University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Getting Close
June 27, 2006 | Baseball
June 27, 2006
By Adam Lucas
OMAHA--The fun seasons end with tears.
That doesn't make sense, does it? How can it be fun if it ends with tears? Tears equal bad. Laughter equals good. That's what we're programmed to think.
There is no crying in baseball but there is crying in life. And that's why Mike Fox got a little misty when he talked about his 2006 Tar Heels.
"I'm obviously very proud of my team," the head coach said. "I had a great bunch of kids. I told them today that I'd probably cry if we won or if we lost."
Know why? Because it was a good season. Because he enjoyed this team beyond the way they swung a bat or fielded a ball or took the extra base.
He enjoyed the way Andrew Miller handled a season when he could have been forgiven for letting a hint of prima donna slip into his personality. Instead, he was right there with the rest of his teammates putting two fingers on his cap when the count reached 2-2 to try and coax a hit out of another Tar Heel bat.
They don't do that in Detroit, probably.
That is too bad.
He enjoyed the way Garrett Gore sat on the bench. It was fun watching him play, too. But like Benji Johnson last season, Gore had a way of always trying to soak in every moment on the bench. He'd check the lineup card and smile if he saw his name. Here's what was more rare--he'd smile if he didn't see his name, too.
He enjoyed watching Jonathan Hovis lead. The Gastonia native was a one-man senior class. What's going to happen next season when the Tar Heels need a big out and it's the eighth inning and there is no Hov in the bullpen?
Maybe they will find someone who can throw strikes and get outs. Finding someone to replace Hovis's leadership will be more difficult. After Monday night's excruciating 3-2 loss to Oregon State, many of the Tar Heels stayed in the dugout to watch the Beavers celebrate. Not because they especially enjoyed watching the opponents hug each other, but because they just couldn't move. They wanted to, probably. But something wouldn't let them.
And after all the gloves were thrown and t-shirts were distributed and high fives were slapped, some of the Oregon State players started making their way over to the Tar Heel dugout. Led by shortstop Darwin Barney, they wanted to exchange the traditional postgame handshakes.
Think back to how you felt at that exact moment. Like crying, maybe. Like screaming. Like turning off the TV and never watching another baseball game again ever as long as I live so help me I will never even go to a stadium again because it hurts too much to lose do you hear me?
Now imagine you had put four years of your life into that game rather than just a couple hours. Imagine you'd woken up every morning for the past four years proud to be a Carolina baseball player and tomorrow you would have to wake up and be...what? Imagine you had just stood in the dugout and watched someone else live your dream.
That's where Jonathan Hovis found himself at that moment. And who was the first Carolina representative out of the dugout? Hovis, who clapped his hands together twice and led his teammates onto the field to offer congratulations.
You can find me another pitcher. But you can't find me another player--another person--who has the will to do that.
Close to 30 minutes after the game, a group of about ten kids had gathered on the first row behind the Carolina dugout. The stands on the other side were still full of celebrating Beavers, but the crowd on the Tar Heel side had dispersed. Except for these kids. They were just old enough to know they worshipped the players on the field but not quite old enough to appreciate what a painful moment it was. So they did what all kids do: they asked for autographs.
And there was Benji Johnson sticking his head out of the dugout, signing every baseball until they all had a signature.
It was a good season. Check that--it was the best season any Carolina baseball team has ever had. That's what the record book says. Second place in the nation, 54 wins, a 9-game postseason winning streak. This team got close to an unbelievable finish.
But you can win games and not have fun. You can win games and be eager to leave the park.
The wins help, of course. But there would have been tears if this season had ended in Chapel Hill or Tuscaloosa or Columbia or Gainesville or anywhere other than Omaha. This team got close--to each other.
"We had fun together," Fox said, and you could almost see the golf outings and the ropes course and the team dinners and the parents driving cross-country to see their sons one more time passing before his eyes. "We had fun. It's a game. That's what we're supposed to do. We loved it out here. The last 14 days have been like a fairy tale."
When they retell this fairy tale, though, they'll need to make sure it has a happy ending. They'll change the errors, both mental and physical, and maybe a couple pitches here or there.
But they'll keep the tears.
Because in a way, they were their own happy ending.
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.
