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March 9, 2008
DURHAM, NC - MARCH 8: Mike Krzyzewski shakes hands with Roy Williams before their game at Cameron Indoor Stadium March 8, 2008 in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
DURHAM--To be a truly memorable Carolina Basketball victory, to be one of those nights you remember forever, you have to be surrounded by the right people.
I promise you this: long after you've forgotten Ty Lawson's key steal, long after you've forgotten Wayne Ellington's clutch bank shot, long after you've forgotten Danny Green's one-hand slam over a helpless Greg Paulus (OK, maybe you won't have forgotten that one), you'll remember who was there and how you celebrated Carolina's 76-68 victory in the season finale. Nights like this are about the people.
Inside Cameron, there were images that you will never forget. Around 11:45, the media was trying to shoehorn into the tiny visitor's locker room to get comments from the players. Up the stairs and around the corner, there sat a very tired-looking man with his head in his hands. He held a stat sheet and he looked exhausted.
It was Roy Williams. While students were screaming on Franklin Street and you were high-fiving in your living room, he was just sitting, surrounded by a few close friends.
What was on his mind?
"Who's the starting pitcher tomorrow?"
He was talking about tomorrow's third game of the Carolina-Duke baseball series. Less than an hour after coaching in front of millions on national television, he wasn't cutting down the nets or popping his collar. He was thinking about baseball.
"I love Roy all the time," was Eve Carson's quote earlier this week on the front page of the Daily Tar Heel. Her friends couldn't explain why she'd put it exactly that way.
"Who doesn't love Roy?" said Carson's close friend, Tristan Heinrich. "Everything that Carolina does is done with so much respect and class and integrity, and Eve appreciated that that's the way he has represented Carolina at every opportunity."
I think maybe Eve loved Roy all the time because Roy loves Carolina all the time, which is something that would have appealed to her--and something to which she could have related.
It's the people, see. You can talk about switching screens or offensive rebounds. But what I'm more likely to remember is watching Eric Montross stand up in the crow's nest radio booth at Cameron Indoor Stadium, contorting himself so his head wouldn't scrape metal, to wave goodbye to George Lynch. Lynch had spent most of his evening feverishly waving a Carolina blue-and-white pompom, oblivious to the fact that Duke students behind him were having a hard time seeing over 6-foot-8 plus a pompom.
Lynch was Jackie Manuel before there was Jackie Manuel. If it's possible, after watching him wave that pompom, I think I like the 1993 national champion even more right now.
Late in the second half, former Blue Devil Brian Davis--inexplicably clad in a Carolina blue jacket--stood up in his seat near the baseline during a timeout. He pointed at the Carolina bench and loudly informed them that they were not a good basketball team.
The response from Lynch and the rest of the Carolina fans behind the bench: they pointed at the scoreboard.
It wasn't just senior night, see. It was also alumni night. Davis was there, of course. Jason Williams and Chris Duhon were there, too. You're smiling a little, knowing they went home unhappy, aren't you? Wait a minute. Know who else was there, sitting on the opposite baseline?
Christian Laettner.
Yep, Laettner himself got to view the loss. He was one row behind Eli and Peyton Manning, because apparently two Super Bowl trophies outweigh a retired jersey.
Eve Carson was slain in an apparent carjacking Wednesday.
It's the people. Inside the Tar Heel locker room, after a raucous celebration that included a brave-yet-foolish chest bump of immovable Jonas Sahratian by slightly more movable Eric Hoots--"Put me on the injury report as, `Bruised sternum,'" Hoots said--Mike Copeland removed his jersey and started to toss it in his locker. Then he grabbed it and pointed to the black patch with the blue letters that read, "Eve."
"That's why we did it, right there," he said. "That's why we did it."
Last year around this time, Bobby Frasor was walking across The Pit when a stranger grabbed him.
"Will you take a picture with me?" Eve Carson asked.
Frasor obliged, and a friendship was born. The Tar Heel guard turned into Carson's underground campaign manager, asking all his teammates if they'd voted for her on election day.
"Normally, I hate politics," Frasor said. "But anything to help a friend."
The friend just happened to be a rabid basketball fan. She spent most of the season in her regular seats in section 118, row Y. In those seats, she was not the student body president or the Morehead Scholar. She was just a college senior who really, really wanted to get on the video board. So for the Duke game, she and her friend Anna showed up in Carolina blue prom dresses. Presto, video board magic.
She wasn't always in the stands. Sometimes, she was on the field. She was the captain of her intramural flag football team, which was named--you're not going to believe this--Team Friendship. Last year, they won the school and regional championship. Mostly, she played receiver, but she also had a favorite postgame activity.
When the game was over and players--friends--would start to scatter, Eve would start yelling.
"Wait a minute, come back here!" she'd say. She'd gather everyone in a circle and then she'd say something they all remember, every single one of them.
"Think about this moment," she'd say. "This day and this moment, this is the best day of our lives right now."
You know who would love that quote? Roy Williams. He would love the idea that a college student recognized that the best days of her life--the best days of all of our lives--were not a few months away at graduation or back in high school or that time you threw the winning pass in the playoffs. He would love the idea of relishing this exact moment right now.
There is more to come, an ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament and you hesitate to even imagine what might be ahead. I understand that some people judge a season by what happens in the next month. But right now, she's right.
"Eve and I were two of the first people out of the Smith Center the night we won the 2005 national championship," Heinrich says. "We sprinted all the way to Franklin Street without stopping."
Three years later, he remembers that night exactly like you'll remember tonight, exactly like you'll remember Roy on the steps and Eric in the booth and Brian Davis waving his silly jacket.
"Honestly, I had forgotten about that day until just right now," he says. "But she was right. It was one of the best days of our lives."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.
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