University of North Carolina Athletics
Holiday Traditions Vary For Tar Heel Teams
December 24, 2002 | Lucas
Dec. 24, 2002
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The following is from the December issue of the magazine.
By Adam Lucas
It's easy to talk about being a family and much tougher to actually act like one.
Eventually, every coach talks about their team as a "family," but with the holidays approaching, how much of a family-type atmosphere really exists? That's what we set out to discover, querying coaches and players throughout the athletic department about their team's holiday traditions. What we found is that nearly every team on campus does celebrate the holidays as a family, right down to the overcooked fruitcake.
elow, a sampling of the best responses from throughout the athletic department.
Women's Soccer: Success begat tradition for the national powerhouse Tar Heels. Since they can usually count on having a home NCAA Tournament match on Thanksgiving weekend, the squad usually gathers for Thanksgiving dinner at 411 West, the Franklin Street restaurant owned by head coach Anson Dorrance's brother, Pete.
Women's Lacrosse: The entire squad gathers for a Christmas dinner at the home of head coach Jenny Slingluff-Levy. A cutthroat gift exchange follows, in which everyone brings a gift that can cost no more than $5. All the gifts are piled in the middle, the attendees pick a number, and the lowest number picks the first gift. Subsequent numbers have the option of picking a number or stealing the present from a previous person. As Slingluff-Levy notes, "The most popular gift usually ends up with the person who had the highest number." See, we told you it was cutthroat.
The women's laxers also have a serious side-each year they adopt a local needy family. The team pools their money to buy gifts and wraps and delivers the presents before Christmas.
Baseball: Head coach Mike Fox and his wife, Cheryl, have the entire team over for dinner every Christmas, with Cheryl preparing a feast that usually includes turkey, ham, green beans, rice, sweet potato casserole, cranberry salad, and desserts. The first lady of Tar Heel baseball even goes all out on the decorations, making sure to use Christmas dishes, Christmas glasses, and Christmas candles. "I tell her that they are just kids and they don't really care, but she goes all out," Mike Fox says. "My wife is an angel."
Football: Last year, players and coaches contributed close to $1,000 to buy Christmas presents for a needy eight-person family from Durham. Ten of the players accompanied assistant athletic director Corey Holliday to purchase the gifts and deliver them to the family.
Women's Basketball: Sylvia Hatchell's hoopsters are usually on the road over Christmas, but they've turned that into a tradition. The team gathers for a Christmas dinner at Hatchell's home before departing for Myrtle Beach, where they have played in a holiday tournament for the past several years. With dorms closed, the team departs a couple days before their first game on December 20 and finishes their last-minute Christmas shopping at the variety of outlet malls in the area.
Men's Basketball: Since the arrival of head coach Matt Doherty, Carolina's basketball players have participated in an annual children's clinic a few days before Christmas. Nearly 100 kids attended last year, and were treated to an evening of instruction by the Tar Heel players and staff. It's often hard to tell whether the athletes or the kids are having more fun-last year, the diminutive Jonathan Holmes delighted attendees by hanging out with the younger kids around the five-foot rims and swatting away shots and hanging on the rim after vicious dunks.
"Jon was living vicariously out there," Doherty said. "He's got some Shaquille O'Neal in that body somewhere."
Track: With over 80 athletes on the team, head coach Dennis Craddock quickly discovered that squeezing that many hungry college students into his house for dinner wasn't an option. It didn't take him long to find an alternative.
Carolina's tracksters have a long history of athletic accomplishment, but when it comes to gift-wrapping, they're terrible. So says Craddock, whose teams hold an annual Christmas dinner to which it invites a less fortunate group from the area. The team shops for the youngsters and then wraps gifts for them, and although the wrapping isn't always of shopping mall-quality, the sentiment is always appreciated by the guests, who in the past have included children from the orphanage in Butner and flood victims from the fifth-grade class of a nearby elementary school. "I'm a firm believer that once you see and visit with people less fortunate than you, it makes you appreciate more what you have and not take yourself so seriously," Craddock said. "We don't do this to look down on people having rough times, but to share what we have and give them an opportunity to see a different environment, the diversity of this campus, and possibly give them hope that there is something better for them down the road."
The underrated aspect of the evening is a talent show put on by the team volunteers. Videotapes were unavailable for review, but rumor has it that the talent shows annually include skits, musical instruments, and "general craziness."
Women's Tennis: Another group that usually features skits as a part of their holiday tradition is the women's tennis team. In their case, it's the coaches who put on a skit for the players at the squad's holiday dinner. Last year the players even got into the act, with two players dressing up as Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Volleyball: Last year's group of six freshmen set a high standard for future underclassmen at the volleyball team's annual holiday dinner, held at the home of head coach Joe Sagula. "The biggest part of our party is that the freshmen have to perform 'The 12 Days of Christmas' for the rest of the team," Sagula said. "Last year's group did a great job. They even added some words to the song to relate it to some of the things the team did. They had six, so it was easier for them, and it helped that they weren't shy at all. This year's group may have a little more of a challenge, because they're a little more shy."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
