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University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Andy Mead
Lucas: Welcome Home
September 8, 2024 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
The 2005 team reunited for a 20th anniversary celebration.
By Adam Lucas
It happened just like they predicted.
Twenty years ago, in the wake of Carolina's national championship victory over Illinois, Sean May was contemplating what the title meant for his future. He couldn't have known he'd be a lottery pick. He wouldn't have imagined he'd get paid to play basketball for a decade. He had no way of knowing he'd be a Tar Heel assistant coach.
But he knew the 2005 title would have an impact.
"When I come back to Carolina, people are going to know me because I was on a national championship team," May said back in the spring of 2005. "I was talking to somebody yesterday and there was a six or seven year old with him. When that kid is 20 years old, going to school here, I'll come back and he'll come up to me and say, 'I used to watch you when I was little and I used to love you and the way you played.' That's one of the greatest parts about this—we'll have an impact on people we never met, kids who are starting to learn the game. And one of the reasons they'll want to come to Carolina is they saw us play."
That's very much what happened on Saturday afternoon. The 2005 Tar Heels had gathered in the Smith Center practice gym on Friday night for a reunion dinner, and then they tailgated together on Saturday afternoon, and they had another dinner together on Saturday evening.
At the football game, at the end of the first quarter, with the Heels leading Charlotte 14-3, the 2005 alums gathered on the home sideline. As championship highlights played on the Kenan video board with the very period-appropriate "How We Do" backing it, you could see a ripple of recognition run through the crowd. Is that…it is…the champs!
Maybe somewhere in that crowd was that kid May talked to back in 2005. That kid very well might be a parent himself now, might have held his own child on his shoulders to get a better look.
It made you remember. With Marvin Williams and Roy Williams and Jawad Williams all milling around, it was a fun memory that there were so many Williamses on the court for the Tar Heels that Voice of the Tar Heels Woody Durham elected to call them by their first names on the air. This familiarity went against his professional nature, but it sure was easier to identify everyone. And it also gave us, "Loose ball…rebounded Marvin…he scores!" as the Smith Center vibrated during the senior day comeback against Duke.
It wasn't always easy. Which might be exactly why we love them so much. They were an integral part of fostering the Carolina family that we sometimes take for granted today. At a time when it wasn't as commonplace to have dozens of alums around in the summer, Jawad Williams and Jackie Manuel and Melvin Scott stuck around when they could have left. They were the foundation on which the character of the '05 team was built. They were the ones who went 8-20.
Now we remember it being simple. It wasn't. Even that season, when now we think of them as the machine that beat the Illini for the title in their own backyard, there were hiccups. A month before that Marvin Williams shot, the Heels fumbled away a win at Duke. Roy Williams had to navigate egos. Players spoke openly of having been a selfish team the season before, when a very similar roster was bounced from the NCAA Tournament in the second round.
He and the veterans made the 2005 Tar Heels into a group that, improbably, had a lot of fun together. David Noel tried to escape from a "vicious" school of fish in Maui. The entire team rallied behind May in a hostile game at Indiana.
Roy Williams looked out his window the night before the championship game and saw a group of people playing football near the Gateway Arch. When he looked closer, he realized something unexpected: the group was much of his team.
And they've been very much that same group ever since, from the moment Raymond Felton hit the three-pointer over "the shut-down man" in the title game forward. They've remained unusually close. "This isn't anything out of the ordinary," Jawad said as he looked around at his teammates on Saturday afternoon. "We see each other all the time."
Coming off the Kenan field after the recognition, May reflected on what it meant. "This means," he said, "we're old."
Not possible. And what they did, and celebrating them, is about much more than just beating Illinois or winning a program's fourth NCAA championship.
It also mattered because a high schooler named Tyler Hansbrough was in the stands that Monday night in St. Louis, watching them win the national championship. And then, 20 years later, he was at Kenan Stadium, watching them receive a standing ovation and musing about his own 20-year championship reunion approaching in four years. Several of his 2009 teammates were with him, honoring a team that had won it all, just like them, but that had also showed them how to have championship makeup, just like them.
The culture cultivated by the 2005 team has permeated the program for the last two decades. Jawad talks often of how his Carolina background has made him a better player and, now, a better coach—he coached Sacramento to a summer league title this summer. Wes Miller is the head coach at Cincinnati. Manuel is an assistant coach at American, which will visit Chapel Hill this season.
Even beyond basketball, though, they've quite simply grown up together. Almost everyone brought kids and families back to Chapel Hill with them this weekend, so the kids could hang out together while the adults watched old highlight videos. All three of Jackie and Ronda Manuel's kids wore "Jackie Manuel has a posse" shirts. The couple got engaged when he was a player, when they thought they knew it all (well, at least Jackie thought he knew it all; Ronda is the wise one) but couldn't have imagined the next two decades. Just like his teammates, they've made a life that encompasses so much more than basketball...but started with basketball. In April of 2005, basketball felt all-encompassing. They couldn't have known that they'd be there for weddings and kids and new jobs and new homes and so much more than baskets and rebounds. But they consistently have been.
It was very much exactly as Roy Williams had predicted it in 2005. On that night in St. Louis, he gave a prophetic pregame speech before the game against Illinois.
"Last season," he told his team, "we had a reunion. Four of the five starters from the 1957 championship team were at that reunion. They are always remembered as a national championship team. Almost 50 years later, the relationships they have and the memories they have are some of the strongest things about them. You guys have a chance to have that same feeling."
A little less than three hours later, after the nets had been cut down, Williams ushered Dean Smith and Michael Jordan into the happy Carolina locker room. "Along with Phil Ford, these two guys are Carolina Basketball," Williams told his team. "But you are having your moment right now."
They had it again on Saturday afternoon—the moment of a lifetime, that has lasted for a lifetime.
It happened just like they predicted.
Twenty years ago, in the wake of Carolina's national championship victory over Illinois, Sean May was contemplating what the title meant for his future. He couldn't have known he'd be a lottery pick. He wouldn't have imagined he'd get paid to play basketball for a decade. He had no way of knowing he'd be a Tar Heel assistant coach.
But he knew the 2005 title would have an impact.
"When I come back to Carolina, people are going to know me because I was on a national championship team," May said back in the spring of 2005. "I was talking to somebody yesterday and there was a six or seven year old with him. When that kid is 20 years old, going to school here, I'll come back and he'll come up to me and say, 'I used to watch you when I was little and I used to love you and the way you played.' That's one of the greatest parts about this—we'll have an impact on people we never met, kids who are starting to learn the game. And one of the reasons they'll want to come to Carolina is they saw us play."
That's very much what happened on Saturday afternoon. The 2005 Tar Heels had gathered in the Smith Center practice gym on Friday night for a reunion dinner, and then they tailgated together on Saturday afternoon, and they had another dinner together on Saturday evening.
At the football game, at the end of the first quarter, with the Heels leading Charlotte 14-3, the 2005 alums gathered on the home sideline. As championship highlights played on the Kenan video board with the very period-appropriate "How We Do" backing it, you could see a ripple of recognition run through the crowd. Is that…it is…the champs!
Maybe somewhere in that crowd was that kid May talked to back in 2005. That kid very well might be a parent himself now, might have held his own child on his shoulders to get a better look.
It made you remember. With Marvin Williams and Roy Williams and Jawad Williams all milling around, it was a fun memory that there were so many Williamses on the court for the Tar Heels that Voice of the Tar Heels Woody Durham elected to call them by their first names on the air. This familiarity went against his professional nature, but it sure was easier to identify everyone. And it also gave us, "Loose ball…rebounded Marvin…he scores!" as the Smith Center vibrated during the senior day comeback against Duke.
It wasn't always easy. Which might be exactly why we love them so much. They were an integral part of fostering the Carolina family that we sometimes take for granted today. At a time when it wasn't as commonplace to have dozens of alums around in the summer, Jawad Williams and Jackie Manuel and Melvin Scott stuck around when they could have left. They were the foundation on which the character of the '05 team was built. They were the ones who went 8-20.
Now we remember it being simple. It wasn't. Even that season, when now we think of them as the machine that beat the Illini for the title in their own backyard, there were hiccups. A month before that Marvin Williams shot, the Heels fumbled away a win at Duke. Roy Williams had to navigate egos. Players spoke openly of having been a selfish team the season before, when a very similar roster was bounced from the NCAA Tournament in the second round.
He and the veterans made the 2005 Tar Heels into a group that, improbably, had a lot of fun together. David Noel tried to escape from a "vicious" school of fish in Maui. The entire team rallied behind May in a hostile game at Indiana.
Roy Williams looked out his window the night before the championship game and saw a group of people playing football near the Gateway Arch. When he looked closer, he realized something unexpected: the group was much of his team.
And they've been very much that same group ever since, from the moment Raymond Felton hit the three-pointer over "the shut-down man" in the title game forward. They've remained unusually close. "This isn't anything out of the ordinary," Jawad said as he looked around at his teammates on Saturday afternoon. "We see each other all the time."
Coming off the Kenan field after the recognition, May reflected on what it meant. "This means," he said, "we're old."
Not possible. And what they did, and celebrating them, is about much more than just beating Illinois or winning a program's fourth NCAA championship.
It also mattered because a high schooler named Tyler Hansbrough was in the stands that Monday night in St. Louis, watching them win the national championship. And then, 20 years later, he was at Kenan Stadium, watching them receive a standing ovation and musing about his own 20-year championship reunion approaching in four years. Several of his 2009 teammates were with him, honoring a team that had won it all, just like them, but that had also showed them how to have championship makeup, just like them.
The culture cultivated by the 2005 team has permeated the program for the last two decades. Jawad talks often of how his Carolina background has made him a better player and, now, a better coach—he coached Sacramento to a summer league title this summer. Wes Miller is the head coach at Cincinnati. Manuel is an assistant coach at American, which will visit Chapel Hill this season.
Even beyond basketball, though, they've quite simply grown up together. Almost everyone brought kids and families back to Chapel Hill with them this weekend, so the kids could hang out together while the adults watched old highlight videos. All three of Jackie and Ronda Manuel's kids wore "Jackie Manuel has a posse" shirts. The couple got engaged when he was a player, when they thought they knew it all (well, at least Jackie thought he knew it all; Ronda is the wise one) but couldn't have imagined the next two decades. Just like his teammates, they've made a life that encompasses so much more than basketball...but started with basketball. In April of 2005, basketball felt all-encompassing. They couldn't have known that they'd be there for weddings and kids and new jobs and new homes and so much more than baskets and rebounds. But they consistently have been.
It was very much exactly as Roy Williams had predicted it in 2005. On that night in St. Louis, he gave a prophetic pregame speech before the game against Illinois.
"Last season," he told his team, "we had a reunion. Four of the five starters from the 1957 championship team were at that reunion. They are always remembered as a national championship team. Almost 50 years later, the relationships they have and the memories they have are some of the strongest things about them. You guys have a chance to have that same feeling."
A little less than three hours later, after the nets had been cut down, Williams ushered Dean Smith and Michael Jordan into the happy Carolina locker room. "Along with Phil Ford, these two guys are Carolina Basketball," Williams told his team. "But you are having your moment right now."
They had it again on Saturday afternoon—the moment of a lifetime, that has lasted for a lifetime.
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