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University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Proud
April 5, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
Let me be honest with you: I did not go to the locker room. I did not go to the press conference. I did not speak to anyone. I did not look at anyone.
If that's what you need, if that's what you came here for, then we can part company as friends and I will see you next October.
Now, for those who remain: let's discuss how we are going to avoid watching basketball highlights for the rest of our natural lives.
I am currently firmly committed to never watching SportsCenter again. I will never watch a game-opening montage again. When customer service opens in the morning, I will be removing ESPN from my television package, and I will do so with prejudice. I do not care to see any specials about the Final Four, or college basketball, or sports. I would like to invite you to take your One Shining Moment, and I would like to inform you that you can please put it directly where the sun doesn't shine, or Cameron Indoor Stadium, whichever is more convenient.
I have a feeling this was one of those games where we are supposed to say things such as, “Gee, well, if you didn't care who won, that was a great game.”
Here's the problem: we cared who won the game. We cared very much. We waited in line to secure a spot in our favorite Franklin Street establishment (thousands of you) or we drove 17 hours from Raleigh to Houston (Jonathan Elea, class of 2017, and a couple of friends) or we went to a bar at 3 a.m. in Spain because we were studying abroad (Claire Weintraub, class of 2018). We did what we believed the Tar Heels needed us to do.
As for me, I arrived at the arena approximately three hours before tipoff. I'd left some work to do, because in my foolish mind, I believed I'd just be sitting there doing nothing and could easily finish up a few things.
I could not. It was three hours before the national championship game and I had no idea what to do. I knew there were supposed to be nouns, and maybe some verbs, but I had no clue how to put them together. It was impossible. So I walked. I talked to a group of students who were in the first row of the NCAA-mandated student seats. They'd emailed their professors to tell them they'd be absent from class on Monday and Tuesday. Their professors told them they were making a good choice. One professor rescheduled a quiz. It makes me happy there are educators like that in the world.
I talked to Melvin Scott. He was the first of 51 ticketed Carolina basketball alumni to arrive at NRG Stadium. He was wearing his 2005 national championship ring, which he'd given to his mother shortly after winning the title. She sent it back to him last week and told him he needed to wear it to Houston. It was the first time he'd worn it since 2005. On Sunday night, he went out to dinner with over a dozen basketball lettermen, friends he's known seemingly forever—like Jackie Manuel—and those he never played with, like Kenny Smith.
“I didn't understand the magnitude of the Carolina basketball family until I saw it after getting out of school,” Scott said. “It truly is a family, and you don't understand that at the time you're living it. What Coach Smith left behind, rest in peace, Coach Williams is carrying on. It says a lot about the program. The bond is like no other university in the world.”
At halftime, Carolina led 39-34. I was sitting with Jones Angell and Eric Montross in the Tar Heel Sports Network courtside location. At every media timeout and at halftime, NCAA officials provide an updated box score. When they brought the halftime box score, Eric was gone. They put the box scores on the table in front of us.
This is what Jones said: “Where's Eric? I can't touch the box score until he does.”
You know what? There is exactly no one reading this who thinks that is crazy. Do you think I touched the box scores? Absolutely not, no way. I did not realize that Eric was supposed to touch them first, but once I did, I got nowhere close to them.
We are all a little crazy, because that's what helps us feel like we have control over something so completely unpredictable as a college basketball game. I need my crazy. You need your crazy. Right now, we are all convinced we could never possibly manage to care that much again, but next March we'll be right back in this same exact space.
I've had six days in my entire life—six out of 14,190—that Carolina has played for the national championship. Four of them I was actually old enough to remember. I wouldn't trade them for anything, even this one. I don't know if I'll get another one. None of us may. We take Final Fours as birthrights around here, but if we don't get another one ever again, well, I'll be glad we had this one. Eventually. Not today. Not tomorrow (because I'll be busy getting rid of ESPN). But eventually.
My dad had 1977. Those who were there will still tell you, even today, almost 40 years later, that was the worst one ever. It was such a beloved team, such a group of beloved players, that it felt like it might never be OK again. And then came 1982.
I had 1998. My favorite team ever. Antawn and Vince and Ed and Shammond. I knew they were going to win a title, just knew it. They didn't, but before too long, there came 2005, and almost before I was finished celebrating, there was 2009.
My kids now have 2016. They were there tonight. I feel incredibly guilty for subjecting them to that moment. I don't know when might make up for it, but I think their time will come, and I hope they remember how difficult it is to win a national championship, what an absurd conglomeration of luck and skill and talent and did I mention luck has to happen in order to win one of these darn things. The fact that, as Carolina fans, we get so many chances to get this close is one of the luckiest things that has happened to us in our sports fan lives, even if it brings with it the occasional gut punch.
Sitting there, watching the Villanova players and coaches celebrate, the toughest part was how easy it was to picture Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige and Joel Berry wearing those hats and playing in that confetti. It could have so easily been them. It could have so easily been us.
And then, as you knew he'd eventually have to, Paige went to the media room, and, through his tears, shot an arrow right through the sarcasm-coated heart of every national media member who'd sat there all smug for most of the past five days. This is what he said:
“The whole four years means the world to me. I wouldn't trade any of the losses, any of the games. It's hard to say, but even including this one, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
“This has been the happiest and most fun four years of my life, talking this year especially. Hasn't been my best year as a player, but this has been the most fun I've had in my entire life with this team, all the way up until that last horn went off.
“It's hard because at some point tonight I have to take this jersey off and I never get to put it back on. I just have to rely on all the memories I have with my teammates.
“I'm telling you, this is the most fun year in my entire life. I don't know what else to say.”
He's right, unfortunately. He does have to take the jersey off. But he's going to take it off and walk straight into one of the most dedicated, committed, closeknit brotherhoods that exist. Fifty-one former Carolina basketball players came from points across the country to be in Houston on Monday night. You know how Roy Williams hates cool? They didn't come just to be seen, or to be cool. They sat over in section 125 and they cheered and they clapped and they agonized, everyone from Michael Jordan to Danny Green to Harrison Barnes.
Most all of them will be back in Chapel Hill this summer, and they'll be lecturing the new Tar Heels just like they once lectured a young Paige and Brice Johnson. Sometime, a few years from now, it'll be Paige and Johnson over there in the stands at a big game, and we'll point them out, and remember how that one time they persevered through one of the toughest times in Carolina basketball history and took their team right to the brink of a national championship. They'll show up on those "I am a Tar Heel" montages in the Smith Center--you might have to take off the jersey, Marcus, but you have only started being a Tar Heel--and we will roar, because we remember.
Jordan addressed the team in the Carolina locker room after the game. He had a simple message for them: sometimes life has adversity, and you have to use it as fuel for the next time. And then he said the perfect thing, because he is Michael Jordan, but also because he is a Tar Heel. He said exactly what every single one of us would've said if we had been in that room right at that moment:
“I'm proud of you.”
