to give back to the community in addition to being a basketball player. All of us from my era, we came back for Coach Smith. And we also came back to honor Roy, because what he's doing right now is an amazing feat."

After the ceremony, Green surveyed the room and considered what he had just been part of on the Kenan field. He shook his head. "That was special," he said, almost to himself. "That was a special, special moment."

Players Mentioned

Nate Britt

Isaiah Hicks

Keimaya Hunter

Justin Jackson

Kennedy Meeks

Theo Pinson

University of North Carolina Athletics