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University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Maggie Hobson
Lucas: Camp Week
June 21, 2023 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
On and off the court, camp week is an underrated highlight of the Carolina basketball calendar.
By Adam Lucas
Camp week is different in Chapel Hill.
For the dorm staff, it's been a heck of a month in this last week. At least, that's probably what it's felt like in the camp office on Granville Towers 2 South, where every single problem in camp eventually makes its way to the staffers there.
But everywhere else—camp week is glorious. Today is check-out for the second and final session of Carolina Basketball School (the only remaining camp on the calendar is this weekend's fantasy camp, which is designed for adults).
Playoff games are happening right now in gyms across Chapel Hill, kids from ages eight to 18 making shots they'll be talking about for decades. My son and one of his friends are both Division I baseball players and one of the athletic achievements they're most proud of is a camp title at around ten years old when they cruised through the Carolina Basketball School bracket playing a wicked high-low two-man game.
This is also a week when stories happen that will be told for decades. Maybe they got a compliment from RJ Davis during a drill or shared a pizza with Elliot Cadeau or swished a free throw and got a head nod from Hubert Davis. It's a week when kids can walk through the exalted doors of Shane's Sugar Shack in the basement of Granville after dark on a random weekday night and bump into 2005 national champion Jawad Williams.
"I bet I can dunk on you," one overeager kid told Williams.
"No, you can't," the stonefaced nearly 20-year pro told him.
"Can you sign my shoe?" the kid responded.
But this week is for more than just the kids. It's normal to walk around the Smith Center this week and bump into Pete Chilcutt yesterday, Harrison Barnes today, Cole Anthony tomorrow. On Friday afternoon, the majority of the 1993 team gathered to support Eric Montross at his family's annual Father's Day Basketball Camp. Because the big man is currently undergoing cancer treatment, he couldn't make a personal appearance at the camp, which is one of his favorite weekends of the year.
In his absence, numerous former teammates assembled to work camp in his honor and also tell a few stories. One of those teammates, Travis Stephenson, texted Chilcutt—a teammate of Montross on the 1991 Carolina team—to see if he might also be willing to work camp. The response said it all about both Montross and about the Carolina basketball family:
"Anything for the big fella."
Those types of bonds begin being formed in the Smith Center close to midnight, when regular pickup games ran for hours. Most encouragingly after this year's scrimmages, it would be difficult to definitively say who Carolina's best five players might be. There's enough depth that minutes will have to be earned in what should be some very competitive practices. Everyone had their night, from grad transfer Cormac Ryan consistently showing an impressive shooting stroke to freshman Zayden High having a solid all-around evening late during the second session. The question, of course, will be who can do it regularly once the coaches are actually on the court.
At 11:30 p.m. on Sunday night, with a full day of camp ahead of them the next day, the Tar Heels thought they had played their last game of the evening. "We can play one more," said Armando Bacot, and nine other players—a mix of alums and the current team—soon joined him on the court. As camp went on, those games got progressively more heated, with familiarity breeding some welcome feistiness.
Roy Williams has two of his grandsons at camp this week and stopped by the Smith Center to watch some of the pickup sessions. It was his first in-person look at Cadeau, the newest Tar Heel. After one full-court drive, the Hall of Fame head coach raised an eyebrow. "Now that," said the coach who had some of his best teams with some of the fastest point guards in Tar Heel history, "is speed."
But Williams isn't really there to evaluate talent. He's there to enjoy the bonds with his former players, as when he heckled Kenny Williams from the sideline on Sunday. Williams rose above the rim to dunk on a current Tar Heel who will remain anonymous. "Thirty-five years old!" Roy Williams shouted from the sideline, prompting Kenny Williams to make the raise the roof gesture as he ran back on defense.
Once the games were over at midnight, the real work was beginning; a healthy majority of the players hung around. There was Jawad Williams taking on multiple current Tar Heels in a series of one-on-one games. Here was Jalen Washington working on his jumper. Led by head manager Ragan Copeland, managers were busy at every basket as multiple Tar Heels needed a rebounder or a passer or a charter.
Carolina Basketball is the championships and the wins and the full arena. But it's also these very late nights when every seat is empty, there are no television cameras or NIL talk, and the only sound is the constant bounce of multiple basketballs and the squeak of a fresh pair of Jordans (by the way, Roy Williams has a great story about Michael Jordan and the first time he told Matt Doherty they would be called Air Jordans, but we'll get to that later).
The bond from camp week, though, is more than just basketball. It's why all of us who haven't made a three-pointer and can't dunk have this connection with the Tar Heels that we can't always articulate—it's the people. It's the former Tar Heel player helping coach camp who always buys pizza for his group each night. It's a current Tar Heel giving his cell phone number to a camper he thought might need some support.
And it's this: In the second session of camp was a young camper who was extremely homesick. Hubert Davis spotted him immediately when making his rounds of the gyms the very first night. For the next 20 minutes, the head coach of the Tar Heels and his son, Elijah, sat in the stands of the middle school gym with the teary-eyed kid, just trying to make him feel a little more at home.
Camp week is over. It's been hectic, loud, sweaty, smelly and busy.
Can't wait until next year.
Camp week is different in Chapel Hill.
For the dorm staff, it's been a heck of a month in this last week. At least, that's probably what it's felt like in the camp office on Granville Towers 2 South, where every single problem in camp eventually makes its way to the staffers there.
But everywhere else—camp week is glorious. Today is check-out for the second and final session of Carolina Basketball School (the only remaining camp on the calendar is this weekend's fantasy camp, which is designed for adults).
Playoff games are happening right now in gyms across Chapel Hill, kids from ages eight to 18 making shots they'll be talking about for decades. My son and one of his friends are both Division I baseball players and one of the athletic achievements they're most proud of is a camp title at around ten years old when they cruised through the Carolina Basketball School bracket playing a wicked high-low two-man game.
This is also a week when stories happen that will be told for decades. Maybe they got a compliment from RJ Davis during a drill or shared a pizza with Elliot Cadeau or swished a free throw and got a head nod from Hubert Davis. It's a week when kids can walk through the exalted doors of Shane's Sugar Shack in the basement of Granville after dark on a random weekday night and bump into 2005 national champion Jawad Williams.
"I bet I can dunk on you," one overeager kid told Williams.
"No, you can't," the stonefaced nearly 20-year pro told him.
"Can you sign my shoe?" the kid responded.
But this week is for more than just the kids. It's normal to walk around the Smith Center this week and bump into Pete Chilcutt yesterday, Harrison Barnes today, Cole Anthony tomorrow. On Friday afternoon, the majority of the 1993 team gathered to support Eric Montross at his family's annual Father's Day Basketball Camp. Because the big man is currently undergoing cancer treatment, he couldn't make a personal appearance at the camp, which is one of his favorite weekends of the year.
In his absence, numerous former teammates assembled to work camp in his honor and also tell a few stories. One of those teammates, Travis Stephenson, texted Chilcutt—a teammate of Montross on the 1991 Carolina team—to see if he might also be willing to work camp. The response said it all about both Montross and about the Carolina basketball family:
"Anything for the big fella."
Those types of bonds begin being formed in the Smith Center close to midnight, when regular pickup games ran for hours. Most encouragingly after this year's scrimmages, it would be difficult to definitively say who Carolina's best five players might be. There's enough depth that minutes will have to be earned in what should be some very competitive practices. Everyone had their night, from grad transfer Cormac Ryan consistently showing an impressive shooting stroke to freshman Zayden High having a solid all-around evening late during the second session. The question, of course, will be who can do it regularly once the coaches are actually on the court.
At 11:30 p.m. on Sunday night, with a full day of camp ahead of them the next day, the Tar Heels thought they had played their last game of the evening. "We can play one more," said Armando Bacot, and nine other players—a mix of alums and the current team—soon joined him on the court. As camp went on, those games got progressively more heated, with familiarity breeding some welcome feistiness.
Roy Williams has two of his grandsons at camp this week and stopped by the Smith Center to watch some of the pickup sessions. It was his first in-person look at Cadeau, the newest Tar Heel. After one full-court drive, the Hall of Fame head coach raised an eyebrow. "Now that," said the coach who had some of his best teams with some of the fastest point guards in Tar Heel history, "is speed."
But Williams isn't really there to evaluate talent. He's there to enjoy the bonds with his former players, as when he heckled Kenny Williams from the sideline on Sunday. Williams rose above the rim to dunk on a current Tar Heel who will remain anonymous. "Thirty-five years old!" Roy Williams shouted from the sideline, prompting Kenny Williams to make the raise the roof gesture as he ran back on defense.
Once the games were over at midnight, the real work was beginning; a healthy majority of the players hung around. There was Jawad Williams taking on multiple current Tar Heels in a series of one-on-one games. Here was Jalen Washington working on his jumper. Led by head manager Ragan Copeland, managers were busy at every basket as multiple Tar Heels needed a rebounder or a passer or a charter.
Carolina Basketball is the championships and the wins and the full arena. But it's also these very late nights when every seat is empty, there are no television cameras or NIL talk, and the only sound is the constant bounce of multiple basketballs and the squeak of a fresh pair of Jordans (by the way, Roy Williams has a great story about Michael Jordan and the first time he told Matt Doherty they would be called Air Jordans, but we'll get to that later).
The bond from camp week, though, is more than just basketball. It's why all of us who haven't made a three-pointer and can't dunk have this connection with the Tar Heels that we can't always articulate—it's the people. It's the former Tar Heel player helping coach camp who always buys pizza for his group each night. It's a current Tar Heel giving his cell phone number to a camper he thought might need some support.
And it's this: In the second session of camp was a young camper who was extremely homesick. Hubert Davis spotted him immediately when making his rounds of the gyms the very first night. For the next 20 minutes, the head coach of the Tar Heels and his son, Elijah, sat in the stands of the middle school gym with the teary-eyed kid, just trying to make him feel a little more at home.
Camp week is over. It's been hectic, loud, sweaty, smelly and busy.
Can't wait until next year.
Players Mentioned
F/C
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