University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Being Part of It
February 8, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 8, 2006
By Adam Lucas
Sean May makes almost $2,000,000 per season playing the game of basketball. He has a new car, the latest cell phone, and is the face of a professional franchise in a city that loves him.
It is his first year in a league that requires an energy-sapping 82 games per year. He is injured, will not play the rest of the season. He has an off night sandwiched between two Bobcat home games.
He could go home. He could go to the club. He could stay in Charlotte and wait for the inevitable adulation that comes with being an NBA player.
He chose to do none of those things. He chose to do the same thing you chose to do, the same thing I chose to do, the same thing Raymond Felton chose to do, the same thing Jackie Manuel and Eric Montross and Brian Reese and Pete Brennan and King Rice chose to do.
He chose to be a part of it.
There is no further description needed of what, exactly, he was a part of. The game. You understand.
Everyone else understands, too. Across the college basketball world, in places like College Park and Winston-Salem and Raleigh and Lawrence and Lexington and every point beyond where they've got a 19 foot, 9 inch three-point line, Tuesday night was about being a part of it. It was about shoving everything else aside and spending two hours wondering what will happen next. It is a mark of the highest praise when your peers will stop everything to watch you perform.
That is Carolina-Duke.
Everyone else watches. We get to live it. They watch because it is always like this. It is always one team down by 17 coming back to take the lead. It is always one team down by five with seconds to play and somehow getting a chance to tie. It is buzzer-beaters and comebacks and it is good. All the time.
Outsiders envy it. Insiders--and that includes you, because you care enough to exult when Reyshawn Terry hit that 3-pointer and enough to scream "Guard him!" when J.J. Redick launched another shot and enough to stand and applaud as the home team left the floor for the last time--revel in it.
Normal college basketball is not like this. Sometimes we forget that. Not everyone gets to do this. As bad as it hurts, there will come a time down the road (or in the past, like when Marvin Williams sinks one of the most memorable 3-point plays ever) when it feels exactly that good.
"It's the same 94 feet in the NBA, the same basketball, the same two hoops," May said after Duke's 87-83 victory. "But you can't replicate this. This is college basketball. It's pure. There are so many games in the NBA and the talent level is so high that guys can take nights off. There are no nights off with this. You can't replicate this. There is nothing like it."
As he said "replicate this," May waved his hand in the direction of the Smith Center court. He wasn't waving at anything particular. All the fans were gone, the players were in the locker room. But "this" was still there.
"This" is Mike Copeland growing up watching Carolina-Duke games with his grandmother, Bertha. There was a rule, the same rule you might have at your house: no noise while the Tar Heels are on television. It was serious business.
And suddenly he was out there. No warning. Just the five starters in the second half looking a little lethargic and Roy Williams turning to his bench and ordering five fresh players into the game. How many fans that grew up on Carolina-Duke get to play in one of these?
The great part was that Mike Copeland did exactly what you would do or what I would do. He was so excited, the 94 feet could barely contain him. He was drawing fouls and rebounding and trying to dunk and generally looking like he was having the most fun night of his life.
Oh, and he was doing something else: he was getting his team back into the game. The five subs came into the game with a 17-point deficit. They trimmed six points off the Duke lead before exiting to a well-deserved hand about three minutes later.
"This" is Danny Green slumping in a tan leather chair in the Carolina players' lounge. Carolina's final potentially game-tying play fell apart and Green blamed himself. He lofted a two-pointer when a three was what Carolina really needed.
"I wasn't expecting to get the ball," he said. "And when I did I kind of froze up. My natural instinct was, `Go.' I wasn't even thinking about a three-pointer. I'll learn from my mistakes."
What he found out within 30 minutes of his mistake was that he wasn't alone. King Rice leaned down and looked him dead in the eye.
"Everybody goes through this," the former Tar Heel point guard told him. "Everybody makes a mistake. You have to keep your head up. You will get plenty of chances to win games on possessions just like that one. You will make the next one."
Raymond Felton waited almost 20 minutes to talk to Green while reporters asked the freshman question after question. 363 days ago it was Felton answering those questions, trying to explain why his Tar Heels couldn't even get a shot off in a potentially game-tying situation against these same Duke Blue Devils. He understood.
Reporters continued to surround Green. So Felton grabbed an index card and a pen. He wrote his cell phone number on the index card and handed it to Green with a nod. In addition to the digits, the paper had just two words: "Call me."
"It's such an elite fraternity," Marcus Ginyard said as he surveyed the alums crowding the players' lounge just to provide an encouraging word. "It's the most elite fraternity there is. To see these guys here supporting us, it means so much."
Marvin Williams's Atlanta Hawks had a shootaround this morning in advance of their game against Detroit. When it was over, he called UNC manager David Hoots in Chapel Hill.
"Man, I'd run 12 33's to be out there tonight," Williams said.
A 33 is one of the most despised conditioning tests in Roy Williams's arsenal. Marvin Williams was willing to do a dozen of them just to get the chance to play in one more of these games.
That's why May's Sidekick kept bleating. The text messages were coming in faster than he could type--this one from Vince Carter, that one from Rasheed Wallace, this one from Marvin Williams.
"Everybody that went to Carolina puts everything aside for this game," May said. "You miss coming down that tunnel. For people who don't know what putting on that Carolina jersey is like, it's special. You can't describe running out of this tunnel and playing in front of 22,000 fans in an atmosphere like this. That's what you miss."
Unless you're part of it.
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.
