University of North Carolina Athletics
All Together Now
August 25, 2010 | Football
Aug. 25, 2010
By Helen Buchanan
Let's face it: August has been a rough month. The heat is getting to everyone, we all hate having to give up the vacation mindset that summer beckons to each of us and then of course there's the start of football. There's the anxiousness of getting the season underway, the preparations fans make months in advance for the day-long affair of attending and watching a game, and in our case there's the pending NCAA review of Carolina's athletic program which has many wondering what's next.
When classes started Tuesday in Chapel Hill, it could have been easy for the Tar Heels to get wrapped up in personal to-do lists and handling the stresses of a new semester. After all, our student-athletes are students first.
Add in that the football team is nearing the end of a fatiguing training camp, it could be easy to fall into a comforting attitude tagged with the notion of "look what I accomplished, I made it through those blistering North Carolina afternoons and now I deserve a bit of a break."
But this team seems to struggle with the word "I" as well as taking a break. Sure in one-on-one talks with the players the pronoun naturally drifts into conversation, but it is almost immediately followed by something in the mentality of "we" and the need to strive for more.
We are working hard, they say. We have goals we haven't reached yet, they repeat. We're putting it all out there for us as a team, they pronounce. The collective pronoun echoes through the football center and the empty bowl of Kenan Stadium, even over the sound of construction in the Blue Zone - and there's a nice ring to it.
Having the "we" is so important to any team, but Carolina's football program is sticking to that unity in such an admirable way it absolutely must be noted, particularly for a program that has been deemed as on the rise or one to watch. The evidence is certainly there for the highly touted predictions: preseason AP poll and USA Today Coaches poll rankings of 18th, 39 returning letter winners, a conference-high 21 returning starters and 10 players on 12 award watch lists with several overlapping while the list grows weekly.
Carrying those burdens details a pressure to succeed that the football program is putting on itself. But it is also shows just how hard the collective "we" worked to get to the point where sports junkies would talk about Carolina football in a manner that required such an attitude.
"It shows the level of intensity that we have to have, that we have to bring to the game as well as the work ethic," Deunta Williams says, "I think that most people see [those predictions], read them on the Internet or see them on TV and they don't really understand how much work it took to get through that process."
Going through this process could be the make or break difference a strong Carolina football program needs. To have these award nominations and potentially competitive opponents means something is noticeable about this team, for the current players careers after college as well as future Tar Heels.
"For recruits, to say `he's up for this award and he's up for that award,'" Williams goes on, "They might think `well, if I go there maybe I will be up for that award too.'"
Also, as Robert Quinn described as "a light in everyone's eye," the clout is making the team push harder to earn more acknowledgment in addition to backing it up come game time. Bruce Carter added, "To have it now shows that everyone is recognizing our talent and that's always good. But the ultimate goal is still the team's goal." Again, the team's "we" mentality.
So many of you in Tar Heel nation have been asking what's the current state of mind of this team heading into one of the biggest games the program has opened with in years? You're thinking how will a season that was promoted to have such redeeming promise unfold while the specter of the NCAA looms in the background? You propose to fellow fans, what will make this team different?
Of course there are no guarantees in the outcome for the football program or the season, but this sense of selflessness, the unified "we," among the Carolina football players can be promised. And as far as the mentality of the team goes? Perhaps that willingness to stick together through whatever adversity, or fun, may just be the answer we're all looking for.
Helen Buchanan is a contributor to Tar Heel Monthly magazine.
