University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: He's Going to Make It
March 1, 2006 | Men's Basketball
March 1, 2006
The following story appears originally in the April issue of Tar Heel Monthly.
By Adam Lucas
You have to ask.
You know you do. Everybody does. Take a look at the picture--David Noel, ball in his right hand, left arm stretched out to his side, jersey flapping in the breeze--and you just have to know. Everyone else wants to know, too. Look at them in the background. The crowd is standing, eyes locked on this man with a basketball in his hand. There is assistant coach Joe Holladay, mouth slightly agape. There is Roy Williams. There is the crowd, which has assembled at the Smith Center to pay homage to Williams in his first Carolina Late Night in 2003.
At the moment this image was captured, no one is looking at Roy Williams. They are looking at David Noel. And they are all wondering the same thing you're wondering right now:
Did he make it?
It looks improbable. He is so far from the basket. Can a man fly that far?
Noel's sister, Sherricka Stanley, just laughs. She has the photo framed in her house and it is the first question everyone asks her.
"Without fail," she says, "everyone wants to know if he made it."
Every time, they follow that question with another one. The picture extends only to the foul line. There's no frame of reference--how much momentum did it take to catapult himself toward the rim in this fashion? So they ask the same thing you're wondering right now:
Where did he start?
Start here. Start with a kid growing up in a female-dominated home.
We have heard this story before, of course. Male grows up without a father figure in his life, gets into trouble, blames the lack of a positive role model.
That could be David Noel's story. His father isn't around for much of his childhood and isn't around much now. Noel carries his father's name, David, but that's essentially the extent of their relationship.
"I look at him as a blessing to me," David says now. "When I look at him I thank God for the opportunity to grow and be the man I am today, and to know, in a way, how I don't want to live my life. That's what he has taught me. I don't really see him much or talk to him much, but I want to be able to take care of him one day. I won't neglect him if God blesses me with that opportunity one day."
He's not supposed to have such a mature outlook on the situation. He's supposed to be angry, supposed to run wild on the streets.
Except his mother, Sheila Noel, won't allow it.
In a seventh-grade basketball game, Noel made a mistake and was removed from the game by his coach. The coach got in his face on the sideline, yelling, cursing, generally making a spectacle. The kid didn't like it. He started crying and later complained to his mother about the exchange. Her reasoned, concerned, sympathetic response:
"What are you telling me for? That must be what you needed. That's what coaches do and you'll have to get used to it."
Sheila Noel did make it a point to talk to the coach, however. This is what she told him: "If you need to get on my son, get on him. I'll back you up."
Now do you understand why, during all the turmoil of his freshman season, you never heard David Noel commenting on the Carolina coaching situation? Never heard him complain about rough treatment?
That's not to say he didn't have his problems with Matt Doherty. One afternoon early in the season, he and the head coach had a heated exchange at practice. Noel went back to his room and did what he frequently does--called Sherricka. Noel was a highly touted football player who was trying to earn a reputation as a basketball player, and he was doubting his decision. Right at that moment, football seemed easy and basketball seemed hard. Maybe he should go back to the gridiron.
"David," his sister said, "I want you to hear me out. When you get on the basketball court, when you lace up your shoes and go out on the hardwood, do you love the game?"
He tried to interrupt her.
"Don't answer me right now," she said. "I want you to think about it."
A few minutes later, he had the answer: "I love the game."
"Then you stay with it," she told him. "And you need to apologize to Coach Doherty, because it sounds like you were disrespectful. We weren't brought up that way. You don't disrespect authority."
Maybe it is partly David Noel's fault. After all, he is the one with the "Heaven Sent" tattoo that refers to his amazing physical gifts. He has a version of the same phrase on his license plate.
So maybe it is just that easy. Maybe he is just, well, blessed. Maybe that's the source of the production we see on the court. Maybe that's why he can run fast and jump high and outmuscle most anyone under the basket.
We don't see the late-night shooting sessions that have increased his 3-point shooting percentage from 16.7 percent as a sophomore to 41.2 percent this season. We don't see the work in the weight room. We don't see the commitment to doing the little things that results in him receiving the coaches' screener award in the majority of games this season.
It almost always happens this way for David Noel: in a game when he picked off two key steals and ignited one of the three biggest comebacks in the history of the Smith Center...it just happened that Tyler Hansbrough scored 40 points, knocking the senior out of most of the next day's game stories.
So it is easy to take Noel for granted. At the beginning of this season, he was the face of Tar Heel basketball. But as the freshmen began to make more contributions, as Reyshawn Terry began to assert himself, the intensity of the spotlight waned. It's not that Noel stepped back; it's that he was joined at the forefront by several other players. Meanwhile, he continues to operate as one of the most versatile players--find another Tar Heel who could have successfully guarded Eric Williams and Julius Hodge in the same career--in recent memory.
But he almost didn't make it to Chapel Hill. At least, not for basketball. If former Doherty assistant Fred Quartlebaum hadn't gone to Southern Durham High to scout post player Anthony King, he never would've seen Noel. But on that particular night, Southern coach Levi Beckwith happened to pull Quartlebaum aside. "I've got another kid you should watch," he told him.
And on that night, Noel just happened to get a triple-double.
Heaven sent, you see.
So that's why Doherty goes back to the team hotel after his Carolina team upsets Maryland in the 2003 ACC Tournament quarterfinals and can only shake his head.
"Where would we be without David Noel?" he says of the player he allowed to walk on with the promise of a scholarship after one season.
Raymond Felton wonders the same thing. He meets Noel for the first time during summer school before their freshman seasons. Within a week of playing in nightly pickup games, Felton is on the phone to his best friend from Latta, Jermichael Wright.
"We've got a dude up here who isn't on scholarship," Felton told Wright. "I don't know why he isn't, though. He's dunking all over Sean."
The "Sean" in question, of course, was future Final Four Most Outstanding Player Sean May.
Felton and Noel become almost inseparable. They are constant video game opponents and constant dinner partners. The connection is easy to see: they were brought up the same way and have similar influences. In the turmoil of one of the rockiest Carolina basketball seasons ever, they steady each other. Many times, they don't even have to speak to know what the other is thinking.
So Felton knows what his buddy is thinking when Doherty resigns. Some players are happy with the move. Noel knows only that the man who promised him a scholarship is gone. The man who played a voice mail message from Kenny Smith encouraging Noel to show his complete game--a call the player credits with turning around his freshman season--is gone. The man who believed in him is gone.
Noel is just starting to feel like he belongs as a basketball player. He has finally shaken the "football guy" tag. And now he will start over.
He won't say it out loud, of course. David Noel is someone who changes his voice mail message weekly to reflect a different character that he's playing that week. He's been a preacher, he's been Snagglepuss, he's been Forrest Gump. The current message comes with a Jamaican accent:
"You've reached the voice mail of David Noel. He's not in town right now. He's busy trying out for the Jamaican bobsled team."
That is Noel the entertainer. That's who you see in those Late Night skits. That's what makes you think he must have unshakeable confidence. He thinks he buries all that self-doubt below the surface, but some people--those who know him best--see it.
Raymond Felton sees it. He knows Noel's concerns about the new coach without having to be told. The point guard isn't especially concerned for himself about the coaching change. He knows he is essential to any new coach, knows his minutes will be bountiful no matter what. His friend's situation is not as comfortable.
So when Roy Williams asks for questions at the first team meeting of his new regime, Felton speaks up first. He doesn't ask about shots or styles of play or minutes. He asks this:
"Is David going to get his scholarship?"
He gets it, of course. Then he sets about proving why he deserves it. He enters preseason practice at a sculpted 238 pounds and dominates the backboards. He hears Roy Williams say, "This kid could start for me."
Then he gets hurt. He catches his thumb on Reyshawn Terry's practice jersey, a freak injury. After the injury, his sophomore season is never quite the same. He spends most of his time in the post, fighting a thankless battle against bigger, stronger players, and ends the season on the bench in tears as his teammates finish out a loss to Texas.
Maybe, he allows himself to think, he's not going to make it. But he has a new support group: Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. It's unusual for a major college basketball player to make the time commitment to a fraternity. For Noel, though, it's as natural as going to class or attending practice.
"Pledging was something I'd always wanted to do," he says. "I felt like I really became a man at that point. There was a lot of stuff in my life that I needed that they helped me get. It gave me that bond of brotherhood. It gave me guys to have fellowship with. I felt like I needed that other aspect of a social life."
He didn't pick Kappa by chance. His sister's husband, Chris Stanley, is a Kappa. In many ways, Stanley filled a dual father/brother role in Noel's life. The father-son dynamic is intricate. Kids grow up knowing one thing: they want to be like daddy.
Noel didn't have that relationship. He didn't have anyone to emulate, which is why so many kids with absent fathers end up casting about without direction. But Noel has Chris. He sees the way he treated his sister, sees the way he would eventually treat Noel's newborn nephew, Christopher. That is the kind of man he wants to be. They develop a close friendship--Chris begins calling him "Super Dave" in high school, a tag eventually shortened to just "Supe'" today. The pair talks about everything, including Stanley's involvement in the fraternity.
"When you see the Kappa symbol anywhere in the world, you know you've got a brother," Stanley told Noel.
That's the brotherhood Noel seeks. Stanley had been number-8 on his fraternity line. As it turned out, Noel was also number-8 on his fraternity line.
Heaven sent.
After the championship, it felt right. After he'd turned the Tar Heels into a bunch of singing performers--you remember, "Don't even worry/We're gonna make it"--after he'd teamed with Jackie Manuel to create one of the most effective defensive duos in Carolina history, after he'd climbed the Edward Jones Dome podium, it felt right.
That's when David Noel stood next to Roy Williams and watched himself dunk during the video board showing of "One Shining Moment." Both men exploded in broad smiles, Noel holding his arms out as if to hug the moment.
"It wasn't until that moment that I really understood," he says. "That's when I knew why I had picked basketball over football. There are always those lingering doubts when you make a big decision like that. You always live with your what-ifs. Winning the championship, though, that made me understand why everything had happened the way it happened."
Soon, though, he would be alone. Three teammates lost to graduation; four to the NBA. The departures of May and Felton hit him especially hard. Felton and Noel were the well-known buddies, but it was May who would barge into their apartment without knocking and provide some comic relief.
Without them, this year has been challenging. He went through a rocky stretch in mid-January when, he now admits, his future was weighing heavily on him. He wasn't having a spectacular, All-America type senior year. His team wasn't winning as much as they had in the past. He'd made this choice to play basketball and now didn't know if the game would still want him after this season.
"A lot of things fell on me at one time," he says. "But it made me realize I'd been trying to lead this team in a cocoon. It brought me out of that cocoon and made me a butterfly. It opened my eyes to a new experience of being down and out, because I'd never been through a stretch like that. I was at my weakest."
As he tells you this, he's getting ready for another practice. They once seemed so routine and now they seem precious. He knows exactly how many are left in the regular season, knows that although it once seemed like Carolina basketball would last forever for him, now he's just days away from being another former player sitting behind the bench rather than on it.
Before he grabs a basketball, he leans over to tie his shoes. On this day, he's not wearing his game shoes. On this day, he's wearing the Air Zoom Huarache 2K5's that he usually wears only in practice. The strap that goes around the ankle of the shoe is fully customizable. Marcus Ginyard has a pair that read, "Ginyard." Wes Miller has a pair that read, "UNC."
Noel ties his right shoe, then his left. Then he fastens the ankle strap. And there, in Carolina blue writing on a navy background, is the answer. He hasn't inscribed his name on his shoe, hasn't picked a favorite rapper or a girlfriend.
David Noel's shoes say it all.
"Make it."
All ticket-holding fans for tonight's game should be aware of tonight's senior day festivities in order to make sure they arrive early and plan to stay late.
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.
