University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
Lucas: The Bad Times
December 5, 2022 | Women's Soccer, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
The last two weeks have been a stark reminder that the bad times in Chapel Hill are like nowhere else.
By Adam Lucas
CARY—These are the bad times.
If you watched Monday night's NCAA championship women's soccer match, then you already know this. There can be no doubt, right? Coming in the wake of Carolina football losing three in a row, including the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, and Tar Heel basketball losing four in a row, including the second four-overtime game in program history, then this has to be the nadir. Watching UCLA somehow overcome a 2-0 deficit to snatch a national title from Anson Dorrance, a member of the Carolina Mount Rushmore, absolutely has to be the worst of life as a Tar Heel.
Maybe it is. And if so, then life is pretty good.
It doesn't feel like it right now. Trust me, I'm with you. In the last 11 days, I've seen seven Carolina games in person on two different coasts in six different stadiums or arenas in five different cities. The Tar Heels have lost every single one of them except one—a women's basketball win over Iowa State in Portland.
Those struggles don't even count a double-overtime loss to NC State in football that I watched on my phone while watching in person as the top-ranked men's basketball team simultaneously lost to Iowa State.
As a Carolina fan, over the last 11 days you've watched the Heels play eight different overtime periods, and lose every single one of those games. It doesn't get any worse than this, right? As Roy Williams said in Cary on Monday night while lamenting the way Carolina had controlled play against UCLA but still faced a tough game, "Soccer drives me crazy."
All of it drives me crazy. But it's only because Carolina regularly gets so close that we have any idea about this one truth that other schools only see from afar: it's incredibly difficult to win a national championship. Almost impossible, really. Just think: in the last two decades we've seen three heart-wrenching losses mere seconds from a national title: Omaha in 2006, Kris Jenkins in 2016, and UCLA on Monday. Any of those losses would be a crowning achievement for many other athletic departments, including several in the ACC and in the state. Around here, they're the ones we try to forget, because there are so many other championship moments to relish. Think about this: one of the schools that defeated Carolina during this infernal stretch (a conference peer, even) has never won an NCAA title, ever, in any sport. We woke up this morning bitter because we missed winning our third this calendar year.
Sports isn't fair. It doesn't seem right that the Tar Heels who played their last game on Monday night will have to forever think about those last 20 seconds of regulation, about whether something was taken from them by a shove on a goalie that they rightfully earned. And they will think about it. I'd like to tell them that they won't, but they will.
I am confident that I am one of the only people on the planet who was there in person for this quartet of soul-crushing Tar Heel losses: football at Virginia in 1996, Carolina baseball against Oregon State in 2006, Kris Jenkins in 2016 and women's soccer last night. After each of those defeats, I felt certain it could never possibly be worse. But something surprising happened: when I think about those times now, I think about spending time with my dad watching UNC football and making lifelong friends from that '06 baseball team and how nice Marcus Paige was to my son during that 2016 season.
That will happen, eventually, for last night. When it does, it's most likely going to be memories of the entire town of Chapel Hill making the drive to Cary on a Monday night, including representatives from—at minimum—nine different Tar Heel teams (men's soccer, field hockey, women's lacrosse, men's lacrosse, women's basketball, men's basketball, softball, baseball and men's golf) plus athletic director Bubba Cunningham and chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz.
"Carolina is so much bigger than self," said women's basketball coach Courtney Banghart, who was in Cary on Monday. "It's a community of winners, for sure. But moreso I have found it to be a community of people who celebrate each other, who show up for each other, and are invested in everyone else's journey. It doesn't matter the sport. It matters that you're Carolina."
It's different here. It just is. We usually take it for granted because we're accustomed to it and we think every place is just like this. It isn't.
Everyone at Carolina understands how difficult it is to get here, and how even a program like women's soccer that has so many national championship trophies they use them as doorstops deserves support and love for making it this far. It is much, much easier to be average. To get to that moment when a trophy is at stake requires canceling dinners with friends and going to bed early instead of hitting Franklin Street and early mornings in the weight room when no one is out on campus.
It's really, really fun, of course. The Nike gear is sick and everyone knows the colors are the best and there's a status to being a Carolina student-athlete that is undeniably cool.
But these nights, when you get to do what you do in front of your peers and the entire country, wearing Carolina blue with teammates you're going to know for the rest of your life, that's the coolest. Ask every single member of last year's men's basketball team what their favorite part of the memorable run last spring was, and they'll unanimously say the same thing: getting to celebrate on Franklin Street and finally, finally getting the real experience of being a Tar Heel. Several members of the field hockey team returned from Storrs last month and found a national championship banner hanging from the roof of their off-campus house, having been placed there by members of the women's soccer team.
As a fan, this hasn't been a great last two weeks. It's been a two weeks unlike almost any we've ever experienced in Tar Heel athletics. These losses sting, and that's partially because they are so unfamiliar and partially because they have all been so calamitous.
And yet the last eight months have still been perhaps the best we've ever seen. Since the end of March, we've seen the Tar Heels win one of the signature games in the history of the basketball program, which happens to be one of the best programs in the country. We've seen the football team win a division title behind the leadership of perhaps the greatest player to ever play the quarterback position in school history, who just happens to be a blood relative of someone who hit one of the most famous shots in Tar Heel basketball history. We've seen two different teams win undefeated national championships, one of which was led by a transcendent player who went beyond her sport and became part of the fabric of the University of North Carolina. We've watched a tennis player win two individual national titles, women's soccer has played for a national title, men's and women's cross country had a dual national finish better than any in program history, men's golf has two straight top five finishes, women's tennis went to the national semifinals, women's basketball is back in the top ten, baseball was two wins from Omaha, and it's so difficult to keep up with Carolina success that even writing this paragraph I know I'm going to hear from someone who was left out. It's very difficult to be exceptional at Carolina, because exceptional is so normal here.
And those are just the raw numbers. The people are so much better than the statistics. The people are the field hockey team traveling to Cary with pieces of their national championship net from two weeks ago stuck in their pockets because they were trying to channel championship mojo for their friends and classmates. And they're Roy and Wanda Williams who watch every single Carolina team in every single sport and cheer and groan and pace because those are the Tar Heels out there. And Erin Matson high-fiving the opposing goalie who just made a ridiculous save against her and Drake Maye being incapable of answering a question without saying, "Yes, sir" and Avery Patterson refusing to leave the field in the national championship game despite cramps putting her on the ground in pain and Emily Grund staring down cancer and coming back to dive a few months later.
The most remarkable thing about all of them? In college, they've already figured out what many of us take decades to learn: it's not all about them, there are other people on campus who are just as amazing as they are, and the Carolina world is broad enough to include all of them—and all of us.
Women's soccer sophomore Emily Murphy sobbed after Monday's game because it was a devastating loss, and then spotted a young fan who was likewise in tears. And Murphy wrapped her in a hug and, through her tears and forgetting that we were supposed to be consoling her, said, "I'm so sorry we didn't win."
So, yes, these are without doubt the bad times. And they are like nowhere else.
CARY—These are the bad times.
If you watched Monday night's NCAA championship women's soccer match, then you already know this. There can be no doubt, right? Coming in the wake of Carolina football losing three in a row, including the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, and Tar Heel basketball losing four in a row, including the second four-overtime game in program history, then this has to be the nadir. Watching UCLA somehow overcome a 2-0 deficit to snatch a national title from Anson Dorrance, a member of the Carolina Mount Rushmore, absolutely has to be the worst of life as a Tar Heel.
Maybe it is. And if so, then life is pretty good.
It doesn't feel like it right now. Trust me, I'm with you. In the last 11 days, I've seen seven Carolina games in person on two different coasts in six different stadiums or arenas in five different cities. The Tar Heels have lost every single one of them except one—a women's basketball win over Iowa State in Portland.
Those struggles don't even count a double-overtime loss to NC State in football that I watched on my phone while watching in person as the top-ranked men's basketball team simultaneously lost to Iowa State.
As a Carolina fan, over the last 11 days you've watched the Heels play eight different overtime periods, and lose every single one of those games. It doesn't get any worse than this, right? As Roy Williams said in Cary on Monday night while lamenting the way Carolina had controlled play against UCLA but still faced a tough game, "Soccer drives me crazy."
All of it drives me crazy. But it's only because Carolina regularly gets so close that we have any idea about this one truth that other schools only see from afar: it's incredibly difficult to win a national championship. Almost impossible, really. Just think: in the last two decades we've seen three heart-wrenching losses mere seconds from a national title: Omaha in 2006, Kris Jenkins in 2016, and UCLA on Monday. Any of those losses would be a crowning achievement for many other athletic departments, including several in the ACC and in the state. Around here, they're the ones we try to forget, because there are so many other championship moments to relish. Think about this: one of the schools that defeated Carolina during this infernal stretch (a conference peer, even) has never won an NCAA title, ever, in any sport. We woke up this morning bitter because we missed winning our third this calendar year.
Sports isn't fair. It doesn't seem right that the Tar Heels who played their last game on Monday night will have to forever think about those last 20 seconds of regulation, about whether something was taken from them by a shove on a goalie that they rightfully earned. And they will think about it. I'd like to tell them that they won't, but they will.
I am confident that I am one of the only people on the planet who was there in person for this quartet of soul-crushing Tar Heel losses: football at Virginia in 1996, Carolina baseball against Oregon State in 2006, Kris Jenkins in 2016 and women's soccer last night. After each of those defeats, I felt certain it could never possibly be worse. But something surprising happened: when I think about those times now, I think about spending time with my dad watching UNC football and making lifelong friends from that '06 baseball team and how nice Marcus Paige was to my son during that 2016 season.
That will happen, eventually, for last night. When it does, it's most likely going to be memories of the entire town of Chapel Hill making the drive to Cary on a Monday night, including representatives from—at minimum—nine different Tar Heel teams (men's soccer, field hockey, women's lacrosse, men's lacrosse, women's basketball, men's basketball, softball, baseball and men's golf) plus athletic director Bubba Cunningham and chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz.
"Carolina is so much bigger than self," said women's basketball coach Courtney Banghart, who was in Cary on Monday. "It's a community of winners, for sure. But moreso I have found it to be a community of people who celebrate each other, who show up for each other, and are invested in everyone else's journey. It doesn't matter the sport. It matters that you're Carolina."
It's different here. It just is. We usually take it for granted because we're accustomed to it and we think every place is just like this. It isn't.
Everyone at Carolina understands how difficult it is to get here, and how even a program like women's soccer that has so many national championship trophies they use them as doorstops deserves support and love for making it this far. It is much, much easier to be average. To get to that moment when a trophy is at stake requires canceling dinners with friends and going to bed early instead of hitting Franklin Street and early mornings in the weight room when no one is out on campus.
It's really, really fun, of course. The Nike gear is sick and everyone knows the colors are the best and there's a status to being a Carolina student-athlete that is undeniably cool.
But these nights, when you get to do what you do in front of your peers and the entire country, wearing Carolina blue with teammates you're going to know for the rest of your life, that's the coolest. Ask every single member of last year's men's basketball team what their favorite part of the memorable run last spring was, and they'll unanimously say the same thing: getting to celebrate on Franklin Street and finally, finally getting the real experience of being a Tar Heel. Several members of the field hockey team returned from Storrs last month and found a national championship banner hanging from the roof of their off-campus house, having been placed there by members of the women's soccer team.
As a fan, this hasn't been a great last two weeks. It's been a two weeks unlike almost any we've ever experienced in Tar Heel athletics. These losses sting, and that's partially because they are so unfamiliar and partially because they have all been so calamitous.
And yet the last eight months have still been perhaps the best we've ever seen. Since the end of March, we've seen the Tar Heels win one of the signature games in the history of the basketball program, which happens to be one of the best programs in the country. We've seen the football team win a division title behind the leadership of perhaps the greatest player to ever play the quarterback position in school history, who just happens to be a blood relative of someone who hit one of the most famous shots in Tar Heel basketball history. We've seen two different teams win undefeated national championships, one of which was led by a transcendent player who went beyond her sport and became part of the fabric of the University of North Carolina. We've watched a tennis player win two individual national titles, women's soccer has played for a national title, men's and women's cross country had a dual national finish better than any in program history, men's golf has two straight top five finishes, women's tennis went to the national semifinals, women's basketball is back in the top ten, baseball was two wins from Omaha, and it's so difficult to keep up with Carolina success that even writing this paragraph I know I'm going to hear from someone who was left out. It's very difficult to be exceptional at Carolina, because exceptional is so normal here.
And those are just the raw numbers. The people are so much better than the statistics. The people are the field hockey team traveling to Cary with pieces of their national championship net from two weeks ago stuck in their pockets because they were trying to channel championship mojo for their friends and classmates. And they're Roy and Wanda Williams who watch every single Carolina team in every single sport and cheer and groan and pace because those are the Tar Heels out there. And Erin Matson high-fiving the opposing goalie who just made a ridiculous save against her and Drake Maye being incapable of answering a question without saying, "Yes, sir" and Avery Patterson refusing to leave the field in the national championship game despite cramps putting her on the ground in pain and Emily Grund staring down cancer and coming back to dive a few months later.
The most remarkable thing about all of them? In college, they've already figured out what many of us take decades to learn: it's not all about them, there are other people on campus who are just as amazing as they are, and the Carolina world is broad enough to include all of them—and all of us.
Women's soccer sophomore Emily Murphy sobbed after Monday's game because it was a devastating loss, and then spotted a young fan who was likewise in tears. And Murphy wrapped her in a hug and, through her tears and forgetting that we were supposed to be consoling her, said, "I'm so sorry we didn't win."
So, yes, these are without doubt the bad times. And they are like nowhere else.
Players Mentioned
Forward
/ Women's Soccer
Defender/Forward/Midfielder
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