University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: One Day In Poplar Bluff
November 28, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 28, 2007
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The following story originally ran in the November 2007 issue of the magazine.
By Adam Lucas
Tyler Hansbrough has run afoul of the law.
That's the way it looks as the police officer approaches. Hansbrough wasn't trying to violate the law of Poplar Bluff. He was just trying to show some guests around his high school. But these are different times, and random guests to public school property aren't always appreciated in the year 2007.
So as Hansbrough walks out of the Poplar Bluff High School gymnasium, where he led the Mules to back-to-back state championships, a police officer approaches from down the sidewalk. As he draws closer, he speaks into a walkie-talkie.
"Hey, guys," says Officer Snow when he's close enough to speak.
"I just wanted to show them the gym," Hansbrough says. "We just walked around in there. We saw the locker room. Now we're going to leave. Uh, is that OK?"
Officer Snow is incredulous. You are afraid, for just a split second, that Hansbrough's next uniform may have prison stripes instead of Alexander Julian argyle. Officer Snow does not appear to be much of a jokester.
That's when he breaks into a wide smile. "Is it OK?" he asks with a grin. "Um, yeah! Of course it's OK."
He is almost apologetic.
"We got a call that some guys were walking around campus," he says. "Obviously, they didn't know who you were. You guys go wherever you need to go. Sorry about that."
He pauses, and for just a moment it looks like Officer Snow is considering asking for an autograph. But he resists and the moment passes.
This is life as Tyler Hansbrough in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. In this town, the police officers apologize to you. In this town, you are larger than life.
That's not some metaphorical phrase. In Poplar Bluff, Tyler Hansbrough is literally larger than life.
Phil Childress Bail Bonds is conveniently located directly across Main Street from the Butler County Courthouse. This is what's known as targeting your customer base. Walk in one building, face the charges, have a friend or family member walk across the street and bail you out.
When they do walk across the street, it'll be easy to find the bail bondsman. Just tell them to look for the 12-foot-tall Hansbrough.
It began with a small North Carolina-themed window filled with Hansbrough items. The Tar Heel paraphernalia is just barely visible on the second floor of the office building. In a town where Tar Heel caps sell almost as quickly as Missouri Tiger caps at JDP Sports and Designs (don't worry, we'll visit there later), it is not a particularly notable display.
Until, that is, Phil Childress decides he can do better. He likes his Carolina display. But what he really needs is something bigger. Something better.
And that's how the 12-foot-high Hansbrough mural came to decorate the exterior wall of his business. In this particular mural, the basketball star is wearing a Poplar Bluff Mules jersey and that familiar jersey number-50.
In Chapel Hill, Hansbrough might be larger than life. But in Poplar Bluff, he's roughly twice life size.
There's not much that can prepare you for riding down Main Street in Poplar Bluff in a car piloted by a two-time All-ACC pick, and then suddenly noticing the driver of the car is staring back at you from the wall of a bail bonds shop. How exactly do you broach this subject?
"Um, Tyler," you say, "do you know the guy who owns that store?"
"Nah," he says, as though people paint his face on their wall every day. He does not seem particularly impressed.
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"Well, do you think we should go say hello to him?" you ask.
Hansbrough agrees and steers into a parking spot. You silently hope that there are no sneaky Associated Press reporters lurking around the corner to snap a picture of Carolina's All-American walking into a bail bondsman's office. This would not play well at the RBC Center.
What is the typical interior decoration motif for a bail bondsman? At Phil Childress Bail Bonds, it is early American Mule. There's a team picture of the state champs over there. There's a t-shirt over here. And over there, well, that's the Tyler Hansbrough shrine, complete with a Sports Illustrated cover, a game program, and a ticket stub.
There's no one sitting at the front desk. None of you have any experience--at least none that you're admitting--with how to get service when you need bail. Do you ring a bell? Clear your throat menacingly? Take a number?
Fortunately, the question is answered quickly. One of Phil Childress's employees comes out of a back room. He sees you and asks a weary, "Can I help you?"
That's when he sees Hansbrough. His tone changes immediately.
"Tyler!" he says.
Hansbrough has a sense of humor that's drier than a Poplar Bluff summer. His delivery makes it work, because there's no hint of a smile until you're already wondering if he's joking or not.
"I'm here for my sign," he deadpans. He gives a nod towards the wall that has his likeness on the other side. He appears ready to load it into his truck and move onto his next errand, perhaps scaling a mountain to meet with Zeus.
Fortunately, that same sense of humor seems to be commonplace here in Poplar Bluff. There is a beat of silence and then hearty laughter.
"Hold on just a second," the man tells Tyler. "Phil isn't going to believe this." He punches seven numbers on the office phone and then clicks a button to enable the speakerphone. It rings twice and a man picks up.
"Hello," he barks.
"Phil, hold on just a second, I've got someone here who wants to talk to you."
Cue Tyler.
"Hey, I'm here for my sign."
Silence.
"Huh?"
"My sign."
"Huh?"
"I'm here for my sign."
"Your son? What did your son do?"
Just when you are wondering if this Laurel and Hardy routine might extend for the better part of the afternoon, Hansbrough decides it's over.
"Hey, this is Tyler Hansbrough," he says with a laugh. Childress's reaction is, well, exactly what you'd expect if Tyler Hansbrough called you on the telephone. The college junior seems to have made his day. A pleasant conversation ensues. Just before it finishes, Childress slides in, "Hey, I could really use a Carolina jersey for the office. Do you think you can get me one?"
It is asked as though Hansbrough wears one and then discards it after every game. In reality, just in case you were also thinking about asking him for a jersey, he doesn't get to keep them. They're state property, and the Tar Heels have just two road sets and two home sets for each season. There aren't enough to go around to cover all the bail bondsmen in Poplar Bluff.
Just before you leave, Hansbrough is summoned to a display case housing an impressive display of Tyler-related mementos. A 4-by-6 color picture is highlighted.
"Does that look familiar?" Hansbrough is asked.
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It should. It's a picture of someone standing inside his locker at the Smith Center giving a thumbs-up sign. As it turns out, the "someone" in the picture is Phil Childress, who journeyed to Chapel Hill for a game and wrangled a tour of the facility. On that tour, he decided to have his picture made while standing inside a locker.
After he leaves, Hansbrough seems surprisingly nonplussed about the entire experience. Stranger with a 12-foot-high likeness of him on the wall? Check. Request for a jersey? Check. Photograph of stranger standing inside Hansbrough's personal space while simultaneously looking delighted? Check.
Here's the thing about Poplar Bluff: it's not as small as you think. It's definitely flat. Very flat. But it's not that small. It has a Wal-Mart and it has three McDonald's (one of which is inside the Wal-Mart, but Hansbrough says it counts so, well, it counts). The way it's sometimes been described in the press, you expect a dusty main road with horses attached to hitching posts and a saloon with swinging doors.
It's not like that. The 2000 census pinned the population at 16,651, slightly more than Clemmons and slightly less than Carrboro.
But here's the fundamental difference: most towns in North Carolina with a similar population are very close to a bigger town. Clemmons is 11 miles from Winston-Salem. Carrboro is adjacent to Chapel Hill.
But if you live in Poplar Bluff, you go to Poplar Bluff High School. You might even have some of the same teachers your parents had. There is no mall. There is no Friday night hang-out spot. There is just a town and the team it loves, and during Hansbrough's high school career, arriving two hours early for games sometimes wasn't enough to secure a seat in the non-air conditioned gym.
Hansbrough walks into Hayden's Drive-In (famous for their lemonade, which is available by the gallon), a barbecue joint on Maud Street, for lunch later that same day. As soon as he crosses the foundation, the entire restaurant notices. "That's Tyler Hansbrough," a waitress mutters to another waitress in that don't-let-him-know-we-know-it's-him conspiratorial tone. Cell phones suddenly come out of pockets and numbers are dialed. One conversation begins simply with, "He's here."
When that story is relayed to Bobby Frasor a few days later, he just laughs. "Hey, that's not that much different than when Tyler walks in somewhere in Chapel Hill."
That's true. But it's different in Chapel Hill. Here, he gets that kind of reaction largely based on awe. He's that superhuman basketball player we see 20 times per season at the Smith Center. We cheer for him. We get our picture taken with him. But we know he is not one of us. Basketball players are different here.
In Poplar Bluff, Hansbrough gets a reaction wherever he goes because of pride. He is one of them. They can keep track of him via ESPN, sure, but they're just as likely to bump into his father on Main Street. "How's ol' Tyler doin'?" they might ask, and then they'd go grab a barbecue plate at Hayden's.
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Back in that restaurant, Hansbrough is crushing a pair of barbecue plates (he orders two at a time, just like you would expect) when a stranger approaches. The man is on his way to the cash register to pay his bill, but he can't resist walking behind Hansbrough and patting him on the back.
"You sure are making us proud here in the Bluff, man," he says, and he is past the table before Hansbrough can even say, "Thanks."
Just then, the waitress reappears.
"Tyler, how long you back in town for?" she says.
Has he ever really left?
This is the kind of town where you grow up proclaiming you'll move away as soon as you can and then, when you have the choice of where to live, find yourself putting down roots. On this summer day, the time/temperature readout outside First Midwest Bank proclaims that it is 110 degrees. Sitting at a red light, Hansbrough marvels at the heat. The next time the temperature appears, it has gone down to 109.
"Aw man, it got colder," he says.
Hansbrough says he doesn't know if he'll live here when his basketball career is over, says that he could even see himself living in Chapel Hill. But the foundation here is strong. As he drives down 8th Street, he spots Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
"That's where I went to preschool through fourth grade," he says. "I tore up that playground."
He and his brothers, Ben and Greg, also tore up the Hansbrough family home. Three houses on the Autumn Road cul-de-sac sport Tar Heel flags on their front porch. "Are they family too?" he is asked.
"Nope, just neighbors," he says.
All of them have matching Mississippi State Bulldog flags. That's where his brother, Ben (whose number-23 jersey is also retired at Poplar Bluff High), plays guard. It's just a five-hour drive from here, down through Memphis and on past Tupelo. Starkville is considerably closer than Chapel Hill, which is a 12-hour drive. Despite the distance, it's a drive Tyler Hansbrough has occasionally made. He is not a confident flier; last season, he rode home on the team bus rather than take what promised to be a rocky charter flight from Atlanta to Raleigh-Durham Airport. When the plane finally landed--with Hansbrough sound asleep on a bus somewhere driving through South Carolina--Roy Williams proclaimed, "Tyler Hansbrough is the smartest one of all of us."
Outside his longtime family home, three flags fly. One for North Carolina, one for Mississippi State, and one for Missouri, where brother Greg attends and serves as a student assistant for the track team.
Three boys within five years of each other in age. Yes, this house has seen some very physical games of basketball.
"We've had to replace four rims," Tyler says, gesturing at the outdoor court. The current edition is already leaning precariously. As he walks around the family's basement weight room, a visitor points to a Michael Jordan poster.
"Yeah, that's important," Hansbrough says.
Why?
"Because it's covering this huge hole in the wall."
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He peels back a corner of the poster and he's exactly right--there's a roughly head-sized hole in the wall. How did it happen?
"Mmm, not sure," he says. "Not sure about that one. Probably someone got thrown through the wall."
Probably.
Around here, if someone doesn't know a good Hansbrough story, they know someone who does. John David Pattillo coached all three Hansbrough brothers at Poplar Bluff High and now owns JDP Sports and Designs. His wife, Kathy, used to occasionally babysit the three brothers.
"I never got paid enough," she says with a wink.
"I really had to keep a close eye on Ben," she says. "He was the youngest and when he was learning to walk, he would just start to stand up and then Greg and Tyler would shove him down. I'd have to explain how a kid who was just learning to walk could have a gashed head. That's probably why Ben is so tough today.
"I also lifeguarded at the subdivision's pool. Greg and Tyler and Ben would come walking down the hill and people would see them and you'd hear a collective, `Oohhhhh.' Then everyone would leave."
The room fills with laughter, except for Hansbrough. He smiles just a little, but he doesn't dispute the story.
"Oh, they'll tell you they were ornery," John David Pattillo says. He says "were" ornery, but all three Hansbrough boys would probably tell you they take pride in still being ornery. They're not terrorizing neighborhood swimming pools anymore, but they're also unlikely to back down from anything--whether it's a friendly game of ping-pong or a wayward Duke Blue Devil elbow.
Right now, Tyler Hansbrough is back behind the wheel of his car, approaching a light that went to yellow two seconds ago and is already flashing towards red. He still has roughly 50 feet before he would have to stop. He presses the gas and says, "I think we can make this light."
Then he looks back, just to see your reaction (for the record, your reaction is to wince and double-check your seat belt). Then he busts into a big laugh and glides to a stop well in front of the red light. To ride in his car, tough is a requirement.
The tour is over and Hansbrough is steering his car back towards Main Street. As he pulls out of the Poplar Bluff High parking lot, he has to pass by one last security check station. A guard rises from her seat and approaches the car. She makes a motion for him to roll down his window.
"Uh-oh," Hansbrough says. "I think they're going to stop us."
"Young man, I am offended," the guard says. She sounds serious. Don't they know we have already escaped arrest at one spot and seen his picture on the wall of a bail bondsman's office at another spot? In Poplar Bluff, we are above the law. But now it looks like the fun will end at the hands of a school security guard.
"I'm offended because you didn't stop and say hello on the way in!" she says with a warm smile and a pat on Hansbrough's left arm. "How've you been doing, Tyler?"
The two carry on a short conversation that ends with the guard saying, "You can stop by here anytime, you know that."
As the car pulls away, you ask Hansbrough if he knows the guard.
"Not personally," he says.
"But it's a really friendly town."
Adam Lucas most recently collaborated on a behind-the-scenes look at Carolina Basketball with Wes Miller. The Road To Blue Heaven is available now. Lucas's other books on Carolina basketball include The Best Game Ever, which chronicles the 1957 national championship season, Going Home Again, which focuses on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.
