University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: The Tradition Continues
January 19, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
Twenty-nine years ago on this day, Ray Shearon was in section 232, closer to the Smith Center banners than the court. He worked as an usher that day, as he has done almost every home game since then.
With ushering seniority comes a better section, so today you'll find him at the front of section 126, with his feet on the Smith Center court. In the 29 years since that first game—a 95-92 Carolina win over Duke, with a certain future television announcer named Brad Daugherty dropping in 23 points—Ray and the rest of the loyal fans who have seen the Tar Heels play basketball there have seen some great ones. They've seen the 1993 comeback against Florida State. They saw Marvin make the shot against Duke in 2005. They saw last year's snow game against those same Blue Devils.
And, let's be honest, they've also seen some clunkers. Like, well, Sunday night's 68-53 win over Virginia Tech, a game that was more notable for being played on the 29th anniversary of the first ever game at the Smith Center than for any of its own merits. If you were forced to single out one predominant impression from Sunday, it would be that it might have been the bloodiest game in Chapel Hill since bloody Hansbrough, or possibly bloody Montross.
The Smith Center hosted both of those games, just like it's hosted 424 games since that day in 1986. Carmichael Auditorium, in contrast, was the venue for just 190 Tar Heel basketball games.
No one on the court Sunday night was born when Carolina played at Carmichael. Assistant coach Hubert Davis never played at Carmichael. Sunday night's opposing coach, Buzz Williams, who might be cut from the Lefty Driesell mold in terms of sideline theatrics and promises to make the ACC very entertaining, wasn't even in high school yet when Carolina played at Carmichael.
In other words, those of us who are Tar Heel fans remember Carmichael, and remember all the big wins there, like beating Magic Johnson and Michigan State or eight points in 17 seconds or the comeback against Virginia. But we are a quickly shrinking group, and to everyone else, the Smith Center is Carolina basketball.
The Smith Center's biggest flaw is that it isn't Carmichael. It isn't cozy. It's not so steamy that opposing coaches accused Dean Smith of turning up the heat there. Michael Jordan never played there.
But for a big game, which happens three or four times per year in a typical season, there is no better place to watch a college game. That wasn't the case Sunday night; that wasn't a big game, and the Tar Heels played like it, which is why they'll be back in the building on Monday night for a previously unscheduled practice.
But no one ever talks about the fact that Carolina still managed to put 19,745 fans in the building on a Sunday night at 6:30 against an undistinguished conference opponent in a game being played opposite two key NFL games, on a weekend when students are on a three-day break. One of only two other Power Five games on Sunday was the Indiana-Illinois game, which started at noon. The Illini trumpeted a facility attendance record of 17,085…nearly 3,000 fewer than Carolina's attendance for an average Sunday night game.
There is constant discussion of student seating at the Smith Center, but very few acknowledgements that few other arenas where Carolina plays regularly have students ringing the court. The most famous one that does, 9,314-seat Cameron Indoor Stadium, put extra tickets on sale to booster club members for the two most recent home games in the days before the game. Is the Smith Center's seating arrangement perfect? No, but it still works well enough to make the crowd a major factor in wins like the recent victory over Louisville.
Those of us who attended that very first game in the Smith Center probably never could have imagined what the facility might become. At that game, the hand-operated scoreboard that was a fixture in the corner of the Carmichael court was still used. Twenty-nine years later, it's given way to video boards and individual in-game stats for every player on the court. The pregame introductions, including a new video featuring Stuart Scott that is spine-tingling, are part Broadway, part basketball.
But some things have not changed. At that first game against Duke—UCLA was scheduled to be the original opener for the building, but construction ran behind and the Bruins instead played in Carmichael, with Duke fortuitously becoming the new opener—the cheerleaders carried a banner around the court after the win that read “The Tradition Continues.” They'd carried that same banner around the court at Carmichael after the program's last win in that building, a victory over NC State.
And, for the most part, it has. Carolina has still won over 85 percent of the games played in the Smith Center. It still prompts visiting teams making their first visit to spend part of their pregame warmups gazing up at the banners and jerseys in the rafters. It's easy for regulars to get used to it, but at that very first game on that Saturday afternoon in 1986, we were completely amazed that this was a college basketball arena. It was big, it was blue, and just the sheer size was intimidating. And if you'll take a second to look around when you walk in, you'll see that it's still a pretty amazing place that's unlike anywhere else in college basketball. From the banners to the copious amount of blue to the memories, it's what an entire generation knows as Carolina basketball.
And, without fail, says Ray Shearon at the front of section 126, something happens every game. “I see it at every single game,” he says. “Someone will come up and say it's their first game and want to take a picture.”
That's the benefit of a big arena. It allows more access, allows more Carolina fans to see their first game in person. That's probably what Dean Smith would have wanted, even if he always hated the idea that it was named after him.
It allows many more fans to say three of the most fun words in sports—“I was there.” Over seven million of you have been there over the last 29 years. We've watched Brad Daugherty turn from the starting center into a color analyst, and Roy Williams turn from a dark-haired calendar-selling assistant coach into a head coach with 738 career wins. We've seen argyle added to the uniforms and Michael Jordan change from the guy who helped win Carolina a championship to the guy whose logo is on every shoe and jersey.
Things have changed. That Miami Vice look (with the padded shoulders, of course) you wore to the game in 1986 probably wouldn't be quite as trendy today. The building isn't perfect, but it's still home, and those of you who fill it help make it a destination both on gameday and on the 90-degree summer days when it's not unusual to find a family hopping out of a minivan just to peer in the windows on their first trip ever to Chapel Hill.
Walking up the hill in front of the Smith Center on Sunday afternoon, the person in front of me stopped, just like thousands or maybe millions have done before. “I have to get a picture,” she said. “I've always wanted to see a game here.”
