Extra Points: Signing Off

The voice message was left on Wednesday, four days after the euphoria of Chazz Surratt's epic interception of a Duke pass in the end zone on the game's next-to-last play. Carolina's football team prevailed in a 20-17 squeaker over its ancient rival from Durham in the gloaming of an early evening in October, the second-half emotions rocking from joy to anguish and back again with every blink of an eye.

You couldn't say that John Fish's voice was particularly robust—after all, he'd been battling brain cancer for a decade and Parkinson's disease for many months and the many attendant radiation and medication treatments had taken a toll—but there was a lilt of joy and contentment as he recounted his experience the Saturday past.

"This is the first day I've been able to talk since Saturday night," he said into the voice mail on the phone belonging to Ward Clayton, a fellow 1981 Carolina graduate, Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity brother and newspaper colleague. "That's why I waited so long to call you back. But I feel like a new man now. I just wanted to thank you for the tickets, man. It was a great game, great group, and I don't think you can beat that for a Carolina football game. It might be the last game I go to. If that's the last game, I can't imagine a better game to sign off on. I just want to say thank you, how much I appreciate it, how lucky I was to have Corb, Nip and you as my foursome. Man, it was one foursome I won't ever forget, that's for damn sure. Yeah, I'm sorry I took so long to call you back. Like I said, I couldn't talk. But I'm good to go now, dude. Take it easy, bye."
Dazz Newsome University of North Carolina Football v Duke Kenan Stadium Chapel Hill, NC Saturday, October 26, 2019

Dazz Newsome University of North Carolina Football v Duke Kenan Stadium Chapel Hill, NC Saturday, October 26, 2019

That 2019 Carolina-Duke game was remarkable on many levels: the Tar Heels breaking a three-game losing skid to the Blue Devils; Mack Brown in his first year back at Carolina extending his personal victory run to nine over Duke; stupendous plays like Dazz Newsome's catch while pinning the ball on the back of a Duke defender and Beau Corrales' over-the-shoulder touchdown snare; the Tar Heels seemingly tucking a win away late in the game until Javonte Williams fumbled inside the five, Duke recovering and marching the length of the field; and defensive coordinator Jay Bateman's prescient call to have his guys look for the Duke running back throwing a jump pass and Surratt there to intercept it with 14 seconds left.

But the drama on the field belied all the subplots among the 50,000 spectators crowding Kenan Stadium, among them this vignette of some three dozen friends convening to give their ailing buddy a day to remember in Chapel Hill. As someone once said (the origins are debated), "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always."

John Fish played quarterback at Watauga High in Boone in the mid-1970s, studied journalism at Carolina and went on to being a reporter, editor and publisher at newspapers in Lumberton, N.C., York, Pa., Augusta, Ga., Topeka, Kan., and Naples, Fla. He was hailed for his leadership skills and ability to see the big picture of the newspaper business. While general manager of The Augusta Chronicle in the mid-1990s, he quickly latched on to the power of the internet and bought up myriad URLs, including several with the word "Masters" in them that he later sold to a certain golf club in the community. Fish was publisher of the Naples Daily News in 2008 when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Surgery and radiation gave him some relief and hope over the coming years, but in early 2019 the onset of Parkinson's was yet another setback.

"Parkinson's started to cause more problems than the brain tumor," says Donnie Douglas, who was hired by Fish at The Robersonian in Lumberton in 1983. "He kind of shut down when he talked about his own mortality, which is understandable. I'm sure I would, too. As the year went on, it was hard to get a read on where he was at in terms of how long he'd be with us. So I called 35 to 40 fraternity brothers with the idea of getting together to celebrate John. The obvious hook was a football game, and Duke was on the schedule. It was perfect."

The group passed the hat and in no time drummed upwards of $10,000 to pay for a stairlift for Fish's Winston-Salem apartment, and nearly everyone Douglas contacted showed up for some part of the weekend—a party at the Pika house on Friday night, a tailgate at the Cobb Deck on campus Saturday for pre-game and the game itself. Clayton arranged through a friend in the Carolina Athletic Department for four tickets beneath the upper deck that would be used by David Colquitt of Morehead City, Jim Corbett of Gastonia, Fish and himself (photo below shows Fish giving the thumbs-up along with Clayton on the left and Colquitt).
John Fish

"I wasn't sure what to expect, I hadn't seen Fish in quite a while," Colquitt says. "But he had that same grin, that same twinkle in his eyes. It was there. I couldn't believe how good he looked. He was so happy to be back in Chapel Hill and back with his buddies at a Carolina football game."

"We were on the 10 yard-line, under cover," Clayton adds. "Because of his health, Fish couldn't have stood the heat or the light of being in the sun. We were blessed to be under cover."

The Tar Heels were 3-4 and taking the field in front of what would be another of seven sell-out crowds in Kenan Stadium. Carolina's upset win over South Carolina in Charlotte to open the season, prime-time victory over Miami in the home opener and a one-point loss to defending national champion Clemson in late September had attracted the interest of the college football universe, and freshman quarterback Sam Howell had shown a degree of accuracy, arm strength and poise belying his tender age. But the Tar Heels were certainly rebuilding on defense, with Brown and Bateman cutting-and-pasting one new guy after another into the secondary. Carolina led 7-3 at halftime, jumped further ahead on a 47-yard pass to Newsome, then watched as Duke fought back to take a 17-14 lead midway into the third quarter. Kicker Noah Ruggles, smarting from having missed a potential game-winner in a six-overtime marathon the week before at Virginia Tech, converted on two field goals to put the Tar Heels ahead 20-17 with seven minutes to play.

"I've been to a lot of games, and sometimes you're with a certain group of people, your best friends, who know the game and they know the team, and it just makes it a whole different experience," Colquitt remembers. "The whole game we're questioning the play-calling, the referees' calls. Fish is right on point. He's talking about our running game, who's better inside, who's better outside, how many catches this guy has. He knows their hometowns and their high schools. It was unbelievable. It was so much fun."

Their emotions built to a crescendo as the Tar Heels methodically drove from their 20 yard-line to the Duke three with three minutes to play. A touchdown could provide the knock-out punch. But Tre Hornbuckle punched the ball from Williams' grasp and Duke recovered at the six, and the Blue Devils initiated a 14-play drive to the Tar Heel two that was water torture for all the Carolina faithful, particularly with memories fresh of losses the previous year to Syracuse in double overtime and at home to Virginia Tech.

"We're ahead and I'm thinking, 'This is going to be a perfect day,'" Colquitt says. "Then Duke's driving and I'm going, "No, no, no, no, don't let this happen. This is not happening.'"

"You see us down there about to put it to bed, and Javonte fumbles," Douglas adds. "It's like, 'Been there, done that.' The odds of some of our recent losses were about a million-to-one. It looked like it was happening again."

Brown called time out with 18 seconds left. Bateman, having coached against Duke before while working at Elon and Army, suspected Duke would call a "pop pass," a slight-of-hand where the running back feigns a dive play, pulls up just before the line scrimmage, jumps and launches a pass to a receiver in the end zone, ostensibly all alone as the linebackers and safeties have crashed on the running play. But the Tar Heels knew what to look for and snubbed it quickly, Surratt emerging from the scrum with the ball held high.

The stadium erupted. In the middle was the Fish foursome.

"We're all quiet, then Duke runs the trick play, we get it and the place explodes," Colquitt says. "Sometimes, there's a little magic here, sometimes things happen for a reason. For that little instant, it was the perfect three hours."

John Fish would get 22 more months on the planet before his afflictions wore him down to a final breath on Sept. 12th, 2021, at the age of 63. The organist played Hark the Sound at his funeral service the following week, and everyone was asked to wear at least one piece of clothing or accessory in Carolina blue.

"That football game raised his spirits," Clayton says. "It gave him some energy going forward."

In the aftermath of Fish's passing, Clayton remembered he'd saved Fish's voice message from two years ago. He listened to it and then shared it with others in the group with a note advising, "It's a tear-jerker."

"Fish was so prophetic that it was his last game and what a great one to go out on," Clayton says.

"We're all getting a little older," Colquitt adds. "We're all in our 60s now. Who knows? Any game could be our last, too. I agree with Fish. That was a good one to sign off on. I'd take it as well."

Chapel Hill based writer Lee Pace (Carolina '79) has written "Extra Points" since 1990, is the author of "Football in a Forest" and has been part of the Tar Heel Sports Network broadcast crew since 2004. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com.

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Beau Corrales

Sam Howell

Dazz Newsome

Noah Ruggles

Chazz Surratt

Javonte Williams

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