University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Tar Heels Check List Twice
December 10, 2008 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Dec. 10, 2008
By Adam Lucas
First, a warning in the spirit of holiday goodwill: the conclusion to this story contains a pun so bad, so corny, so...Bobby Frasor-ish, that it could turn Santa into a Grinch. You have been warned. Proceed with caution.
The Tar Heel hoopsters made their annual holiday pilgrimage to Target on Tuesday afternoon, taking some of the funds raised from the sale of autographed basketballs and spending almost $3,000 for needy families in the Chapel Hill-Durham area. The process, which is used department-wide as part of the Carolina Share Your Christmas program, is fairly simple: each player received the names, ages, and Christmas wish list of a family in need.
The assignment was to spend $50 per gift recipient. Most players had at least three people to shop for, so the totals added up quickly. Some Tar Heels--Tyler Hansbrough, J.B. Tanner, Jack Wooten, and Larry Drew II among them--brought along female assistance. Others ventured out into the great wide aisles alone. This tended to lead to somewhat questionable pairings, as Wayne Ellington ended up wandering around Target with assistant coach Joe Holladay, whose reputation as a shopper is dubious.
The event got off to a shaky start when one star-struck youngster finally worked up the courage to approach Frasor. He tapped the side of Frasor's cart. "Hey," the kid said. "Hey," the creative Frasor replied. With the type of awe in his eyes that can only be created by meeting a true hero, the child asked, "Are you Tyler Hansbrough?"
Across the aisle, Wooten had secured perhaps the prize item of the afternoon by locating the last SpongeBob Square Pants remote control car on the shelf, narrowly beating out Drew for the item that was on both of their lists.
And no, they weren't shopping for Ty Lawson.
With a veteran team that has completed the shopping trip every year of their college careers, many made savvy choices. Deon Thompson was charmed by a Dora bowling set, but eventually decided that at $40, it was too pricey for his needs. After intense negotiation, Thompson and Ellington later worked a swap that enabled the Ellington/Holladay tandem to purchase a bicycle that otherwise would have exceeded the $50 per-person limit.
Although freshmen usually struggle with the assignment, Richmond native Ed Davis was a surprise standout, earning an, "Ed, I'm impressed with your quantity and quality," from Jerod Haase. Davis was so meticulous that he even selected back-up items--subbing in a Spider-Man figurine for a Spider-Man backpack, for example--that enabled him to make changes to his shopping cart on the fly when he neared his limit.
"I'm on a strict budget," Davis said. "I've got to make smart choices."
As usual, the most drama of the day surrounded the heated competition held by the players to determine who could come the closest to the $50 per person limit. Two players who shall remain nameless--OK, it was Drew and Justin Watts--went back a second time to try and get closer to the total and were relegated to the "Cheated and went back a second time" division by official scorekeeper and head manager Brandon Rhodes.
Wooten, despite writing a running total of his purchases on his arm, finished a disappointing 16th. The winner, using all of his senior shopping experience, was Danny Green, who missed his goal by a mere $0.15.
Of course, Green also purchased a skateboard without buying a helmet or knee pads, which earned him some ribbing from his teammates.
"Hey," Green said, "that's how you learn. That's how you get better, knowing you don't have those pads there."
As he watched his teammates check out, Green reflected on four years of shopping. "It's a feeling of satisfaction knowing there are people out there who are going to have a good Christmas," he said, pointing at the over 20 shopping carts full of items. "I know what it's like as a kid to open a present on Christmas morning and get something you really want, and hopefully some of these kids will have that experience."
Some of those kids, in fact, will be opening identical Schwinn rollerblades. That's what Frasor and Marc Campbell were comparing as they waited in the checkout line, as each selected the $25 item.
Leave it to Frasor to sum up his shopping--and the entire afternoon of good cheer.
"Really," he said, looking over at Campbell's identical rollerblades, "this is a Schwinn-Schwinn situation."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
