University of North Carolina Athletics
Countdown to Camp: Hard Work Rewarded
July 21, 2005 | Football
July 21, 2005
Welcome to the sixth installment of TarHeelBlue.com's "Countdown to Camp" series. Every Thursday between now and the opening of training camp (which opens August 11), we'll have a fresh story on the football Tar Heels. If there's an aspect of the team or player you want to see highlighted, just drop us an email.
Previous Countdown to Camp stories:
By Adam Lucas
At summer football camps, it's usually high school players who come away with scholarship offers.
This past weekend, it was a rising college senior.
Carolina tight end Justin Phillips is spending part of his summer working with Gatorade. In that capacity, he was working with one of Carolina's team managers this weekend when he was summoned to the practice field--where the Tar Heels were conducting a camp for high schoolers--to meet with head coach John Bunting.
"Justin, we've got it done," Bunting said.
Phillips looked back at his coach blankly.
"We're putting you on full scholarship," the coach said.
Phillips broke into what Bunting later described as an ear-to-ear grin. One of his next orders of business was locating a telephone to call his parents. Butch and Karen Phillips are Pittsboro residents who have traveled to all Carolina's home and away games while paying for their son's last three years of college.
"I told them I had to meet them somewhere because I had something to tell them," Phillips said. "I'm pretty sure they were thinking the worst. My mom was so happy she started crying. I'm really glad to be able to help them out, because they've been paying for me to go to school these last three years."
Bunting and Phillips had first discussed the scholarship possibilities this winter, but no guarantees were made. The tight end then let the matter drop, saying he didn't want to hassle the coaching staff.
But Bunting didn't drop the issue.
"He has worked so hard for the three years he's been here and he is an outstanding kid," the head coach says. "When you have a scholarship available due to someone leaving or a medical situation, you want to reward someone who has made a big contribution to the team."
Phillips signed his scholarship papers on Monday. The grant comes with culinary benefits as well as financial--when school starts, he'll be able to eat dinner at the training table with the rest of the scholarship players, a luxury he didn't have during his walk-on days.
It's heady stuff for a player who originally came to Carolina as a quarterback. But after evaluating the competition during his first few practices--most notably, Darian Durant--he decided a position switch was in order. Under the tutelage of former tight ends coach Ken Browning, he evolved into a contributor in offensive coordinator Gary Tranquill's much-loved 12 and 22 sets (two tight ends) and caught a touchdown pass last year against Wake Forest.
He'll team with expected starter Jon Hamlett in those formations this year, and has also been working to get freshman Richard Quinn, who enrolled in January, and walk-on Rock Wells, up to speed with new tight ends coach John Gutekunst.
As for his new financial windfall, don't expect him to be handing out loans on Franklin Street any time soon.
"I haven't gotten any checks yet," Phillips says with a smile. "Get back to me in a couple months."
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Countdown to Camp: 21 Days
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Notebook: Carolina is deep at wide receiver, but there's always room for someone to emerge. John Bunting thinks that someone might be Mike Mason, who had 19 catches last year. "Mike has done some growing up this summer," Bunting says. "That will help him become a better player. His focus needs to be on the team and stop worrying about the little things with himself. He has the big play ability. We just have to get more of those plays out of him."...Offensive coordinator Gary Tranquill's practice field explosions are well known to Carolina's quarterbacks. But Matt Baker will see a slightly more mellow Tranquill this fall. "I'll turn down the heat on him a little bit," Tranquill says. "I don't want him to feel like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. I don't want to put any more undue pressure on him than what he already feels. I think it's always the case that when someone becomes the starter, you can turn it down a little bit."...
Carolina's voluntary summer workouts have become known as Winning Team Activities, or WTAs. First, the players do their weightlifting by position group in the early afternoon, which is run on a staggered schedule--skill positions first, then the "combo" group (linebackers and tight ends), and then the linemen. Then they do their conditioning on the same staggered start. The skill players finish first and then anyone who wants to participate in the WTAs hits the field for player-run 1-on-1 drills. When the combo group arrives, the players move into 7-on-7 drills and pass skeleton, and once the line arrives the squad does some brief team sessions. NCAA rules preclude any coaches from being present, so it's up to the players to regulate themselves. "We try to have some fun with it," linebacker Doug Justice says. "It's not as structured as a real practice." The lack of coaches has created a need for some players to fill that role. Justice has seen a couple good candidates. "Baker could be a good coach," he says. "And Tommy Richardson could be a good coach. He's always out there coaching some of the younger guys who don't know the different positions as well as he does. That's been great for some of the younger guys."...ACC Operation Football is this weekend in Homestead, Va., which means the media's ACC preseason predictions (including standings and All-ACC teams) will be released...
For next week's Countdown to Camp feature, we'll have an update on the true freshmen who have enrolled for the second session of summer school.
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.
