LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
I’ve been a dedicated fan of the Olympics ever since watching Michael Jordan play for the United States in 1984. In those days, it was amazing to see Jordan—along with his Tar Heel and Olympics teammate, Sam Perkins—on such a worldwide stage. We’d seen the duo in Carmichael Auditorium. Suddenly, in an era when the world seemed much bigger, we were watching them accept a gold medal in front of the entire world.
Since then, it’s become much easier to watch our favorite athletes compete all over the planet in all manner of competitions. But there’s still something magical about the Olympics. Especially in the sports in which they mark the ultimate achievement in that particular sport, there’s just something incredible about knowing you’re watching someone who has worked for four years, nonstop, to get to that moment.
And when the games of the XXXIII Olympiad open in Paris in July, numerous Tar Heels will be in France to participate and try to become the latest Carolina athlete to add an Olympic medal to their list of accomplishments. This issue introduces some of them.
Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’s a CarolinaOlympics connection. After all, they’ve been linked for longer than you might realize.
When the University decided to start a basketball team in the first years of the 20th century, the school needed two key components: players and a head coach.
Finding players was easy. They wouldn’t arrive with much formal basketball experience and they might have to be taught the actual game, but a coach could handle that responsibility.
Oh, but about that head coach. That was a little more challenging. Finding someone with experience with a game that had just been invented a few years earlier by Dr. James Naismith was going to be a little more difficult.
Nat Cartmell was a renowned sprinter who’d won a pair of silver medals in the 1904 Summer Olympics and gold and bronze medals in the 1908 edition of the Games. He was brought to Chapel Hill in 1909 to coach the track team, but somehow also eventually earned the title of men’s basketball coach. Cartmell wasn’t particularly qualified for the job, but that was OK, because Carolina didn’t have the funds for a full-time coach anyway. He admitted a distinct lack of knowledge of the game, but this was 1910 and the job requirements were flexible.
Plus, more importantly, he was an Olympian! What greater athletic qualification could there be?
It was the first documented crossover between Tar Heel athletics and the world’s greatest amateur sporting event. Less than 75 years later, Chapel Hill gave the world Jordan, who would go on to duplicate his Olympic feat eight years later as part of the greatest team in sports history, the 1992 basketball Dream Team
Winning an Olympic medal is the ultimate validation of an athletic career, an achievement that remains on your biography forever. And it might even get you a job for which you’re not quite qualified. Sorry, though—the basketball team already has a coach
Adam Lucas Editor in Chief
““Representing
the United States at the Olympics is one of the proudest moments of my life. There’s no greater honor than stepping on that podium representing your country.”
— MICHAEL JORDAN
the SUMMER OLYMPICS edition
ON THE COVER:
Aranza Vazquez looks to improve on a sixth-place finish at the Tokyo Games at this year’s Paris Olympics.
COVER PHOTO: UNC ATHLETICS
TOC PHOTOS: JEFFREY CAMARATI & UNC ATHLETICS
OLYMPIC RINGS: MAKAYLA KEY (QUEEN ELIZABETH
OLYMPIC PARK IN LONDON)
OLYMPICS
The Long Way Back
Making her first Olympics presented Aranza Vazquez with a very difficult challenge: doing it again BY ADAM LUCAS
16 The Ring(s) Collector
Meredith Sholder has already enjoyed a decorated field hockey career at Carolina. Now she wants to add a trip to the Olympics BY ANDREW
STILWELL
OLYMPICS
20
Built To Win
The 1976 Olympics marked the only time Dean Smith altered his coaching approach BY ADAM LUCAS
OLYMPICS
28 At Home Abroad
Carolina continues to have an international presence in women’s soccer BY ANDREW STILWELL
OLYMPICS
34 On Their Marks
Several Tar Heel swimmers will participate in one of the most pressurized events in sports—the Olympic Trials BY LEE PACE
38 Go Heels, Go America
Carolina’s director of athletics explains the connection between a robust Olympic sports program and the Olympics BY BUBBA CUNNINGHAM
TAR HEEL TICKER
THE OLYMPICS
TAR HEELS IN PARIS
The 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will take place in Paris from July 26 to August 11, 2024.
Matt, Layne & Melanie Cook // Bowling Green, KY
Jesse & Cathy Archer // Chesterfield, VA
Meredith & Roger Pait // New Bern, NC
Ted & Val Smith // Durham, NC
Linda Parker // Gadsden, AL
Karen Greenberg & Adam Davidson // Cherry Hill, NJ
English & Stephen King // Hillsborough, NC
Rachel Foushee // Raleigh, NC
Dennis Goss // Chapel Hill, NC
Kennedy Barker & Bill Barker // Waynesville, NC
Nate Ross & family // Cary, NC
Teresa & Randy Brownlow // Greensboro, NC 9
Beverly & Terry Rudolph // Chapel Hill, NC 10
THE OLYMPICS
TAR HEELS + THE OLYMPICS
Rams Club members sent us their favorite photos at past Olympic and Paralympic Games and other Olympic sites.
Kate Quadland // Winston Salem, NC Olympic Headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland (where she was an intern last summer)
Jeffrey Coleman // Richmond, VA
The Panathenaic Stadium in Athens - site of the opening and closing ceremonies in 1896
William Keever // Raleigh, NC Olympic pool in Barcelona, Spain 5
Makayla Key // Greensboro, NC
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London
Peggy & Bruce Freniere // Chapel Hill, NC
The Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO, with Shooting Gold Medalist, Stetson Barfield
LONG WAY THE BACK
Making her first Olympics presented Aranza Vazquez with a very difficult challenge: doing it again
BY ADAM LUCAS PHOTOS BY UNC ATHLETICS
Carolina’s best individual medal hope at the Paris 2024 Olympics was discovered at a hair salon.
Aranza Vazquez was just a four-year-old in La Paz, Mexico, when she was spotted by her future coach. Vazquez’s aunt had a hair salon where Aranza would sometimes pass the afternoons with her mother. On one of those days, she was spotted by diving coach Yuniesky Hernandez.
Hernandez asked Aranza’s mother, Monica Montano, if he could put the girl through a couple of drills. On the street outside the hair salon, his tests confirmed what he’d already suspected:
“She could be a great diver,” Hernandez told Monica. “She has all the physical skills.”
Hernandez encouraged Aranza’s parents to bring her to the pool to work with him. For six months, they ignored him. Finally, they agreed to bring her to a swimming class.
“As soon as it finished,” says Aranza’s father, Juan Carlo, “she asked to go to the diving pool.”
And she has very rarely left it since that day. Vazquez has gone on to become one of the most decorated individual athletes in the history of Carolina athletics, winning back-to-back NCAA championships in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events in 2023 and 2024. When she competed for Mexico in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, she became the first female Olympic diver in Carolina history.
Now she’s preparing to do it all over again. Vazquez will again dive for Mexico at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Getting to the Olympics the first time? That was just that talented girl on the street in La Paz doing what she always loved to do.
But getting back? That was a more complicated journey.
Two years after Aranza first splashed into that diving pool, she made an announcement to her parents:
“I will live in the United States one day.”
But how to do it? La Paz is just a couple of hours from the wellknown beach destination of Cabo San Lucas, but about a 15-hour drive from the American border. Juan Carlo and Monica were honest with their daughter—and their son, Rodolfo, who eventually followed in Aranza’s path and is now a freshman diver at Carolina—the best way to get to America was by excelling in academics and athletics. That combination—both parts, not just one—could potentially unlock some scholarship offers in the United States.
“We have always pushed our kids in two ways,” Juan Carlo says. “Studies plus sports. It is not sports plus studies. The studies open doors and make better opportunities in life and open the minds.”
And you never know exactly when that opportunity might come.
Aranza’s club coach, Yoandi Nunes, was acquainted with Cuban export Yaidel Gamboa, a ten-time national champion in Cuba who had gone on to a decorated coaching career. Nunes sent Gamboa some videos.
“He mentioned she was interested in coming to the United States,” Gamboa says. “I knew right away she had the talent to succeed at the NCAA level. I was impressed by her power and her beautiful lines. Also, I later realized what a great competitor she is, so she was the perfect package.”
Fortuitously, Gamboa had just moved from the University of Missouri to Carolina with head swimming coach Mark Gangloff. He had already been in contact with Aranza during his time at Missouri. Now he had an even better location to offer.
“He had reached out to me in 2018 and asked if I wanted to come on a recruiting trip,” Aranza says. “When he moved to Carolina, he told me I should come to Chapel Hill and see the team. That’s what I did, and I loved it—I loved the team and the school. And that’s why I’m here.”
Her freshman year was eventful. She became a Tar Heel after the fall 2020 semester, just in time to finish runnerup at the 2021 1-meter and 3-meter NCAA Championships and earn ACC Diver of the Year honors.
The University was still navigating COVID, but she thrived in her new home. Just as her parents had always insisted, she also excelled in the classroom, earning a spot on the AllACC Academic team.
““There was a point it affected me,” she says. “When you’re a teenager, you start being conscious of your body and there will be coaches who tell you that you are fat. They want you to look better and be thinner and look better for the platform. My parents would see me cry. My friends would tell me it had nothing to do with how I look, that I could push through it and get better. The support of my family and friends was so important. Even these days, there are times I have to remind myself that I got where I am with this body.”
So she acknowledged the “advice” but didn’t take it seriously. “My fourth place was one of Mexico’s best results in the World Cup in many years,” she says. “And a few months after that I qualified for the Olympics and got sixth. I didn’t lose weight. I didn’t do anything different.”
“WHEN [YAIDEL GAMBOA] MOVED TO CAROLINA, HE TOLD ME I SHOULD COME TO CHAPEL HILL AND SEE THE TEAM. THAT’S WHAT I DID, AND I LOVED IT—I LOVED THE TEAM AND THE SCHOOL. AND THAT’S WHY I’M HERE.”
ARANZA VAZQUEZ
With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics pushed back to 2021, she secured a spot on the Mexican national team and was wide-eyed around the other Olympians.
“It was a dream come true,” she says. “I couldn’t believe I was diving with Olympians and talking to them.”
At one point, she was having a conversation with a group of Canadian divers on the pool deck.
“I can’t believe I’m talking to you,” she told them. Laughing, they replied, “Why?”
“I saw you on TV!” she said. “You’re an Olympian!”
It was the pinnacle of her sport. And she was there, too, diving alongside those same heroes she had watched on television in 2016. She finished sixth overall—sixth in the entire world—in the threemeter springboard.
But people can be cruel even to Olympians. Even as she stood on the deck in Tokyo, Aranza knew that. She’d had first hand experience. A few months prior to the Olympics, she finished fourth at the World Cup, which helped earn the Olympics spot for Mexico that she eventually took.
A judge approached her immediately after the meet. “You did amazing,” he said. “Can I give you some advice?”
Of course he could. She was the ultimate competitor, eager to soak in any possible detail that might result in a precious extra tenth of a point. She was the only female Mexican diver who had made it to the finals. It was, to that point, one of the greatest accomplishments of her life. She was not yet 20 years old.
“If you would lose a little weight,” he told her, “you would get more points.”
It was not the first time she had ever heard that sentiment.
She still occasionally sees that same judge. She smiles and nods. He probably thinks he had something to do with her success. She knows differently. And what does she think, when she passes him at the pool?
“I’m an NCAA champion in America,” she thinks. “I don’t know if you’re aware of that. And I still look the exact same way I did three years ago.”
There was a mental test to accompany the physical challenge. Aranza Vazquez had accomplished a lifelong goal of being an Olympian. She had trained for that day and worked for that day and gone to early morning practices and spent hours in the pool and the gym, all for that day.
Without ever giving any thought to one additional question: what happened after that day? Her sophomore year at Carolina was, by her standards, underwhelming. She finished third in the one-meter springboard and won the consolation finals for the three-meter springboard. She didn’t win the ACC in either event.
“No one really talks about post-Olympic depression,” she says. “No one prepared me for it. I thought everyone expected me to win everything. I felt I had to do great in every single competition and I was putting so much pressure on myself. It felt like everyone was relying on me, and in reality, that was all in my head.”
She found a documentary called “The Weight of Gold” in which a variety of athletes, including Michael Phelps, discuss the mental health challenges of being an Olympian, especially in a sport where the Olympics is the pinnacle. She had set a goal, she had trained, she had reached the goal, and she had celebrated the achievement. And…then what?
“After you go and do a great job, you come back and then it’s like,
‘What am I supposed to do now?’” she says. “I already went. Why would I keep practicing? And I fell into that.”
She took nearly two months off. She returned to La Paz and saw her friends and former coaches, spent time with family, ate Monica’s signature arroz con pollo. She watched the world championship from afar, thought about the dives she knew how to do and the scores that would have resulted. And then she realized she missed it.
“I wanted to be there,” she said. “I missed competing and practicing. Seeing it from the outside helped me.”
“It was a tough time for her to be so young and have the success she had her freshman year and then have the Olympics the same year,” Gamboa says. “I knew she had to give herself some time to recover mentally and get hungry and motivated again. I helped her understand that everything she had accomplished was going to be part of her legacy. But if she wanted to be successful at any level again, we had to work harder than we did before. She is so competitive, so I knew she would be back sooner than later.”
“
was in Tokyo.”
Somewhere in the world, there is a girl who will be just as excited to talk to Aranza Vazquez on the pool deck in Paris as Aranza was to talk to the Canadians in Tokyo.
They will be watching in La Paz and Chapel Hill and towns around the world, marveling at the girl who was picked out of a hair salon as a four-year-old and now is one of the very best anywhere. She is proud of her Mexican heritage and comfortable in her own body and she is something else, too:
“THIS IS THE UNIVERSITY OF CHAMPIONS. SHE HAS ALWAYS LOVED BEING A CHAMPION, AND I THINK BEING SURROUNDED BY SO MANY ATHLETES FROM DIFFERENT SPORTS ENGAGING IN THE SAME MISSION HAS ALWAYS MOTIVATED HER.”
YAIDEL GAMBOA
Just as he predicted, she came back even better. She went into the Tokyo Olympics a relative unknown. She will go to the Paris Olympics as a four-time national champion. She will be happy to be there, but she will not just be happy to be there. “She is better in the way she approaches every competition,” Gamboa says. “She knows it is always about handling the moment in order to be the best version of herself. She is more mature and stronger in every way than she
Absolutely, positively a Tar Heel.
“This is the university of champions,” Gamboa says. “She has always loved being a champion, and I think being surrounded by so many athletes from different sports engaging in the same mission has always motivated her. She loves the history and excellence behind the Tar Heels.”
Her parents are hoping to be in Paris this summer to watch their daughter live her dreams. They visited her this spring to watch her dominate the ACC championships and the entire family attended a Carolina basketball game together, perhaps four of the most improbable Tar Heels out of a crowd of over 20,000. She grabbed one of the t-shirts thrown into the crowd during a timeout. Her mother danced along to the sound of the band. Her parents saw very clearly what she has consistently said for the last four years.
“She tells us all the time,” Juan Carlo says, “that she is so proud to be a Tar Heel.”
THE RING(S) COLLECTOR
MEREDITH SHOLDER HAS ALREADY ENJOYED A DECORATED FIELD HOCKEY CAREER AT CAROLINA. NOW SHE WANTS TO ADD A TRIP TO THE OLYMPICS
BY ANDREW STILWELL
PHOTOS BY JEFFREY CAMARATI
During her time as a Tar Heel, Meredith Sholder had quite the decorated field hockey resume. She was a member of the ACC academic honor roll for five years, a three-time all-conference selection, and a two-time All-America. Thanks in part to a medical redshirt year and an additional year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was part of six ACC Championship teams, and has four NCAA championship rings.
This summer, Sholder hopes to add another accolade to her already impressive repertoire – competing for the United States field hockey team in Paris.
“It’s so surreal, and I don’t know if it’s actually hit me yet that we qualified and I have the opportunity to go the Olympics,” Sholder said. “Three years ago, I would have never expected this, to be honest. I had plans of going back to school after I was done playing and becoming a physician’s assistant!”
However, the best laid plans of mice and men, or, in this case, student-athletes, often go awry. For the past two-plus years, Sholder has been a part of the United States field hockey national team’s player pool, having officially joined the team in 2022.
“While I was playing in college, I guess the national team had been keeping an eye on me. During my fifth year at Carolina, they actually called me up to the national team and asked me to go on tour with them a few times,” she said. “Then, after my sixth year, I officially joined the team and started training with them. When I got called up, it kind of paved a new road for me. I told myself that I could always go back to school, but I couldn’t go back and continue to play field hockey.”
NO GUARANTEES
While field hockey success has been the norm in Chapel Hill in recent memory, it hasn’t always been a guarantee at the sport’s national level. Since 1992, the United States have missed as many Olympic Games – four, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics – as they have qualified for. Point being, it’s not necessarily a lock for the United States to make the Olympics like it is for the Tar Heels to be a top seed in the ACC field hockey tournament.
Each Olympic cycle, only eleven nations, plus the host country, can qualify to play field hockey during the summer games. Five of those qualifiers are continental tournaments (Pan-America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania) which all took place in the fall of 2023. The remaining teams qualify through the FIH Pro League tournament, which took place this past January.
During the 2023 Pan-Am games, the Americans came up just short on the “automatic qualifier,” falling 2-1 to Argentina in the championship match. To participate in the Olympics, they would need to advance through the Pro League tournament. After advancing through the group stage without conceding a goal, including an “upset” win over the host country, India, the United States were able to qualify for the Olympics following a comefrom-behind victory over Japan in the FIH semi-finals. Regardless of result, the top two teams automatically qualified to compete in Paris.
“I’m really proud of us. The past two years have been tough training-wise, mentally, physically the team has worked so hard.
So having that finally pay off, it’s a great feeling,” Sholder said. “Our head coach made a point to tell us that in history, there are just about 70 women in the United States who have gone to the Olympics for field hockey. Thinking about how that number is less than 100, and I could be added to that list, it’s crazy to think about.”
CHAMPIONSHIP PEDIGREE
Attending Carolina during a “Golden Age” for Field Hockey, Sholder’s experience in college more than prepared her for the sport’s biggest stage, including learning from one of the sport’s most decorated coaches, Karen Shelton.
“I grew so much as a person and as a player from my experience being on the field hockey team at UNC and being coached by Karen Shelton,” Sholder said. “She sets high expectations, but what she does works so well. I’m honestly really thankful that I was able to be coached by her because she saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself at the time, and I’m glad I can make her proud.”
“UNC breeds excellence,” Sholder continued. “Everything we do on that field, we try and do the best we possibly can at every single practice, every single game, no matter who we’re playing, no matter the score, it was always when we stepped on the field, we were giving our all. We showed up every single day with the mentality of trying to get one percent better. Having that mentality definitely prepared me for training and playing international field hockey.”
While she was prepared with the highest pedigree, Sholder notes that there are some differences in international competition from her time in college.
“The biggest difference between college and international play is the speed of play,” she said. “There’s more of an emphasis on how fast you can run and how quickly you can make decisions and play the ball. In college, if I got the ball and held on to it for three seconds, statistically, I could get away with it, but in international hockey, that ball will almost always get stripped away from me.”
OLYMPIC DREAMS
Following January’s Olympic qualifier in India, the United States stayed in India for approximately a month for a series of minitournaments against multiple global competitors. Following a short break, the process to make the final Olympic roster began in earnest at the end of March, at the USA Field Hockey training complex at UNC-Charlotte. In total, there are 26 athletes in the player pool that will be narrowed down to approximately 16 players on the final Olympic roster.
“Our training schedule is normally Monday to Friday, every day we’ll have a practice in the morning from eight to 10, and then we’ll have lift afterwards, and then we finish up around 2:00 PM,” Sholder said. “Then throughout the schedule they’ll sprinkle in matches
“IT’S DEFINITELY A BENEFIT TO HAVE A FEW OTHER TAR HEELS IN THE SELECTION POOL WITH ME. WE SEE THE GAME THE SAME WAY. THEY’RE PEOPLE I CAN TRUST, AND PEOPLE I’M COMFORTABLE WITH ON AND OFF THE FIELD. I LIVED WITH CASSIE SUMFEST FOR FIVE YEARS IN COLLEGE. SHE’S MY BEST FRIEND AND GO-TO GIRL.
I’M FORTUNATE TO BE ABLE TO SHARE THESE EXPERIENCES WITH HER AND HAVE THAT ‘SISTER’ I CAN GO TO, BECAUSE IT’S NOT ALWAYS EASY.”
MEREDITH SHOLDER
and series where we play against other national teams. Back in December, New Zealand came, and we played a five-game series with them. On those occasions, we will play on the weekends too.”
The final Olympic roster will be announced after the next FIL Pro League, which is taking place in Europe in May, but even though the selection process has the potential to be intense, Sholder is fortunate to have some fellow Tar Heels joining her in the player pool: Current student-athlete and rising junior Ryleigh Heck, along with field hockey alumnae Ashley Hoffman (2015-2018), Cassie Sumfest (2017-2021) and Katie Dixon (2020-2023).
“It’s definitely a benefit to have a few other Tar Heels in the selection pool with me,” Sholder said. “We see the game the same way. They’re people I can trust, and people I’m comfortable with on and off the field. I lived with Cassie Sumfest for five years in college. She’s my best friend and go-to girl. I’m fortunate to be able to share these experiences with her and have that ‘sister’ I can go to, because it’s not always easy.
“The selection process can be grueling,” she added. “When we go back to training, we’re training for the Olympics, so it’ll definitely be cutthroat and the physical fitness of it will be tough, but it’s really nice to be able to go through that with girls that you’ve been playing alongside for the past six or seven years.”
BUILT TO WIN
The 1976 Olympics marked the only time Dean Smith altered his coaching approach
By Adam Lucas
Photos by UNC Athletics
On exactly one occasion in his decorated career, Dean Smith coached for the sole purpose of winning.
Smith, of course, is famous for reminding his players of the billion people in China who had no idea the Tar Heels were about to play what they considered an important game. He was fiercely competitive, but he was also realistic about the greater worldwide significance of a basketball game.
But at the 1976 Olympics, he coached only for winning.
“At Carolina, we always talked about doing the best we could, and that if we did the best we could, winning would probably be the outcome,” said Phil Ford, a point guard on that team. “The Olympics was the only time that Coach Smith ever talked solely about winning. We all understood that winning was the only thing that would make that team successful.”
The United States had lost—some would say had been robbed—the 1972 gold medal after a controversial defeat to the Soviet Union. It was the first loss ever in Olympic play for the Americans, and an embarrassing setback for the nation that invented the game. Believing the gold had been stolen from them, the ’72 team (including Carolina’s Bobby Jones) voted unanimously not to accept the silver medal.
Remember, this was an era when the Olympics were as much a worldwide political stage as they were a sporting showcase. The 1972 loss wasn’t just a basketball loss. It was a major defeat, seen worldwide, at the hands of the Soviet Union. Losing another gold medal in a sport invented by the homeland would have been as damaging to the United States as the 1980 hockey loss was to the Soviet Union.
USA Basketball entrusted one man with the head coaching position for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal: Dean Smith. Their choice immediately drew some criticism when Smith selected four Tar Heels—Ford, Walter Davis, Tom LaGarde and Mitch Kupchak—along with three other Atlantic Coast Conference representatives (and a player who would turn out to be an extended member of the Carolina family, Indiana’s Scott May, whose son Sean was a member of the 2005 national champions and a current member of the Tar Heel basketball staff). Bill Guthridge served as the team’s assistant coach.
“There were guys in that camp who ended up being better pro players than the guys who made the team,” Kupchak said. “Even in that camp, their talent stood out. So Coach Smith really rolled the dice, especially by taking four Carolina guys. We felt the pressure. So the pressure he must have felt in trying to put together that team to win the gold back must have been incredible.”
“We got a lot of negative press,” Davis said in an interview earlier this decade, “about all the ACC guys we had on the team.”
But anyone who knew Smith would have expected exactly that roster makeup. Smith’s career was built on loyalty. Of course, in the most important win-or-else scenario in his coaching career, he would want four of his own players, and three more with whom he was very familiar.
As soon as the team was assembled, players noticed a change in the head coach’s style.
“We played very much the same style that we played at Carolina, but I noticed a difference in Coach Smith’s coaching
1976 Olympics basketball schedule
July 18 ... United States 108, Italy 86
July 20 ... United States 95, Puerto Rico 94
July 21 ... United States 112, Yugoslavia 93
July 24 ... United States 81, Czechoslovakia 76
July 26 ... United States 95, Canada 77
July 27 ... United States 95, Yugoslavia 74
right away,” Davis said. “Everyone knew we had been cheated in ’72, and everyone was very focused on getting back the gold medal.”
On July 18, 1976, the team debuted with a 106-86 thumping of Italy. They compiled a 5-0 mark in the group round, winning fairly handily with the exception of a 95-94 escape against Puerto Rico. That game was marked by a 35-point performance from Butch Lee for Puerto Rico; he would later become even more familiar to Tar Heel fans after his outstanding showing in the 1977 national title game for Marquette.
The Soviet Union, meanwhile, was even more dominant in their group games, blitzing to a 5-0 record and outscoring their opponents by an average of 34.8 points per game. But in the
TO
1976 Olympics basketball roster
Tate Armstrong G Duke
Quinn Buckner G Indiana
Kenny Carr F NC State
Adrian Dantley G Notre Dame
Walter Davis F Carolina
Phil Ford G Carolina
Ernie Grunfeld F Tennessee
Phil Hubbard F Michigan
Mitch Kupchak C Carolina
Tom LaGarde C Carolina
Scott May F Indiana
Steve Sheppard G Maryland
knockout round, the unexpected happened: although the USA defeated Canada, 95-77, to advance to the gold medal game, the USSR was upset by Yugoslavia.
“We all felt the pressure because of 1972,” Kupchak said. “Everybody thought we’d play the Soviet Union in the finals, but they never made it. We just assumed that’s who we would play and it was our job to bring back the gold medal. The USA-Soviet Union game was all that was being talked about.”
Leave it to Smith, then, to get his team refocused with the gold medal game taking place the very next day after the surprising result in the semifinals. The United States had waxed Yugoslavia during pool play; they did it again on July 27 in the gold medal game, taking a 95-74 victory. Kupchak scored 14 points in the gold medal victory, while Ford handed out 12 assists. LaGarde and Davis also saw action in the championship win.
For the summer, Adrian Dantley led the team with a 19.3 points per game scoring average. May was second at 16.7, and Kupchak and Carr were also in double figures. Ford paired his 11.3 scoring average with 9.0 assists per game. Despite all the national criticism, maybe those Carolina kids could play, after all. To this day, Tar Heel head coach Hubert Davis warmly recalls
riding around in a car in Chapel Hill with his uncle Walter and Ford as they showed off their gold medals.
“Either before or after the 1976 Olympics, I never heard Coach Smith talk about winning the way he talked about it that summer,” Ford said. “That was the only time I heard him ever talk about how important it was to win. And looking back on it, that was probably the only way to coach that team. We had a short time together and needed everyone to give of themselves, because winning was the only thing that would make that team successful.
“People said we weren’t old enough or tough enough to compete. But I knew our guys. I knew how tough they were. If there was someone tougher than them, I didn’t want to see them.”
TEAM USA
Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins won gold with Team USA in 1984.
Photos by UNC Athletics
N A I E A R Rams Club members like to wear their Carolina Blue, and they’ll wear it all over the US and the world. If you have a photo of you in your Carolina gear in front of notable landmarks in the US and abroad, send them our way to be a part of Carolina EveryWear! C V E L W R R A E O Y 1 2 3 7 4 5 6 9 10 8
To have your photo included:
-Send your photo digitally to bornandbred@ramsclub.com.
-Identify everyone in your photo and the location of the photo.
Here are the “Rules”:
-At least one person in the photo has to be a Rams Club member
-You must be wearing Carolina gear
-You must be in front of a notable landmark (sorry, as cool as Kenan Stadium and the Smith Center are, they don’t qualify).
1) Michael, Maureen & Bailey Boner of Durham at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy; 2) Chancy & Keith Kapp at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, FL; 3) Dawn Bradley Cooper of Atlanta at Amboseli National Park in Kajiado, Kenya; 4) Pat & Rick Adams of Rocky Mount, NC, in Port Lockroy, Antarctica; 5) Trisha & Bill Sherrill of Portsmouth, VA, in Turks & Caicos; 6) Steve & Julie Chriscoe of Apex, NC, at the summit in Haleakalā National Park in Maui; 7) Robyn Stacy-Humphries, Laura Weisner & Brad Weisner of Charlotte with Tara & Michael Noone of Charleston, SC, in the Galapagos; 8) Sarah Swanson of Charlotte on a safari walk in Nairobi, Kenya;; 9) Matt Bristol & Sandy Rasnake of Chapel Hill overlooking Cleveland Browns Stadium in Cleveland; 10) Deborah Alvord of Cary, NC, with the Vince Lombardi Trophy at Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas; 11) Winston Grant, Joe Grant, Angie Grant & Lilly Grant of Rolesville, NC, at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy; 12) Anissa Boyer Davenport, Leisa Hawley Rowe, Michelle Hockman Cunningham & Lee Ann Necessary Brownlee in Montalcino in Tuscany, Italy; 13) Karen Eckel Griffin & Willard Griffin of Winston-Salem in Finland;; 14) Wendy Rietvelt, Tina Hunt, Shelley Forrest & Wylita Bell in West Jefferson, NC; 15) Robert Hetmann of Highland Park, IL, at the Sphere in Las Vegas; 16) Martin Scott & Lisa Bass of Shallotte, NC, in Vail, CO;; 17) Renee Mikles Hoffman of Black Mountain, NC, in Cane Bay, St. Croix 18) Ryan Simmons of High Point, NC, at Pebble Beach Golf Course California; 19) Lee Stone of Salisbury, NC, at Pigeon Point, St. Lucia 11 12 16 15 17
SHOW US YOUR COLORS! 14 18 13 19
AT HOME ABROAD
Carolina continues to have an international presence in women’s soccer
BY ANDREW STILWELL
PHOTOS BY UNC ATHLETICS
Dean Smith was once quoted as saying that Carolina wasn’t a basketball school, it was a women’s soccer school, and since 1996, the first year that women’s soccer was an Olympic sport, Tar Heel women’s soccer alumnae have regularly appeared on the global stage. The 2024 Olympics are no different, as three former Tar Heels hope to reach their Olympic dreams – some in repeat appearances, and in one case, an Olympic debut.
TEAM USA
The following Tar Heels have played on America’s four gold medal winning women’s soccer squads.
April Heinrichs was the head coach of the 2004 team, while Lauren Gregg was an assistant coach on the 1996 squad.
Mia Hamm 1996, 2004
Kristine Lilly 1996, 2004
Carla Overbeck 1996
Cindy Parlow 1996, 2004
Tiffany Roberts 1996
Tisha Venturini 1996
Staci Wilson 1996
Heather O’Reilly 2004, 2008, 2012
Lindsay Tarpley 2004, 2008
Cat Whitehill 2004
Lori Chalupny 2008
Tobin Heath 2008, 2012
EMILY FOX UNITED STATES
With a storied history of providing talent to the United States pipeline, the Tar Heels hope to add another name to the list this year. Emily Fox was a defender and midfielder for Carolina from 2017-2019, appearing in 69 games. She was hampered by a torn ACL that sidelined her midway through her first year, and again during the postseason of her junior campaign, which caused her to miss the 2019 College Cup.
During her years as Tar Heel, head coach Anson Dorrance not only championed Fox’s speed, noting that she was one of the three fastest players on the 2019 team, but also her technical and tactical abilities, which allowed her the versatility of playing either on defense or in the midfield. According to the legendary coach, Fox had the ability to be a “game changer.”
Fox was a two-time first-team All-ACC selection, and during her time at Carolina, was the only college player at the time who had appearances with the Women’s National Team, receiving her first call-up to the senior team in November 2018. Since beginning to appear for the Women’s National Team on a more regular basis post-college, Fox has amassed 45 caps, scoring her lone professional goal during a friendly against Ireland in 2023. She was a member of teams that won the CONCACAF women’s championship in 2022 and CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup in 2024, as well as the SheBelieves Cup Champions in 2022 and 2023.
She has the potential to be an Olympic starter on the back line in Paris. According to national soccer writer Ryan Tolmich, “Emily Fox can start on the left and she can start on the right. Odds are she’ll be starting somewhere once the Olympics come around!”
CRYSTAL DUNN UNITED STATES
A four-time first-team All-ACC selection and the 2012 National Player of the Year, Crystal Dunn is tracking to be part of her third consecutive United States Olympic team in 2024. Playing in the midfield during her time as a Tar Heel from 2010-2013, she was the first player in conference history to win both offensive player of the year and defensive player of the year in her career. In total, she finished her time at Carolina with 31 goals over 80 games played. While she had many memorable moments, including a hat trick against Miami during her senior season, Dunn’s signature game as a Tar Heel might be the 2012 NCAA quarterfinal against top-seeded BYU, where not only did she score both Tar Heels goals (including a “Golden Goal” game-winner), but also made a game-saving defensive stop in the first overtime against the Cougars. Dunn is no stranger to the U.S. Women’s National Team, having competed for the youth national team as far back as 2008. She was a member of the runnersup at the 2008 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, as well as the champions of the 2012 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup. As of this writing, she has appeared in 143 games for the senior national team since her first call-up in 2013, scoring 24 goals for the USWNT over the past decade.
During the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, where the United States earned a bronze medal, Dunn established herself as the starting left back for the USWNT, was the only American to start in all six matches and played in all but 16 minutes during the tournament. As it stands, Dunn appears to be the favorite to reprise that role in 2024 – but can also play in the midfield or attack, making her one of the most versatile players in the squad.
KATIE BOWEN NEW ZEALAND
Four years before she was part of the 2012 national championship team during her first year at Carolina, Katie Bowen had her first taste of national team soccer, appearing for the New Zealand U-17 National Team on her 14th birthday in 2008. After a few years of junior team experience, she was later named captain of the New Zealand squad at the 2010 U-17 World Cup.
The national team appearances continued over the years, including while Bowen was a member of the women’s soccer team at Carolina. She was named an alternate for the 2012 London Games, and later competed for the Football Ferns in three Women’s World Cups (2015, 2019, and 2023) and is hopeful that 2024 will mark her third consecutive Summer Olympics.
In total, Bowen has appeared in a total of 105 games for the New Zealand national team, good for tenth most of any women to have ever played soccer for the country, and one of just over 400 women to ever have more than 100 caps for their home country.
Bowen credits her time as a Tar Heel in helping her keep the right mind set to continue to appear for the New Zealand national team.
“I think the biggest thing is that Carolina has given me the confidence that I needed,” Bowen said in a 2015 GoHeels article. “I would always go on to the national team frame kind of doubting myself, questioning every single move I made, afraid to make mistakes. But now I feel like it has matured me as a player, and now I know what I am capable of and what I aspire to.”
YOU ARE THE TEAM
BEHIND THE TEAMS
Rams Club members are the team behind Carolina’s 28 varsity sports programs and over 850 studentathletes. You provide valuable scholarship dollars and the necessary funding for exceptional facilities and programming for Tar Heels. Rams Club members impact the lives of Carolina’s outstanding studentathletes by giving them the opportunity to compete at the highest level of college athletics while earning an education from one of the nation’s leading universities.
Your membership gift is vital in helping Tar Heel student-athletes achieve their dreams during their time in Chapel Hill. Our 2023-2024 membership year comes to a close on June 30. Visit ramsclub.com to complete your membership gift prior to June 30. Ensure the tradition of Carolina excellence continues!
ON THEIR MARKS
SEVERAL TAR HEEL SWIMMERS WILL PARTICIPATE IN ONE OF THE MOST PRESSURIZED EVENTS IN SPORTS— THE OLYMPIC TRIALS
BY LEE PACE
PHOTOS BY UNC ATHLETICS
On the walls of Mark Gangloff’s office in Koury Natatorium are two oversized framings of Olympic flags from the 2004 Games in Athens and the 2008 Games in Beijing. The signature of the Carolina head swimming coach appears in black ink on both by virtue of his competing in the 400-medley relay team and collecting a gold medal both times.
Three months out from leading a half dozen or so Tar Heel swimmers into the U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis and the potential for berths in the Paris Olympics later in the summer, Gangloff reflects on the enormity of the challenge and opportunity.
“The Olympic Trials are the highest-pressure event I’ve ever swum in,” says Gangloff, the Tar Heel coach since 2019. “The stakes are huge. It only comes around every four years, and my event lasted one minute. If you do not get it done in that one minute, you’re out. You dream about it from the time you were eight years old. From eight to 22, that is your primary focus and drive and dream. It comes down to a moment.”
In the spring of 2024, four Tar Heel swimmers were looking toward their “moments” as they prepared for the Olympic Trials set for June 15-23 at Lucas Oil Stadium. Having already secured their spots at the Trials were graduate Ellie VanNote in the 100-meter butterfly; senior Lexi Rudolph in the 100-meter breaststroke; junior Skyler Smith in the 100-meter breast; and freshman Ben Delmar in the 200- and 100-meter breast. Several more were likely to qualify for Indianapolis after press time and join a handful of Tar Heels hoping to represent other nations in Paris, most notably diver Aranza Vazquez Montano of Mexico.
Lucas Oil Stadium, the venue for the Indianapolis Colts of the NFL, three Final Fours, one Super Bowl and one College Football Playoff Championship, will be configured with three temporary pools that will require some 860,000 gallons of water to be pumped in. A bank of bleacher seats will combine with permanent seating to surround the main competition pool, and the seating capacity will be 30,000.
“We’ve seen this happen with some other sports,” says Rudolph. “It was cool watching Nebraska’s volleyball team (in the summer of 2023) play on a court in the center of the football stadium in front of a sell-out crowd. Having the capacity to have more people watch will be fun.”
“It looks a little intimidating, the amount of spectators,” Delmar adds. “But it will be pretty cool to swim in front of 30,000 people.”
Before coming to Chapel Hill from their homes in the greater Charlotte area, VanNote and Delmar were on the same club swim team and traveled in 2016 to the Olympic Trials in Omaha, where swimmers like Michael Phelps and Abbey Weitzeil qualified for the Games in Rio de Janeiro.
“That was such a turning point for me,” VanNote says. “It was so different going to a big meet like that, sitting in the stands and watching. All you want to do is be down there in the pool. That really helped motivate me.”
Smith remembers the 2021 trials also held in Omaha (set back a year as were the Tokyo Games because of Covid-19) and watching swimmers like Phelps and Ryan Lochte, “all the big swimming names I had grown up watching. I had that surreal realization, ‘I’m here with them. I’m with the best of the best. This might not be my year, I might need another Olympic cycle, but I could be a name like them.’”
“That’s my fun time. I went to the trials in 2021. Obviously, it would be a dream to make the U.S. Olympic team.”
The pandemic limited attendance in 2021 at Omaha. In 2016, also at Omaha, the biggest crowd for a single session was 14,502. So Indy could more than double that.
“After basketball, Indiana is a swimming state,” Olympic swimmer Lilly King says.
“To do it in an NFL stadium is going to be historic,” adds Tim Hinchey III, president and CEO of USA Swimming.
Smith is a fan of all sports (ice hockey is her favorite beyond swimming) and whenever she’s in a big arena, she wonders what it would be like to be on the field or court or rink or pool, the lights bright and cameras running.
“They put you in a ‘ready room’ and you walk about nine or ten steps and all of a sudden you see flashing lights, you see everyone, you walk up on the stage,” she says. “It’s really neat. It’s nothing like anything I’ve seen. Nothing compares to the Olympic Trials. You can’t explain it unless you’ve done it.”
“RARELY DOES SWIMMING HAVE THE ABILITY TO HAVE A GIGANTIC SHOWCASE LIKE THIS... OLYMPIC YEARS ALLOW US TO SHOWCASE HOW GREAT OUR SPORT IS AND TO GET A LOT OF FANFARE AROUND IT.”
MARK GANGLOFF
Brendan Hansen, who won six Olympic medals in three Games from 2004-2012, was a major role model for Delmar during his formative years. Hansen reached out to Delmar at an international event in Hawaii a few years back.
“My coach said Brendan Hansen wanted to talk to me,” Delmar says. “He gave me some advice and guidance. That helped me with my confidence. As a young kid, you look up to swimmers like that.”
For Rudolph and VanNote, the trials and potential Olympic berths are likely their last vestige of competitive swimming.
“My goal is to have fun, have a good time,” VanNote says. “I went to the 2021 trials, so my goal to get further than I did last time.”
Rudolph was injured in 2023 so she didn’t think the Olympic Trials in 2024 “were in the cards for me. Coming back from my injury, I thought making the trials would be a good goal to shoot for. It’s really cool to qualify and go to Indianapolis.”
Smith earned her spot in Indianapolis by swimming the 100m breast in 1:08:02 at the Phillips 66 U.S. National Championships last June (the fastest time in that race in school history). She’s looking forward to the transition from the short-course season of the collegiate swimming calendar and the 25-meter pool into the long-course summer venues of 50-meter pools. She earned a bronze medal in the 2023 ACC Championships in the 100 breast to set her up for a strong run into the NCAAs in Athens, Ga., in late March and into Indianapolis in June.
“I am really excited for this,” she says. “I’m a long-course swimmer.
Gangloff understands first-hand the pressures coming in Indy.
“The Games are a little more celebratory,” he says. “The Olympic Trials are high pressure just because everyone there is trying to earn a spot on the team and there are a lot of expectations. Once you quality for the Olympic Games, at least for me it was a big sigh of relief.”
It’s set up for quite the event. Just as the Paris Olympics will mark the 100th anniversary of the 1924 Games in the capital of France, so too are the Indianapolis Trials. They were the qualifying event in 1924 just as they are today. The Indiana Convention Center, connected to the stadium, will feature USA Swimming’s Toyota Aqua Zone, an interactive fan experience and retail area, and the hosts plan to create a city-wide festival over nine days to celebrate the sport of swimming.
“Rarely does swimming have the ability to have a gigantic showcase like this,” Gangloff says. “I think Olympic years allow us to showcase how great our sport is and to get a lot of fanfare around it. It makes the athletes and the families involved with the event feel like what they are doing is very special. I love it because you walk into an arena bigger than anything you’ve walked into before, you step up on the stage with the bright lights on and then you race.”
“Words cannot describe how excited I would be to go the Olympics,” Smith says. “My mom is from Portugal, so her family would all be able to watch me. It would be out of this world.”
Previous page: Senior Lexi Rudolph, 100-meter breaststroke
1. Junior Skyler Smith, 100-meter breaststroke
2. Freshman Ben Delmar, 200- and 100-meter breaststroke
3. Graduate Ellie VanNote, 100-meter butterfly
Go Heels, Go America
MMy first memories of the Olympic Games are from 1972, when my family huddled around the living room TV to loudly cheer on the USA Men’s Basketball team. (The controversial loss to the Soviet Union still burns a hole in my heart.)
Four years later, my sisters, brother and I loved collecting the special edition McDonald’s scratch-off cards that allowed you to win a menu item if the Olympian featured on the card medaled. (I spent that Games closely following an East German weight lifter in hopes of some free fries.)
Today, I am dedicated to helping student-athletes, families and communities make new Olympic memories in my roles at the University of North Carolina and with the USOPC Collegiate Advisory Council and USOPC Board of Directors.
The Council is a first-of-its-kind group dedicated to linking the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee with the NCAA to ensure there is a pipeline of talent running from college athletics to the Olympic Games. While broad-based programming has long been the standard at Carolina – our 28 sports and more than 800 student-athletes are one of the largest programs in the nation – other universities have not been able to offer as many opportunities. As pending antitrust court cases and the costs associated with Name, Image and Likeness threaten to impact the budgets of athletic departments (and thus Olympic sports) nationwide, it is more important than ever to bolster collaboration between the NCAA and USOPC to strengthen the tie between college athletics and the Olympic Games.
That’s why the Council is focused on three key priorities:
Alignment: Olympic athletes need places to train and compete, and there’s no better place than our unique college athletic landscape, where you can battle for championships (and train for medals) while earning a college education. We must continue to educate leaders – including Congress – about why protecting the broad-based college model is important. We also must ensure that rules, training and expectations are consistent on the collegiate and Olympic levels, sport-bysport, by further connecting collegiate sports with National Governing Bodies.
Pathways: In 2020, the NCAA adopted legislation to extend financial and training flexibility for elite student-athletes training to compete on the collegiate and international level. We must continue to remove impediments faced by studentathletes who want to do both.
Messaging: We cheer for our favorite college stars. We follow our top Olympians. They overlap – and so should our promotion of both. The Olympians and Paralympians Made Here campaign, which you may have seen on our @goheels social media channels and was designed by the USOPC, showcases how competing on campus helps Team USA student-athletes grow not just as competitors, but as people. We will work to develop long-term promotions ahead of the 2024, 2026 and 2028 Games, as well.
More than 100 Tar Heel studentathletes have represented more than a dozen countries while competing in the Olympics. In 2020, more than 80 percent of the US medalists had collegiate ties.
This summer, I look forward to watching even more college Olympians make lasting memories in Paris. As part of my responsibilities as a USOPC Board member, I will be cheering on our student-athletes and the USA. (Unfortunately, with no scratch cards this year.)
Go Heels! Go America!
Carolina Director of Athletics
BUBBA CUNNINGHAM
Illustration by Jason McCorkle
