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When former Carolina baseball player Mike McKee was moving to Atlanta to help start a church, he knew exactly who to contact for advice. âWe knew this was essentially going to be a start-up company,â said McKee, who played at Carolina from 2006-09. âAnd I was fortunate that I knew someone who was very experienced in the business world and had some great advice.â That person was Steve Vetter, a Greensboro resident and Rams Club member for nearly 40 years. Steve and his wife, Debbie, first endowed a baseball scholarship in the late 1980s. Heâd been a baseball player in school and is a longtime friend of Tar Heel head coach Mike Fox, so the connection to the program was natural. Since then, the Vetters have had a long list of scholarship recipients who they have enjoyed getting to know. They recently met the wife of former second baseman Bryan Steed, who received their scholarship in the mid-2000s. They once met a relatively unheralded freshman named Colin Moran, who was best known primarily for being related to former Carolina great B.J. Surhoff; Moran later became the sixth overall player selected in the 2013 Major League Baseball Draft. When Moran made his big league debut in 2016, the Vetters received a text from him thanking them for their support.
Given the baseball programâs level of success over the last decade, the Vetters have met a steady parade of professional prospects and College World Series participants. But itâs McKee, a native of Arden, N.C., with whom they developed the closest relationship. âOver the years, Mike was so appreciative of the opportunity to play baseball at Carolina,â Steve Vetter says. âHe wasnât the most talented kid on the team. But he loved his role and he participated in a lot of different ways.â The donor and scholarship recipient first met at the annual Rams Club scholarship dinner, the same way the Vetters usually meet the beneficiary of their generosityâ theyâve since also contributed scholarships for volleyball and basketball. It can sometimes be a nervous encounter for a college freshman who is meeting a virtual stranger who has a big stake in their future. McKee, who radiates a permanent warmth that makes him a natural in his profession, never seemed to feel that anxiety. âIt felt like we clicked that same night,â he says. âAnd itâs lasted through today. The initial common ground was that we were all diehard Carolina
fans. Steve is a baseball guy, so we hit it off there. And from that point, it became clear how easy they were to talk to and fun to be around. There was a natural friendship built on the Carolina family and their care for the program and the school, but they also made it clear they genuinely cared about me as a student-athlete.â McKee began noticing the Vetters at home games, and then some road games. Then he saw them in Omaha, which turned out to be quite a commitmentâthis was around the time of the Carolina baseball explosion. Every year of McKeeâs Carolina baseball career, the Diamond Heels advanced to the College World Series, including a pair of national runner-up finishes in 2006 and 2007. Most of those wins were built on extraordinary talent like Andrew Miller, Daniel Bard, Josh Horton and Chad Flack. In his four years as a Tar Heel, McKee recorded just seven base hits in 18 at-bats. His teammates, however, knew he was making a difference. âFrom day one, Mike uplifted the culture within our program with both his actions and his words,â says Robert Woodard, the
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