University of North Carolina Athletics
Dual Projects Go Inside 2005 Title
May 27, 2005 | Men's Basketball
May 27, 2005
To order your copy of the behind-the-scenes DVD or book, visit the TarHeelBlue.com Network Store.
By Adam Lucas
Ken Cleary was wearing a media credential and standing outside the Tar Heel locker room after North Carolina's win over Connecticut on Feb. 13 when assistant coach Joe Holladay stopped him.
That's not unusual for members of the media. They're used to boundaries being laid down, used to being told where they can and can't go. But Cleary's role with the media wasn't ordinary, and neither was what Holladay said next.
"Did you get everything you needed in there?" the assistant coach asked, gesturing toward the locker room. "You should be where you want to be. Nobody is going to stop you."
That's the kind of access granted to Cleary, a producer who is extensively involved with Carolina's video production work. He spent the entire season chronicling every move of the 2004-05 Tar Heels for a year-in-review DVD that turned out to be the inside story of a championship season. On Carolina's team plane, Cleary was there. At shootarounds, Cleary was there. In the locker room after games, Cleary was there.
"We had always done highlight tape projects through Tar Heel Sports Marketing," Cleary says. "So the format already existed, and in talking with other schools we realized a lot of schools had been doing even more with that format. We took that idea and talked about it last summer and thought about ways we could utilize our assets to make it even more comprehensive."
To be truly comprehensive, though, fans will need the complete set of championship review products: the DVD (entitled "Team Carolina") and a year-in-review book, Led By Their Dreams, that went into production immediately after the championship win over Illinois. The book, which will be produced in a coffee table-book style, features hundreds of images from the 2004-05 season and text from Carolina insiders Adam Lucas, Steve Kirschner, and Matt Bowers.
Highlights of the book, entitled "Led By Their Dreams: Carolina's journey to the 2005 championship" include a foreword by Dean Smith and first-person accounts of key moments in the season from every member of the Carolina roster, including head coach Roy Williams.
Every copy of the book will be shipped with a CD containing the radio broadcast (featuring Woody Durham and Mick Mixon) of the national championship victory over Illinois.
"We are extremely excited about how comprehensive the DVD and the book will be," associate athletic director Norwood Teague said.
Both projects will make use of extensive interviews conducted with every player and coach on the roster in the weeks immediately following the championship victory. The sessions turned up a large batch of significant previously untold stories about the title, and with "One Shining Moment" still ringing in their ears, the Tar Heels seemed to enjoy reminiscing about their magical run to the championship.
Cleary was present for almost every moment during that odyssey.
"I was just the fly on the wall for the whole season," he said. "My intention was to be around so much that people eventually said, `Oh, that's just that guy. He's always around.' And towards the end of the year it did reach the point that the guys just expected me to be there."
That led to some quality footage, including the post-Illinois team meeting in the locker room that included Dean Smith and Michael Jordan, a variety of raucous celebration shots, and even a glimpse of the team participating in a Tar Heel tradition by spitting in the Mississippi River before the Final Four.
For Cleary, however, his favorite moment came much earlier.
"The catamaran trip in Hawaii was probably my favorite," he said. "It was a combination of everything. First, it's probably the most beautiful spot on earth. The team, a group that had always had to deal with a lot of expectations but hadn't won much yet, had just won a championship. They'd won and were relaxed and it turned into a lot of fun."
It also turned into a scary experience for David Noel, something DVD viewers will discover when they check out the footage of Noel escaping the vicious Maui fish.
The final seconds of the Illinois game only marked the beginning of the DVD's production. Eric Montross signed on to host the project, and Cleary had to cut roughly 150 hours of footage down to about two hours. In addition to the Season in Review feature, which will last about an hour, the DVD will also include a variety of special extra features, including a retrospective on the careers of Jawad Williams, Jackie Manuel, and Melvin Scott, outtakes from this season, David Noel picking his top 5 and bottom 5 moments of the year, and much more.
The DVD is scheduled to ship in late June and the book will ship in late August. To preorder the DVD, visit the TarHeelBlue.com DVD store. To preorder the book and ensure that you receive a copy as soon as they finish being printed, click here.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
