University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Sacred Ground
December 20, 2007 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 20, 2007
By Adam Lucas
I always tell people that most Carolina fans could do my job.
Here are the job requirements: love the Tar Heels, follow them around the country, string a few words together after each game.
I have no doubt that Jason Pearce could do that.
You don't know Jason. Or maybe you're one of the lucky ones and you do. I didn't know him myself until last week.
Jason's basically just like you and just like me. He's a lot like me, actually, because he's just a shade younger than me, 29, and he grew up a big Carolina fan. We have the same frames of reference. He saw the same movies I saw, sang along to the same songs I did, watched the same TV shows.
He could be me and I could be him. You could be him.
We both followed the 2005 national championship team very closely. I was there in St. Louis, thrilled to be a first-hand witness to the title. Streamers fell on my head from the Edward Jones Dome rafters when it was over.
Jason was not in St. Louis. He was in perhaps the most unsatisfactory place to watch a Carolina national championship--Durham.
He was outside the Tar Heel locker room Wednesday night after the Nicholls State game looking at some enlarged photos from the Final Four.
"That was awesome," he said. I nodded my head because, well, it was awesome.
"I was doing chemo then," he said, "and I was at Duke Hospital. So I was giving all those people a hard time. I always had something Carolina blue on."
Takes you aback, doesn't it? That's a credit to Jason. You're standing there talking about the Tar Heels and his smile is lighting up the hallway, and then you remember. Jason has Ewing's sarcoma, a very rare form of cancer. Diagnosis is usually accompanied by a grim outlook; five years is the standard timeline.
Imagine if you had five years. You've got much too much to do in five years, don't you?
Jason was diagnosed five years ago. Last week, he was sent home from Duke Hospital for the last time. Doctors told him and his wife, Jami, that they should contact Hospice.
Here's the stunner: this news was greeted with near glee.
He unhooked his Carolina blue stocking with U-N-C printed at the top that had been hanging proudly on his hospital room door (got to represent around all those Blue Devils, you know). And then he got started with the rest of his life. Now he had just weeks, but he could go home and be normal. Now he could make things right. No more tubes, no more nurses walking in at 3 a.m. Just Jason and Jami, at home in Wilson, how it was supposed to be.
They decided they needed a field trip. They needed to see a Carolina basketball game in the Smith Center.
Wednesday night, that's exactly what they did. And while everyone else was grumbling about "only" a 10-point win over Nicholls State, Jason laughed and cheered and high-fived and clapped along with the fight song. He had fun. He lived.
We take it for granted. This is something we all know but rarely remember. We sigh about the 9 p.m. tipoff. We leave early to beat the traffic. We throw our tickets in the trash...hey, it's on TV.
Numerous people took a moment out of their work night to make Wednesday special. Names you know, like Roy Williams and Woody Durham and Eric Montross. And names you don't know, like Steve Kirschner and Eric Hoots. Hopefully, they gave Jason a night to remember. But he gave them something, too.
Jason wrote this about a year ago, many treatments and hospital nights ago:
"Why does God allow such things? I know it's a question people ask all the time. Am I a greedy person for thinking the way I do? Am I living life to the fullest every day now? Then I just sit there and I think some more. I start thinking about the life I have lived so far. How lucky I have been. How much I've been loved by family, and how much I've loved my family. I have had a pretty good life so far. I wonder if I have any regrets, and the answer is a quick no. I'm gonna fight this thing one more time. Maybe three times the charm. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. Who knows? All I can do is live life day to day now, and be thankful. I'll just be thankful for the great family and friends I'm blessed everyday to share my life with."
I have the feeling that over the next few days I'll frequently ask myself how it makes sense that he's a 29-year-old in such pain that he can't walk to the parking lot and I'm a 30-year-old counting the days until I ride the Santa Train at the museum with my kids. Here's the remarkable part: I don't think he wastes one second asking himself the opposite. I'm certain he could do my job. I'm equally as certain that I couldn't do his.
When the game was over and players were milling around the hallway talking to friends and family, Jason got a private tour of the locker room. He'd had pictures taken all over the building, and Jami was firing up the camera for one more shot.
He put his hand on her shoulder.
"No pictures in here," he said firmly.
She gave him a look. You know the kind. You've probably gotten it from your wife. Shut-up-honey-I-am-doing-this-and-you-are-getting-in-my-way-so-kindly-step-aside.
"No pictures," he said again. "This is sacred ground."
I don't remember what I said the first time when I walked into the locker room.
But I know I couldn't have said it any better than Jason.
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.
