University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Home Grown
January 19, 2011 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Jan. 19, 2011
By Adam Lucas
Patricia Williams did not dream of her grandson becoming a basketball player.
No, not quite--she dreamed of her grandson becoming a Carolina basketball player. Her love for the Tar Heels had been cemented by a young North Carolinian named Michael Jordan. The greatest player of all-time is responsible for the fandom of countless Tar Heel fans; count Williams among them, because she would tell her grandson endless stories about Jordan's greatness. They'd watch games together and yell at the television. "We'd go crazy," says the grandson with a grin.
That grandson, of course, is Reggie Bullock. This is the part where we tell you her tremendous importance on his basketball career, the way she loved the game and transferred that love to Bullock--as she served as the primary parental figure in his life--during his formative years. But she was doing more than that, too. She was teaching him how to live off the court, to say, "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," to shake hands and make eye contact when introducing himself. She's an important figure in his basketball career, which appears to have taken flight after he tossed in 18 points against Clemson Tuesday night in a 75-65 Carolina victory.
But she's a much more important figure in his life, and nothing illustrates that more than the way Bullock has handled the ten days since she passed away early on the morning of January 7. Moments like that, when you lose a loved one, stay with you forever. What's always been true has suddenly vanished. And that's also when you learn just what an impact those loved ones had on you. Anyone who has lost a parent knows it's such a fundamental life change that it impacts every part of your life, even the things you never thought had anything to do with your parent.
Bullock rejoined his team that same night before the game at Virginia. Want to know exactly why he'd be OK? Want to know what Patricia Williams had taught him? It was the one day of his entire life when he was entitled to think completely about himself. And when he arrived in the lobby of the team hotel in Charlottesville, he was carrying a bag of takeout from King's Barbecue in Kinston--a gift for his head coach, a noted barbecue lover.
Who does that? Well, Patricia Williams would have. And now Reggie Bullock does it. Don't get the wrong idea about Patricia. She wasn't soft. She'd tell him exactly what was on her mind, and some of those straightforward comments made him into the caliber of player who could earn a scholarship to an ACC school--to North Carolina, even. There had been flashes of exactly what that player could be, but he came into the Clemson game shooting just 41 percent from the field and 32.1% from the three-point line. He was getting good shots, but they weren't going in.
Tuesday, they went in. Actually, the first one--a three-pointer--went in. Then the second one missed. With no Leslie McDonald, the Tar Heels needed Bullock's perimeter shooting. They didn't have time for him to shoot himself into a rhythm. So he did it another way--with defense. A steal at midcourt turned into a dunk, and on the very next possession he hit a transition three-pointer. A blistering first half had begun, and he'd snapped his career high by late in the first half on the way to a 16-point half and 18 points in 18 overall minutes.
"That steal got me in a rhythm," he said. "Getting into the passing lane and getting an easy basket is what got me started."
This was the player the home folks from Kinston would have recognized. Late in the first half, Justin Watts tossed a three-pointer much too long from the right wing. Bullock was on the weak side and never hesitated. He tracked it all the way, snagged the offensive rebound and drew a foul. It's the kind of play someone overthinking the game can't make. It has to be made in the flow, that elusive "lost in the game" Roy Williams is always talking about.
This space is not for predictions. There are others who are much better with the stats and the projections. But what Patricia Williams knew, what we all know, is that we love our home-grown Tar Heels. There's something about that kid who grows up appreciating the uniform the same way all of us do and then gets to wear it. It's Worthy and Phil, Daugherty and Ranzino, Stackhouse and Antawn, and it has nothing to do with how many points or rebounds they collected. We love our Tar Heels, and man do we love it when they are Tar Heels. Bullock has that home state cachet and pairs it with a feel for the game that's prized in the Smith Center.
He's the type of player Patricia Williams would have loved watching. She never saw her grandson play in a Carolina uniform. She was too frail to travel to the Smith Center in person, and cataracts rendered her sight unreliable at the end of her life. But every game was on her television, and she listened for the commentators to say, "Reggie Bullock is checking in," so she'd know when he was playing. Tuesday, if she'd been listening, she might have even been able to hear the sound of the student section serenading her grandson with chants of "Reg-gie," "Reg-gie," in the second half.
Oh, how she would have smiled on Tuesday night. With five minutes left in the first half, Bullock got yet another steal and converted it into yet another dunk. Through 18 games, through struggles and hot streaks, he has played almost completely with the same straight face. "Yes, sir," "No, sir," and not much else to give away what was going on inside. This time, he couldn't help it.
He ran back on defense and ended up almost exactly in the middle of the center jump circle, almost right on top of the interlocking "NC." He watched the Tigers inbound the ball and he couldn't help himself. He had on that white argyle uniform and was standing on top of that blue outline of his home state and there were 20,352 people standing and screaming. A wide grin came over his face. At that exact moment, he was the portrait of a basketball player. No, you know what he was? He was the portrait of a Carolina basketball player.
What was that smile, Reggie?
"That was my confidence building," he said, and all of a sudden that same exact smile was back. "That was me thinking, `If my grandma was here, she would be going so crazy.'"
I challenge you to stand in front of a 19-year-old who has handled the 10 most devastating days of his life that maturely and not get chills. It might seem impossible now, but there will come a day when he does not remember exactly how many points he scored against Clemson or whether he made a basket in the second half. But he will always remember every nuance--even the most seemingly insignificant detail, like a song he heard on the radio or a kind word from someone he didn't know cared--of the events surrounding his grandmother's death. The central figure in his life--not his basketball life, but his entire life--was buried on Saturday, approximately 80 hours ago. On Tuesday, he's knocking in a career high and thriving.
This job prepares you to ask questions about basketball games and zone defenses and bounce passes. Knowing what to say to Bullock about this situation does not seem natural. This feels more like life than basketball. But it's OK, because just then, he reveals exactly why he's able to handle it this way.
"It felt like my first real game as a Carolina basketball player," he said. "I'm starting to build confidence, but I can't get cocky. If I talked to her after this game, she'd tell me to keep working. She'd say, `You did OK. You knocked down some shots. But you can do even better.'"
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter.
