9 minute read
Phoenix
2017 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
I WAS THERE: PHOENIX
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When Carolina beat Notre Dame to advance to the 2016 Final Four, one of my college friends (who now has a sibling at UNC) posted a social media poll asking whether his sister should go to Houston or stay in Chapel Hill for a potential party on Franklin Street. I had a simple reply: “Stay in Chapel Hill. If you’re a student, there’s no better place to be than Franklin Street. Attending in person is for adults.” Not until that moment had I contemplated going to Houston. But as I typed that reply, I came to the realization that, at age 31, I was an adult. So I booked a flight and set to work convincing friends to go with me. Several agreed. But slowly, they all backed out, citing how expensive it would be. They weren’t wrong. The flight alone was $900, but I was willing to pay that plus tickets plus a hotel room split 2-4 ways in exchange for potentially seeing a national championship in person. Once everyone had bailed, though, I couldn’t justify spending all that times two so that my wife and I could go together. So I cancelled my flight and resigned myself to watching on TV. Until Thursday. That’s when I started the process of trying to convince my wife to drive to Houston (yes, from Chapel Hill). She was not on board. Through the sheer power of persistence - some may call it annoyance - I finally got her to make me a deal. If Carolina beat Syracuse Saturday night, we’d drive to Houston for just the championship game. And we did. The entire round trip lasted 72 hours, and we were in the car for approximately 34 of them. Sandwiched in between two 17 hour drives was “the shot.”
Phoenix wasn’t just redemption for Joel Berry and Justin Jackson and Kennedy Meeks, it was redemption for Tar Heel fans all over. Whether you had your heart ripped out sitting at home on your couch or drove 2,300 miles to see it in person. And I’m sure redemption would have taken place whether I’d watched the Gonzaga game from my couch or Top of the Hill or any other location. But it seemed most appropriate for it to occur in Phoenix. So on December 20, 2016, I planned in advance and booked flights for my wife and I to go to Phoenix. Arrive Saturday morning, leave Tuesday morning. In search of redemption.
A Luke Maye buzzer beater sent our house into pandemonium. Until that moment, I don’t think my wife had ever really believed we’d be going to Phoenix. The flights I booked three months in advance were refundable on Southwest. To her it was just some idiotic hair-brained idea that would no doubt be proven unnecessary against Arkansas or Butler or Kentucky. But to me, it was redemption.
PHOTO BY JEFFREY CAMARATI
The friend who posted the poll back in 2016 had a new post in 2017. “Can someone take this Carolina blue cowboy hat to the games in Phoenix? It was in the building in 2005 and 2009. It was not there in 2008 or 2016.” The hat was an hour away from my house. And it was on my wife’s head as we boarded the plane to Phoenix Saturday morning. You can’t take any chances when you’re looking for redemption.
Before the game Saturday, while walking through the Westgate Entertainment District, we were pulled into the filming of an intro to ESPN’s GameDay that featured a group of about 20 Carolina fans screaming “TAR! HEELS!” at a group of about 20 Oregon fans screaming something far less cool than that (maybe “O! U!”?) back at us.
On Sunday, we thought we’d take a walk through the Final
Four Fan Fest at the convention center, and “ “‘Can someone take this Carolina blue cowboy hat to the games in Phoenix? It was in the building in wound up getting pulled into a private event where Adam Zucker of CBS interviewed former Gonzaga player Ronny Turiaf and former national champion Eric Montross. (Seriously Gonzaga, we send Eric freaking Montross and the best you can do is Ronny Turiaf? No 2005 and 2009. It was not there in 2008 or 2016.’ And it was on my wife’s head as we boarded the plane offense, Ronny.) After the interview, the two took questions from the crowd and then posed for pictures and signed autographs. If you’re wondering, Eric wore the magic Carolina blue to Phoenix Saturday morning. You can’t take any chances when you’re looking for redemption.” cowboy hat in our picture. Oh, and on Monday, we sat in University of Phoenix Stadium and watched as Roy Williams coached his way to a third NCAA title. We watched the confetti fall, though in far more delayed and less dramatic fashion than last year. We watched the nets be cut. We watched One Shining Moment. We watched redemption.
2017 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
“BY CLINT HANNAH, NEW YORK, N.Y.
My grandfather went to UNC undergrad and medical school. I wear his 1951 UNC med school class ring around my neck every day. My parents are both Carolina graduates (1979 and 1983 respectively) and got engaged outside of Boshamer Stadium. While at Carolina, I was elected Mr. UNC during my senior year, and following working one year post-graduation, I came back to Chapel Hill to get my law degree. Though I live in New York, I still rep my love for Carolina every day, as I have an argyle UNC tattoo on my right forearm. (Actually during the Final Four in Houston, Alexander Julian wanted to take a picture with me and posted it to his Instagram--an amazing Carolina-only moment). So with that love of Carolina and a Luke Maye induced euphoria, I booked my plane tickets to the desert and got my tickets ready. After the semifinals, I told my friend leaving that I am glad Kennedy is a unisex name because my future first child is now spoken for. Monday rolled around and it was slow. Painfully slow. So said I, so said our Uber driver to the stadium, so said the face of all the people waiting in line to enter. When I got inside, Carolina fans were anxious, but we were anxious together. Strangers were friends and friends were family. There was not a soul in that building who didn’t remember exactly where they were and what they felt a year before. And we were back. One year later.
As we all know, the game was ugly. Real ugly at parts. Whistles sounded and groans from the crowd grew increasingly. Despite the staccato nature and the abundance of missed free throws and threes, the time finally came. Isaiah hit the shot, Kennedy blocked, Justin dunked.
The 2017 North Carolina Tar Heels were National Champions. First and foremost the team won the game. It is the team’s and it is the coaches’ win and championship. But the beautiful thing about being in the same building celebrating the win is being able to say you’re Carolina. Old Tar Heels were hugging young Tar Heels. Friends hugging friends. Strangers hugging strangers.
It didn’t matter if you were new to Tar Heel fandom and thought Kendall Marshall was ancient history or if you had been following the Heels for decades and decades, generation after generation. In the building that night, there were people of all ages, races, religions, genders, and each and every single one of us knew when Roy climbed that ladder and pointed to the crowd that we couldn’t be prouder to be fans of these Heels.
The Tar Heels came to Phoenix a team defined by missed opportunities and seeking redemption. They left champions. Every Tar Heel fan, student, and alumni came to Phoenix knowing that maybe, just maybe, the story has the happy ending. And unlike Houston, we didn’t have a problem.
The impetus for this year’s championship trip to Phoenix for me goes back to 1981 when I was a junior at Carolina and was heartbroken to see our great team fall short to Indiana. We wanted so badly to be part of getting Coach Smith his first title. The next year was a full redemption and the win over Georgetown was fabulous, and so was the Franklin Street celebration and the whole campus atmosphere. I have told others over the years that I believe winning a championship in my senior year always contributed to a stronger than normal bond to the basketball program and perhaps even the school as a whole. Fast forward and my oldest child, Walter, decided to follow my footsteps to Carolina. He also suffered through a loss in the championship game in his junior year, incidentally the only time we’ve lost in a championship game since that 1981 game. Now, it is senior year and we are back again. The similarities were too compelling so we decide to go to Phoenix, a fatherson quest to bring home a championship for our beloved school and have the lifetime joy of both being part of championships in our senior years. It was great being in the huge stadium of 77,000 but sitting in the Rams Club seats it was wonderful to see how many people we knew, a remarkable turnout of folks from our hometown of Greensboro and other friends. Being there and knowing how badly the team wanted to win made the games so stressful.
“BY JIM AND JO ANN HARLLEE, CHAPEL HILL, N.C.
We watched the Final Four championship game in the University of Phoenix arena. This was the 6th Final Four we have attended (1981,1982, 2008, 2009, 2016, 2017—see a pattern?).
The game was extremely nerve wracking. Everyone in our section stood for the entire game. It seemed to us that UNC had the most fans at the game (the Gamecocks cheering for UNC helped). It helped that we had our “Lucky Button,” a button that we got at the 1982 championship that we carry to all BIG GAMES (this was definitely a big game). Toward the end of the game we were so nervous we could not watch the last few plays and had to depend on the crowd noise to tell us what was happening. We have to say that being at the Final Four heightens emotions - we are very high when they win and very low when they don’t. At the end of the game we stayed and watched all the celebrations. Then we went to the team hotel to welcome the team, a lot of fun. We also made it back to Chapel Hill the next day in time to attend the welcome home celebration at the Smith Center. We are proud of the 2017 team, and we are proud Rams Club members. Then, all of the sudden the championship turned our way and before we could really process it, we made that quick last run and the win was secured.
It is impossible to describe the joy we felt and of those around us. I know I was bouncing up and down a lot of the last part of both the final and semifinal game like a 10-year-old boy, because the games were so close. My son and I will share this experience forever and it was a great privilege to be there in person and well worth the effort involved.
