Lucas: The Perfect Picture

By Adam Lucas

Two hours before Thursday night's Carolina baseball game against NC State, Joe Bray was walking through the Tar Heel baseball offices. That's when he glanced to the patio outside the offices and noticed an unusual gathering of numerous people, including several representatives from the Rams Club, athletic department staff, and multiple close friends and family members of Carolina baseball.

It seemed a little odd for them to get together at that moment, but Bray—who has been photographing Carolina baseball for decades—had work to do. He made a mental note to stop by later, showing the savvy born of years in a press box by  thinking to himself, "I was just thinking maybe I could sneak a hot dog."

Bad news, Joe: no free hot dogs. But there was something even better.

"Joe," said Brian Chacos from the Rams Club after Bray's daughter, Christy Graves, and Brian Bersticker from the Rams Club had conspired to bring him back to the suite patio, "we're doing this for you."

Almost a year ago, Christy met with the Rams Club's Chacos and Dawn Williams at a Chapel Hill coffee shop. The idea was simple: naming the Boshamer Stadium camera well in Joe's honor. But with a slight catch—they wanted it to be a complete surprise.

So for months, the Rams Club solicited donations from the Carolina baseball family to name the area where Bray has taken tens of thousands of photos over the last 30 years. It was a very, very easy ask that eventually resulted in a total near $75,000. Joe Bray has been a Carolina baseball institution since before the Tar Heels started making regular Omaha appearances in 2006. Every single gameday, his routine is the same: capture hundreds of images of the day's game. Go home and sift through all the images. Post them to his Flickr account, then send out an email to players and parents of players letting them know new photos are ready. He does it all for free, simply because of his passion for Tar Heel baseball.

By the time players spend several years in the Carolina program, their parents have dozens of pictures of their son as a Tar Heel. Thursday night, Christy estimated her father had spent over 10,000 hours volunteering his time to the University of North Carolina. That includes all his nights poring over photos, plus essentially creating the original goheels.com website back when a college athletic department webpage was a novel idea.

So it's no surprise that you could put together an all-star team of Diamond Heels baseball by reading through the donor list on the plaque that will be affixed to the camera well. Current major leaguers played a significant role, including an important donation on Thursday, but so did dozens of other players and their families who played their best baseball as a Tar Heel. All of them had one thing in common: they appreciated how much Bray appreciates Carolina baseball.

How much does he mean to the program? Head coach Scott Forbes stopped by, in full uniform, 45 minutes before the first pitch of Carolina's come-from-behind walk-off 9-8 win over NC State.

"Joe Bray has been a huge part of the Carolina baseball family," Forbes said. "His time, effort, energy and positive attitude benefit all of us."

He's the type of guy who thinks nothing of stopping by Johnson's Drive-In in his hometown of Siler City to pick up their famous cheeseburgers and delivers them to Boshamer Stadium, just because you mentioned you'd always heard of them but never gotten to try them.

In 2006, during Carolina's first trip to the College World Series since 1989, Jones Angell and I were still loitering around Rosenblatt Stadium after the Tar Heels' scintillating 13-inning win over Cal State Fullerton. There was only one person still left on site: Joe Bray, who had a wide smile on his face. We walked across the street to King Kong, an Omaha standby that was notable for the enormous inflatable gorilla outside the restaurant. It was well after midnight as we ate the greasy burgers in a barren parking lot. Everyone back home was on East Coast time and was asleep. Carolina had just beaten a member of college baseball royalty. It felt like we were three of the only people in the world who understood what had just happened, and going to sleep might make it less real.

Joe looked up from his Triple Kong burger. "Guys," he said, "it doesn't get much better than this."

Part of Thursday's presentation was a video book that will eventually contain over 100 personal tributes from current and former players thanking Bray for his influence on their lives. It's not just the pictures, you see. Bray has become one of those people who is part of the fabric of the program by taking the time to get to know the people involved. He doesn't know the players as jersey numbers. He knows their parents and their girlfriends and their classes and knows when to crack a joke and when to offer a sympathetic pat on the back.

That's the kind of person who makes it easy to raise money for a tribute in his honor (donations can still be made by calling Dawn Williams at the Rams Club at 919-843-2000 or online). Carolina athletics is about the Chad Flacks and Zac Gallens, of course. But it's also about Joe Bray and all the people who give more than they get, going largely unheralded for years, helping the bigger names shine, and being part of the Carolina family that makes the experience a little bit more special.

Just as intended, Thursday's festivities were a complete surprise to Joe, who wiped away tears as he thanked everyone who was part of the project. He also made sure to thank his wife, Dina, who passed away in 2017 after a stunning battle with cancer and was willing to share her husband with Carolina baseball for several decades.

Dina would have loved that it was her grandchildren who provided the only dicey moment when the surprise was in peril. Thursday afternoon, Christy was talking to Joe on the phone, when suddenly she heard her kids in the other room announcing, "I can't wait to go on the field tonight!" Although he didn't know it yet, their grandfather was going to throw out the first pitch. But Joe didn't pick up on the comment.

"This is unbelievable," he said as he looked at the plaque honoring "his outstanding contributions to Carolina Baseball."

He never did get that free hot dog. After all, there was a Carolina baseball game to be played. So there were photos to be taken, images to upload, emails to send. His day had just begun.

The Joe Bray Camera Well at Boshamer Stadium ⚾ Alumni, family & friends of @DiamondHeels surprised photographer & long-time supporter with the naming of the camera well in his honor. 🙌 Thank you, Joe, for decades of caring for Carolina student-athletes! 💙 #CarolinaFamily pic.twitter.com/WKRXikjN7u
— The Rams Club (@TheRamsClub) May 11, 2023

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