November 2022 // Best in Class

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

What makes Erin Matson the perfect cover subject for this issue devoted to “Best in Class” is not the fact that she has scored more points than anyone in the history of Atlantic Coast Conference field hockey.

That makes her, objectively, the best. She has more points (two for a goal, one for an assist) than anyone else in league history. You can look it up.

But there’s also a subjective element to being the best. And it was her reaction when she tied that record that makes her unique. On that day, Carolina had thumped Connecticut, 3-0. After she had signed the usual bevy of autographs and taken all the pictures, she was told she had tied the longstanding mark. She responded with genuine surprise:

“I did?!?”

She legitimately had no idea about the individual achievement. She did fully realize that her top-ranked Tar Heels were now 11-0. She knew they had an excellent chance at winning their fourth national championship during her storied career. But she had no clue that she had just tied a record that had stood for a decade, set so long ago that the previous record holder’s school doesn’t even compete in the ACC anymore.

You’ll learn more about her in the feature later in this issue, and we’ve tried to include a cross-section of Tar Heels who also fit that “Best in Class” description, whether they excel in the classroom or on the court or—as frequently happens at Carolina—some combination of both.

We also included some of your memories of the best games and players you’ve seen during your time cheering on the Tar Heels. We’ll have even more in our next edition, which will also include your picks for the Mount Rushmore of Carolina athletics.

It’s a safe guess that some of those choices will include Erin Matson. By the time you get this issue, you’ll have a pretty good idea about the outcome of the season for her and the field hockey Tar Heels. No matter what that result might be, though, we’re very confident that the central theme of this issue holds true:

She’s the best.

Lucas Editor in Chief

Adam

PRODUCED BY THE RAMS CLUB // EDITOR IN CHIEF ADAM LUCAS // CONTRIBUTING WRITERS LEE PACE & ANDREW STILWELL// PHOTOGRAPHY JEFFREY CAMARATI, TRENT WEAVER, & MAGGIE HOBSON // DESIGN JUJUBE SPORTS PUBLISHING

Photos by Andrew Bernstein (left) and Jeffrey Camarati (right)

18

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“Erin has a toughness. As Anson (Dorrance) would say, Erin has the gift of fury.”

the BEST IN CLASS edition

ON THE COVER: Erin Matson, shown on the cover after her third national championship, has rewritten the Carolina field hockey record book.

COVER PHOTO: JEFFREY CAMARATI

BEST IN CLASS

12 Finding Her Place

Her time in Chapel Hill has made Erin Matson one of Carolina’s all-time greats. But it’s also been the perfect next step in a life constantly on fast-forward

BY ADAM LUCAS

BEST IN CLASS

18 No He’s Not ... Yes He Is

Ten years ago, Giovani Bernard made one of the most memorable plays in the history of Kenan Stadium

BY LEE PACE

BEST IN CLASS

23 Your Stories

Fans relay their memories of Oct. 27, 2012

BY RAMS CLUB MEMBERS

CAROLINA

p. 34 EDITOR’S LETTER p. 3 TAR HEEL TICKER p. 6

BEST IN CLASS

30 Among the Elite

Carolina boasts a rich tradition of winning one of the NCAA’s most prestigious honors, the Elite 90 award

BY ANDREW STILWELL

BEST IN CLASS

36 More Than A Player

In a new era of college sports, Deja Kelly is the quintessential on- and off-court success story

BY ANDREW STILWELL

40 ‘A Lifetime Connection’

Armando Bacot’s time at Carolina has expanded his reach beyond just basketball

BY ARMANDO BACOT

30 36 40 &

IN

TAR HEEL TICKER

RESULTS

Tom Ozment // Jamestown, NC

For me it was the first public unveiling of Charles (Charlie) Scott. I was a junior in high school, down for the football game with a ticket to the Blue-White game in Carmichael afterwards. Anyone who saw that coming out as a sophomore (freshmen were not yet eligible) knew he was going to be special. Then I had the privilege of seeing every home game my freshman year when he was a senior.

John Richard Snow // Cary, NC

It was about 1966, the UNC freshman basketball team was playing the Fayetteville State University JV team in Carmichael. A young UNC freshman by the name of Charlie Scott stole the ball at midcourt, drove to the hoop, and dunked the ball. He was promptly benched by Coach Dean Smith. The shot did not count. Dunking was illegal at the time.

Alan Lattimore // Charlotte, NC

Dean Smith putting the first Black student (Charlie Scott) on the basketball team; women’s soccer team going on an unprecedented run; Kenan funding the stadium and making it a condition that it blended into campus to form the most beautiful setting in college football.

Steve Tinkham // Eure, NC

Hiring Dean Smith. He made my diploma more valuable by the way he represented our University. His coaching tree is amazing.

David Pultz // Burlington, NC

Hiring Dean Smith who established UNC as a consistent national power in basketball.

John Hall // Sweetwater, TN

Coach Dean Smith’s first National Championship win and the beginning of Michael Jordan’s basketball dominance.

John Henley // Chapel Hill, NC

1982 NCAA basketball national championship. The start of the Dean Smith era and UNC becoming one of the elite basketball programs nationally.

Steve Brown // State Road, NC

Beating Georgetown in NCAA basketball championship game. Dean Smith finally got the big win that he deserved for so many years.

Karen Bruton // Kannapolis, NC

Michael Jordan, as a freshman, performed the winning shot at New Orleans when we beat Georgetown. Georgetown was up “1” and time was running out. He was thrown the ball and made the winning basket. But he wasn’t close to the basket. He was standing right in front of me when he let that shot go. I’ll never forget that moment!

Scott Murray // Raleigh, NC

Jordan’s shot in ‘82. Because it’s Michael Freaking Jordan.

Nancy Connolly Pergolizzi // Annandale, VA

8 points in 17 seconds ... my Freshman year. I stayed until the very end, pinching myself the whole time. This game began my Heels basketball fanaticism!!

Conrad Buie // Garner, NC

Vince Carter dunked over Tim Duncan! Who has ever dunked on a 7-footer in a game time situation? No one but Vince.

Becky Daniel // Raleigh, NC

The seminal moment in Carolina Athletics for me was Dean Smith’s retirement. I was a student at the time, and I still vividly remember it all these years later. I was going to a business school class, which at the time was housed in Carroll Hall, and I picked up a Daily Tar Heel on the way. Coach Smith’s retirement was obviously the lead story, so I saw the devastating news right away. I sat down on a nearby wall with other students I didn’t know to read the story, and we were all crying together. It was one of the many times in my life I’ve been reminded that when you go to Carolina, you are truly part of a family.

John Dykers // Siler City, NC

Joe Quigg hitting both free throws to beat Kansas in the third overtime to win a national championship and finish 32-0. That set the standard that we still seek every season. Wonderful teams and national championships but not yet again undefeated. #2 – Michael Jordan, “”the shot””, 1982. #3 – Luke Maye beating Kentucky. #4 Every win over Duke.

John Aderholdt // Greensboro, NC

2005 National Championship. It restarted a revival in all Carolina Athletics.

Frank Thigpen // Pinehurst, NC

Being in St. Louis when we beat Illinois in the NCAA Finals.

Jacob Edmonds // Dobson, NC

I think the biggest moment had to be beating Duke in the Final Four. To beat your rival at the highest stage of competition is an insane accomplishment.

Jay Lambeth // Greensboro, NC

Lawrence Taylor’s defensive play to keep Clemson out of the end zone in 1980. Enabled UNC’s last ACC title.

2. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BIGGEST GAME EVER PLAYED IN CAROLINA’S HISTORY AND WHY?

TOP RESPONSES: 1957 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP & 2022 FINAL FOUR

Joseph McDowell // Scotland Neck, NC

I think the biggest game ever for Carolina was winning the men’s basketball championship vs. a Wilt Chamberlain led Kansas team as this started the history of modern day excellence and provided the link of Coach McGuire later to Coach Smith then to Coach Williams and now Coach Davis.

Bobby Padgett // Gastonia, NC 1957 NCAA championship vs. Kansas. That game established Carolina’s love affair with basketball.

David Pultz // Burlington, NC UNC-Kansas for the 1957 National Championship. It capped an undefeated season in a thrilling triple overtime game.

Philip Blatt // Chapel Hill, NC 1957 UNC basketball victory over Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain. This victory assured an undefeated season and indirectly led to Dean Smith coming to UNC. In addition, it began the televising of college basketball in North Carolina.

William Gray // Gastonia, NC 1957 championship game with Kansas.

Paola Learoyd Gibbs // Jacksonville, NC Dook/UNC Final Four. Biggest rivalry on the biggest stage.

Amy Bennett // Rutherford College, NC UNC vs. Duke in the NCAA tourney this year, on Coach K’s last night as a coach.

Lily Reckford // Atlanta, GA UNC vs Dook Final Four. There will be more national championships, but UNC and dook may never meet in the tournament again, let alone in the Final Four. This game permanently defined the greatest rivalry in sports.

Sarah Swanson // Charlotte, NC

UNC v. Duke in the 2022 Final Four. Since UNC and Duke had never played in the NCAA tournament and it was Coach K’s last year, this was a huge game on the biggest stage in college basketball. Tensions were high in the biggest college sports rivalry and Carolina came out on top. Although we fell short in the end, it was a momentous occasion that we can rub in the faces of Duke fans for years to come!

Marc Wojnowich // Charlotte, NC

Not sure any national title game was hyped as much as the epic Final Four showdown in New Orleans when the Heels won the rivalry! Iron 5 baby ... Legends!

Steve White // Raleigh, NC

The 1982 National Championship game. The UNC/Duke Final Four game last year was huge, but the other had more of a lasting impact.

John Aderholdt // Greensboro, NC

1982 National Championship game. It gave Coach Smith his first championship and established him as one of the greats. It also propelled James Worthy and Michael Jordan into the spotlight which led many fans and future players to see Carolina in a new light.

John Dykers // Siler City, NC

The loss to Marquette in the Final Four. All the injuries, especially Phil Ford’s elbow. Mike O’Koren on the sidelines, UNC in the four corners, and Dean Smith won’t call a time out and embarrass Buckley by subbing O’Koren. Sets the standard for putting the students ahead of the win. Best when wins come along too.

Terry Marlar // Wilmington, NC Carolina vs Oklahoma, 1990

Gwen Waddell-Schultz // Chapel Hill, NC

Phil Ford’s last game at home against Duke – he scored 36 points for the win!

Mark Stevens // Chillicothe, OH

The 1896 football game against Georgia the first forward pass. Reinvented football after that.

Jay Lambeth // Greensboro, NC

UNC 34, Texas 7 in 1948. Top-10 match-up, helped put UNC solidly on the national football map at the time.

3. WHO DO YOU THINK IS THE GREATEST STUDENT-ATHLETE TO EVER COMPETE AT CAROLINA AND WHY?

Lily Reckford // Atlanta, GA

Tyler Hansbrough. While Jordan seems like the obvious choice, Hansbrough stayed all four years and had the more iconic Carolina career. He’s still one of the best COLLEGE players of all time and brought nothing but success against dook and in the ACC and NCAA tournaments. “Psycho T” is also one of the most iconic nicknames.

Mark Stevens // Chillicothe, OH

For me, Tyler Hansbrough. Does a lot for the community in school and still to this day. Great person all around. Competitive in all aspects.

Frank Thigpen // Pinehurst, NC

As a college player, Tyler Hansbrough because he played at 100 percent every second he was in the basketball court.

James Moody // Jacksonville, NC

Tyler Hansbrough. Staying for his senior year in 2009 to help win the championship.

Jacob Edmonds // Dobson, NC

The greatest athlete to ever play at UNC is Tyler Hansbrough. I know some people will say Michael Jordan should be the best, but Tyler stayed at UNC for all four years and was the leading part of one of the most dominating basketball teams in NCAA history.

John Aderholdt // Greensboro, NC

Phil Ford. He exemplifies everything it means to be a Tar Heel while rewriting the record books. He shows loyalty, hard work, dedication and love for all things UNC.

TICKER

Steve Brown // State Road, NC

Michael Jordan. He was the complete basketball player, He could do it all and do it well. He was a fantastic representative of our university. Simply said he was and still is the G. O. A. T!

Sarah Swanson // Charlotte, NC

This is one of the toughest questions to answer, as Carolina has produced so many great student-athletes. I’m going for the obvious here with Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is a huge player in both college and professional basketball. He did a lot for the university by playing here and leading the team to a National Championship early in his college years. Michael Jordan has had a lasting and captivating impact both on current and former students. He is a well-known figure who everyone, even outside the Carolina community, has respect for.

Marc Wojnowich // Charlotte, NC

Michael Jordan ... full stop ... period ... end of story.

Tom Ozment // Jamestown, NC

I will always have to lean toward Larry Miller. He helped to truly propel Dean Smith with truly great teams.

William Gray // Gastonia, NC

Danny Talbot. Excelled in football, baseball and played basketball.

Philip Blatt // Chapel Hill, NC

Hayley Carter. Hayley is the all-time leader in career ACC singles victories; was a 7 time ITA all American (4 singles and 3 doubles); only UNC tennis player to be simultaneously ranked #1 nationally in singles and doubles; only ACC female to be named Scholar athlete of the year; ACC season and ACC tournament MVP in back to back years; while graduating with a degree in economics, Phi Beta kappa and Summa Cum Laude.

Michael Ferguson // Fayetteville, NC

Julius Peppers. Not only was he a two sport player but he excelled at both sports in big games for Carolina.

Jay Lambeth // Greensboro, NC

Greatest one I ever saw play – Charlie “Choo-Choo” Justice

David Pultz // Burlington, NC

Charlie Justice was the greatest ever football player at UNC and led the team to be a national power.

Steve White // Raleigh, NC

Mia Hamm. Her dominance and the dominance of that team brought women’s soccer in general and women’s sports in general into the mainstream of UNC athletics. Like Dean Smith said, “We’re not a men’s basketball school; we’re a women’s soccer school.”

Bobby Padgett // Gastonia, NC

Mia Hamm. National titles, World Cups, Olympic gold medal. She defines soccer for men and women

Alan Lattimore // Charlotte, NC

Steve Streater. No doubt. Lawrence Taylor, Michael Jordan, Choo Choo Justice, Mia Hamm and Julius Peppers all were phenomenal. Steve Streater, however, was the best. National High School Baseball Player of the Year, comes to UNC playing both football and baseball. Played one year of baseball at UNC, finished with “NO” losses as a pitcher. Was forced by football coaching staff to choose between football or baseball after freshman year. He chose football. His senior year at UNC, he was named first team All-ACC at two different positions. Have never heard of that happening before or since. Not as well-known because he never played a professional game as he was paralyzed in a car accident returning from campus after signing with the Washington Redskins. Absolutely tragic.

TOGETHER

The Amazing Story of Carolina Basketball’s 2021-2022 Season

Adam Lucas, Steve Kirschner, and Matt Bowers

WHEN HUBERT DAVIS was named head men’s basketball coach at the University of North Carolina in April 2021, history had already been made, as Davis became the program’s first Black head coach. But after two difficult seasons, it was hard to imagine how quickly a new staff, a new playing style, and a new roster blending established players with prominent transfers and talented freshmen would be able to change the story—except within the fabled Smith Center locker room and practice gyms, where photos of the New Orleans Superdome helped players and staff focus on the possible.

In words and photos full of behind-the-scenes moments, this book reveals how belief in the program’s rich traditions and in one another enabled the 2021-2022 Tar Heels to achieve what at times seemed impossible, writing a thrilling new chapter in the story of Carolina basketball. From Davis’s remarkable work to build a new staff and roster to the ups and downs of the conference season to the amazing run through March to the pinnacle of the college game, the story takes fans through one of the most dramatic years in program history.

ADAM LUCAS is a featured columnist at GoHeels.com, the official website of Carolina Athletics, and the author of many books including Carolina Basketball: A Century of Excellence.

STEVE KIRSCHNER is senior associate athletic director for communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

MATT BOWERS is associate director of athletic communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

208 PP., 8 X 10, 150 COLOR PLATES 978-1-4696-7276-2 $37.50 HARDCOVER Distributed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Athletics

Order your copy today and save 40 percent! Visit www.uncpress.org and use promo code 01DAH40 at checkout. Or scan this QR code – and use the promo code 01DAH40

FINDING HER PLACE

BY ADAM LUCAS // PHOTOS BY TRENT WEAVER

Her time in Chapel Hill has made Erin Matson one of Carolina’s all-time greats. But it’s also been the perfect next step in a life constantly on fast-forward.

One of the clearest indicators of Erin Matson’s future came on a visit to Duke University. The 15-year-old Matson was a field hockey prodigy. She’d been playing against foes five or more years older than her for nearly a decade. She was a highly sought after recruit.

So of course she had to take recruiting visits. She had an inkling where she wanted to attend college— which was still nearly three years away—but her parents, Brian and Jill, were insistent that she make an effort to have a legitimate recruitment.

So the family left their home in Chadds Ford, Penn., and visited Duke in September of 2015. The visit was…fine. The coaches were fine and the facilities were fine and the available opportunities were fine.

Normal fifteen-year-olds might be swayed by the Gothic buildings and the student body with a healthy population of kids from her area of the country and the opportunity to camp out for weeks in order to watch the basketball team lose to the hated rival.

And Erin could imagine a scenario in which this particular school might be a great fit for some of her teammates, perhaps, or maybe a friend or two. But as for her?

The Duke coaches offered her a scholarship. Of course they did. The family graciously acknowledged the offer. They headed for the car. And on the way from the field to the car, Erin turned to her parents with that same determined face with which defenders and professors and friends are very familiar. “I’m not going here,” she said.

She wasn’t done.

“I want to commit to Carolina tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve been telling you since I was nine years old that UNC is where I want to go. Nothing has changed.”

The family tweaked their plans. They drove to the Carolina Inn. They arranged a Monday meeting with Tar Heel field hockey coach Karen Shelton.

That same evening, Erin had to train because, well, she is Erin. She needed to go on a run to maintain her conditioning. There were National Team commitments to meet and standards to uphold. Her parents dropped her off near the Bell Tower with simple instructions: go run. Meet us back here, and let’s see how you feel when you get back. Then we’ll meet with Coach Shelton tomorrow.

She ran down South Road past the Student Store. She ran down Stadium Drive and turned left on Ridge Road. She ran past Henry Stadium, at that time the home of the Tar Heels. She knew no one.

She barely knew how to get back to the Bell Tower, and those who love her will tell you this is no surprise because she is fundamentally directionally challenged.

Thirty minutes later, she met back up with her parents. The run had done exactly what they hoped: it had provided clarity. She knew.

named his summer league’s most valuable pitcher. Both siblings did their indoor individual training in a room Brian created for them in the basement, painting it with garage floor paint so it would be smooth for Erin to work on stickwork and fast hands and hanging netting so Erin could work on shooting and Sean could have an indoor batting cage.

To see her play is to understand.

It is entirely possible that you do not have a complete understanding of the sometimes complex rules of field hockey. Perhaps you have a vague grasp of the idea that the Tar Heels are the sport’s dominant program, Karen Shelton has the stadium named after her, and the object is to score more goals than the other team.

It doesn’t matter.

Watch Carolina play one time and you will instantly notice the player wearing the number-one jersey, the one who appears to be playing a slightly different game. She hits it a little harder, yes. She is never bigger—the smallest, youngest kid usually gets the one jersey, which is how she arrived at that number as a youngster—but she is often faster and almost always quicker. But it soon becomes evident that she sees the game very differently than even the extremely talented players with whom she is competing. She passes the ball to where teammates are going, not where they are. She moves in a way that suggests she understands what defenders are going to do before they do it.

Recent CMA Entertainer of the Year Eric Church, as usual, has the exact right words. He met Matson on his fall visit to Chapel Hill (these are the types of encounters that just seem to happen when you are Erin Matson, a fact which she still handles with the perfect blend of stunned surprise, awe and giddiness). “I don’t have to understand the rules,” he said, “to know she’s the GOAT.”

The term is overused in the modern sports vernacular. The term is also completely appropriate in this case. She is, factually speaking, the Greatest Of All Time.

The pure skill level has been evident since she was in elementary school. Matson didn’t commit to attend Carolina until tenth grade, but head coach Karen Shelton had first seen her long before that.

“When she was in fifth or sixth grade, I went to Pennsylvania, where most of my family still lives,” Shelton says. “My brother and his daughter were going to indoor practice, and I wanted to see her play. My brother said, ‘There’s this other girl who is younger, but she’s unbelievable. You have to see her.’

“That girl was Erin. She was just this little thing, but she was incredible. Her hands and scoring were already next level. That’s when it started. I eventually met her parents, she came to our camp, and it progressed from there.”

The skills Shelton saw were the product of a fortuitous combination of Jill, a former field hockey player at Yale, and Brian, a baseball player at Delaware who became a physical therapist. That duo had the perfect blend of knowledge of the game and ability to technically train an athlete that created the unicorn Shelton saw.

It worked more than once; the couple’s younger son, Sean, just completed his first season at Harvard, where he pitched and then was

When the family moved in 2012, one of the first projects was replicating that setup in what became known as “the blue room” downstairs. The rule was simple: holes in the wall are acceptable as long as they resulted from practicing, not horseplay. “When we move,” Jill says, “we have a lot of holes in the wall to fix.”

It became a refuge. “When I’m in that room,” Erin says, “I’m in my own world. I always have a speaker blaring or my headphones on and I can’t hear anything, but my dad has said he can tell what drill I’m working on from what the taps sound like. All I hear is whatever song is blaring in my ears. It’s a little safe space for me. I’ve never gotten bored with doing fundamentals, so I’ll go down there when I have things on my mind and nothing else bothers me. Even when I’m playing, there are times I think about stuff in that room.”

Opponents see the work product from that room, too. The most elementary individual field hockey drill might be pulls, simply controlling the ball from side to side as quickly as possible. It’s essentially dribbling in basketball; a very basic skill that every player understands but very few players completely master. Even as her profile climbed, Erin kept doing her pulls, sometimes evoking laughter from her teammates who had moved on to more advanced skills.

“Erin, just go do your pulls,” they’d say dismissively.

“I think they were joking,” she says, “but to me, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to.’” The lightning fast hands created by those endless repetitions have generated more points than any player in Atlantic Coast Conference history.

The evolution, though, is that she is more than just a workout warrior; she actually knows how to play the game. This is partially because her parents were willing to help, of course. Brian knew nothing about the field hockey basics but it wasn’t unusual to see the Matsons on a field somewhere, Brian bouncing field hockey balls to his daughter, who would receive them, and then smack them at her brother, who would field them with his baseball glove.

But both parents know their makeshift drills were only a small part of the player their daughter has become. The development was provided rocket fuel when Erin joined the WC Eagles, a legendary club team, just before her tenth birthday. For several years, observers had told the Matsons she needed to join the organization. But she was still

“

“I DON’T HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE RULES TO KNOW SHE’S THE GOAT.”

-ERIC CHURCH, 2020 CMA ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR

playing travel softball and rec basketball, and it didn’t seem time to make the full commitment just yet.

When she went to a tryout, though, she fell in love immediately. “That is where I want to play,” the nine-year-old said after first glimpsing the WC Eagles at a tournament and seeing the way they dominated opponents with a mix of skill and toughness.

She made the team without much ceremony. She simply went to a tryout, Brian stood outside the glass with his hands in his pockets trying not to get in the way, and then the coach, Jun Kentwell, walked up to him and said, “She is good enough to play here,” and then turned and walked away.

That meant an hour and 40 minute drive each way to practice, five days per week. Erin remembers the length of the drive being less problematic than another issue. “I am a perfectionist,” she says. “Of course I’d have to do my homework in the car. I’d have this beautiful outline going or some really good notes, and then we’d hit a pothole and everything was disrupted.”

Two years later, once they were certain she was thriving, the family cut their drive by more than half by moving to Chadds Ford. By that point, the training with WC Eagles had her on the verge of playing internationally against some of the best players in the world.

“We wanted to make sure she was really paying attention to detail,” says Richard Kentwell, who coaches the Eagles along with Jun. “At the very beginning, we were just doing the simple things with her and making sure she did the simple things very well. Once they have that consistency, then you can teach far more advanced skills. Because she had that focus and commitment to excellence, she very quickly developed that strong core skills foundation. Then we could teach her more skills and vision.

“Usually, vision is very poor with young children, and it is a challenge for them to see the court and the other players. When you watch her now, she knows what she is going to do before she receives the ball. That’s because with the attributes she had, we were able to teach her much more advanced skills. We made sure she was constantly pushing herself and not allowing any mediocrity to seep into her playing.”

holding their own at National Team practices. I remember thinking how impressive it was that her mom was driving her to practice and Erin was competing with girls ten years older than her.”

She graduated high school a semester early to be able to fully compete with the National Team. And while it was clearly a perfect fit on the field, it didn’t mean that everyone on the roster was at the same stage in life.

One of the very basic tenets of understanding Erin Matson’s story is that she has not been her actual age since she was approximately ten years old. When she was 12, she was playing against opponents four and five years older. When she was in high school, while friends went out to have fun after a football game, she was going home to bed so she could wake up at 5 a.m. on Saturday for a field hockey tournament. In college, she was the ACC Player of the Year as a freshman. And as a senior, she’s running her own business while finishing her undergraduate degree and being the best player in the country and, when she has a few extra minutes, having a life. She has lived life four or five years ahead of schedule as long as she can remember.

“The first time I saw her play, I think she was only 16 years old,” says Kathleen Sharkey, who earned 176 caps with the United States National Team and led the NCAA in goals at Princeton in 2010 and 2012. “She was ten years younger than me. It was pretty amazing at that time to see someone who was still in high school who was

“I remember it being really bizarre that when I was 17 years old I went to my teammate’s wedding,” Erin says. “She was 28 or so, and I was at the table with these other 20-something year-olds celebrating her marriage. And there were times I’d have conversations with my teammates about them having to find someone to watch their kids or their dogs while we were out of the country playing, and I’d think, ‘I could be going to math class right now.’ But I learned so much about how to prepare and fuel my body and making time to do things like laundry that I never would have thought about in high school. It’s interesting now to look at high schoolers and think, ‘I was in a different place when I was that age.’”

She will eventually think the same thing when she looks back on college. Especially in the last 12 months, Matson has grown as a player and a person in ways that her friends immediately recognize. Her closest friend on campus is former Tar Heel field hockey player Galen Gray, a Houston native who says she first was only aware of Erin Matson as someone with the reputation for being “Miss Cool Girl” in field hockey circles.

What she discovered as they got closer was very different.

“Like everyone else, she’s had ups and downs,” Gray says. “In the last 12 months, she has really found herself and how to be herself to get through difficult times. She grew up in a very fast-forward, athletic lifestyle. She was a kid but was thrown into this highly trained athlete world and sometimes she never had time to slow down. In the last 12 months, I think she’s figured out how to be herself, and I think she is proud of what she has become and who she has surrounded herself with.”

It’s worth remembering that two years of Matson’s college career were consumed by Covid. It can be very fun—but it’s still more challenging than you might imagine—to be the nation’s best player in normal times. It can be very, very difficult to be the nation’s best player and a team leader when never-before-seen restrictions are in place and everyone is worried that a teammate might tattle on them for breaking rules no college team or college student has ever faced before.

handle payments and shipping for her line of One-branded gear that’s available at erinmatsonone.com, which is a website she likewise learned how to produce and fill with engaging content.

These are not normal college activities. Neither is becoming an expert in social media, an area everyone close to her agrees has accelerated her growth into the public awareness. It began in earnest during Covid, when Matson had abundant free time between catching her brother’s long toss sessions (“She can’t read a fly ball, but she’s pretty good on long toss up to about 120 feet,” he says with a grin) and noticed she was getting frequent messages from young girls asking about her training regimen. At that point, she was at home in Pennsylvania and didn’t really have a team, but she had the workout space and had a phone, so she thought she might as well post a few videos online to connect with those younger players.

The result was a series that received hundreds of thousands of views on Instagram and Twitter. And a deepening connection with her fans—even as people spend money for shirts with her name and image on them, she still is amazed by the fact that she actually has “fans”—that continues today.

One of her summer 2022 projects was a youth clinic near her home in Pennsylvania that, predictably, immediately sold out. In addition to the training they received, one of the highlights for attendees was the chance to take pictures with their hero, which they of course immediately posted to Instagram, tagging the @erin_matson account in the hopes that she might see it.

She did. But here’s the difference. Not only did she see it. She took the time to comment on the posts. If you are a certain age, this will mean nothing to you. But if you are a very different certain age, you will understand how meaningful this can be.

“You rock girl!”

“So happy we could get together!”

“Amazing day, happy to see you again!”

Even today, as one of the premier college athletes in the country, some of her teammates recognize that it might be fun to be Erin Matson for a day. Not many of them, though, would want to do it for an entire week.

“People don’t realize that she is a normal person,” Gray says. “She has emotions. She gets overwhelmed. She is this amazing leader who is so strong and takes everything so seriously, but deep down she is the least serious person I know. She is so unapologetically herself. People sometimes forget that she is not an athlete as a person. There’s Erin the athlete and Erin the person. As a person, she’s funny, she’s normal, and she’s not some emotionless queen. She has feelings.”

And she has responsibilities. Name, image and likeness has gotten a bad reputation in some football and basketball circles, where it is sometimes code for something very different. For Matson, it is a way to benefit from her incredible success while looking into a future that is professionally uncertain. There is no money in professional field hockey in the United States. The deals she has done in the last 12 months are providing a foundation to give her flexibility other teammates at the college and national level won’t have; but the deals she’s doing are also legitimate jobs. She’s spending hours writing her weekly columns. She learned how to set up an online store and

“Queens! Bosses! Go girls!”

There are dozens of them, all from Matson herself, all on the posts of strangers and all symbolic of a college senior making time while waiting at an appointment or in a parking lot (she inevitably arrives early and it is not unusual to find her sitting in the car checking off emails or to-do items) and wanting to do something memorable for someone else rather than something for herself.

“She always makes time for the young ones,” Kentwell says. “I think it’s because she remembers the day when she was their age and looking up to those UNC players. That was her dream, and she wants those little girls to have the same dreams she had.”

Here is one of the many reasons you would like Erin Matson. Last December, she went on a trip to Aruba. It was a very rare opportunity to get away from her normal life for a few days. For just a few days, she could be a 21-year-old and not the standard bearer for an entire sport and one of the faces of a worldwide athletic department.

So what book did she throw in her suitcase?

Dean Smith’s “The Carolina Way.” She hadn’t read it yet and felt it was an important part of her Tar Heel education. This summer, she read “The Man Watching,” on the way Anson Dorrance built his women’s soccer dynasty.

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“SHE’S EXTREMELY THREATENING IN EVERYTHING SHE DOES. HER STICK SKILLS ARE WORLD CLASS, AND SHE IS ABLE TO ELIMINATE A DEFENDER AT ANY TIME IN ANY POSITION FROM ANYWHERE ON THE FIELD.”

-KATHLEEN SHARKEY, FORMER US NATIONAL TEAM TEAMMATE

This is not normal summer college reading. But here’s the trick, and here’s what makes her relatable to everyone: she also reads Colleen Hoover, and went through a stretch this fall when she was so wrapped up in the popular novelist that she was knocking out a book every few days.

On some level, this is why it works—why it has always worked. Matson is completely obsessed with doing the work required to be a transcendent Tar Heel. But she also manages to show us just enough normalcy that we believe maybe we could do what she’s doing. That is why little girls line up to talk to her after games. That is why they squeal when they walk away from her, and shout, “Best day ever!”

This is also why we loved it when Tyler Hansbrough jumped off the roof of the fraternity house. He was so unlike us, so completely outstanding that it was hard to relate to his level of obsessive commitment to greatness. But we knew that frat house and somewhere in our memory was the recollection that we were once young and foolish and invincible. Tyler, for that very brief moment, could have been us.

It is unlikely that any of us will ever be as good at anything as Erin Matson is at field hockey. But we can appreciate the Chapel Hill leaves in the fall the same way she can. We know the steps of Carroll Hall the same way she does. And we’ve thought about Carolina in the exact same way she does now, as her time as a student—but not her time as a Tar Heel, which she is quick to note is lifelong—comes to an end.

Maybe we should have known all along. There is a photo from her official visit to Carolina, in March of 2017. She was long since committed, of course, and the visit was a complete formality and mostly a way for she and her brother, Sean, to experience a CarolinaDuke basketball game at the Smith Center. So they smiled for a photo overlooking the court, all potential and no different than any of the other hundreds or thousands of Carolina fans who took a picture in that building on that day.

Except that the person in the photo became one of the greatest athletes in the history of the school. And that makes sense, because on the right-hand side of the picture, undetected by any member of the Matson family, sit Woody and Jean Durham, also watching the Tar Heels, completely unaware that the girl to the left of Woody— to the left of the kid who grew up idolizing Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice and marveling at Lennie Rosenbluth and then became all of our connection to everything Carolina for four decades—is about to rewrite what we consider to be the epitome of being a Tar Heel. It is somehow comforting to see them in the same space, even without them knowing it. Carolina continues, whether we realize it or not.

“I remember on my very first First Day of Class as a freshman, everyone said it would go by so fast,” she says. “And it really does. Doing so much writing this fall has been good for me because it makes me reflect. So much has happened to me here with records and team success. But it’s also been me growing up. It’s little things like moving houses and getting a new comforter and all that stuff that has been part of an evolution. It’s all happened at Carolina, and it’s really cool to think back on.”

Her parents see it. And while it’s gratifying, they are not surprised. Because they still think back to something she said when she came back from that run in 2015, and something she’s said regularly since then. Something that reminds you that even though Erin Matson’s undergraduate tenure at Carolina will end in December, she will always—always—be a Tar Heel.

So maybe you see the 22-year-old who is the Atlantic Coast Conference’s all-time leading scorer, the only five-time conference Player of the Year in any sport in league history, the multiple National Player of the Year award winner.

Even now, Brian Matson gets a little misty-eyed when he thinks back to that September evening in 2015 when his daughter went for a run on an unfamiliar campus and came back certain of her future. But there is something else, something he can picture any time he sees her wearing Carolina blue or watches her walk across campus or sees her smiling with the friends she has made in the last nine semesters.

It is almost over now. Everyone involved has relished this bonus fall, because it has been an opportunity to hold all of these moments a little more closely.

Brian sees a 15-year-old high school sophomore who went for a run and came back certain of her place.

“This is where I want to go,” she told her parents on that Sunday night in Chapel Hill.

“Why?” they asked her.

Their daughter looked at them and said exactly what you would want to hear from your own daughter, exactly what you want for yourself, maybe even exactly what you still think when you walk down Franklin Street.

“Carolina feels,” said Erin Matson, “like home.”

NO HE’S NOT YES HE IS

Ten years ago, Giovani Bernard made one of the most memorable plays in the history of Kenan Stadium

BY LEE PACE // PHOTOS BY JEFFREY CAMARATI

Bryn

Renner was ready.

The Tar Heels would get the ball back with probably just under 25 seconds left and have to travel some 40 yards to set up a gamewinning field goal attempt against NC State on that gray October day in 2012 in Kenan Stadium.

“Offensively, we felt good,” the Tar Heel quarterback from 2010-13 remembers. “We had two good drives in the fourth quarter—one for a touchdown and one for a field goal. We were moving the ball. I was on the phone with Blake (Anderson, the offensive coordinator). We had four plays we called ‘game-winners.’ We liked two of them especially. We were going to attack and get in position for a field goal.”

Casey Barth was ready. The senior placekicker had connected from 48 and 34 yards for six points that day and for the year would make 15 of 19 tries. He and holder Tommy Hibbard went through three or four rehearsal kicks into the kicking net on the Tar Heel sidelines.

“I felt good,” Barth says. “I’d had a couple of good kicks that game. It’s like golf, you hit a few good ones and you’re ready to hit another. To be honest, I was hoping for the chance at a game-winning kick.”

A.J. Blue and the punt return team were ready. So was Roy Smith, settling in on the 30 yard-line to field a punt from N.C. State with 30 seconds on the clock and the game tied at 35-all. Smith, a walk-on receiver, had fielded four punts that day, three of them fair catches, as Gio Bernard was playing on a sore right ankle and limiting his action to offensive snaps from his tailback position.

“Nothing against Roy, but if he’d been back there, it probably would have been a fair catch,” Blue says. “I’m thinking, ‘Okay, let’s do our job, keep them off Roy and give him a clear shot at a fair catch.’ Then get the offense out there and see what happens.”

Then Tar Heel coach Larry Fedora signals for a time out. He gathers the punt return team around him and gives them play call. He wants “Wall Right,” a configuration that calls for half the players to set up a blocking wall to the right of the return man and give him an avenue between the defenders and the sideline, the other half to loop around and clean up any defenders following downfield.

Renner and Bernard are sitting together on the bench. Bernard hears the play call.

“My eyes lit up,” he says. “That’s my favorite return.”

Renner nudges him in the leg.

“Dude, you gotta go. Even if you fair catch it, we gotta have possession,” Renner tells him.

Reflecting back a decade later, Renner says, “Gio gets this look on his face like, ‘Okay, I gotta do this thing.’”

Indeed, Bernard told himself, “Big-time players make big-time plays. I told myself to get out there.”

Bernard stood up, jogged onto the field and nodded for Smith to repair back to the sideline.

“It was fine by me,” says Gunter Brewer, an assistant coach who managed the punt returners. “It’s like giving Michael Jordan the rock.”

Wolfpack punter Wil Baumann was a sophomore averaging 39

yards a kick that year (he would evolve into being an excellent punter by his senior year, when he would average 45 yards a kick). A median kick from a line of scrimmage of the 25 would have taken the punt to the Carolina 35. State’s coverage unit sprinted downfield, and five players had arrived at that landmark by the time Baumann’s punt fell toward the turf.

“What you want to do is kick it high in the air and make him fair catch it, which we had been doing,” State coach Tom O’Brien said, referring to the Tar Heels’ six fair catches on eight previous punts. “You hang it up there so we can get down and cover. That was the idea.”

The best-laid plans, as they say …

It turns out Baumann hits the ball too well and drives it nearly 50 yards. Bernard backpedals to the 26 yard line to field the punt. He now has air between him and his pursuers to make the Xs-and-Os of the schematic diagram work. Bernard darts to the right and, one by one, his blockers knock off one Wolfpack player after another.

T.J. Jiles throws the first block that gives Bernard the cushion to start working against the grain toward the right.

Tre Boston drives his man 15 yards across the field and into another State player.

Romar Morris escorts Bernard downfield and trucks Baumann in front of the Wolfpack bench.

Pete Mangum, lined up on the left side of the Tar Heels’ formation, rushes the punter to make sure there is no fake punt in the works, then circles around and picks off a Wolfpack defender giving chase.

From there it is pure speed and heart and valor from Gio Bernard.

“A perfect wall,” Bernard said. “You can’t draw it up any better.”

Raleigh photographer Jack Morton was on the 15 yard line, between the State bench and the west end zone, aiming his camera to the action just as his grandfather, Hugh, had done so many years ago when Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice was scampering across this same ground. Morton likes the visiting sideline because it’s less crowded than the home side, and for this moment in history he was perfectly positioned.

“Gio came into my view about fifty yards away, rounded the corner and you see the wall form,” Morton says. “You could see this cavernous gap form. You could have driven a couple of trucks through there. I had to try to zoom out as he’s coming at me, and I know I lost him when he swung past me. But that’s okay. The drama was what was coming at me.”

Bernard darted into the end zone along the right sideline and kept sprinting to the wall at the bottom of The Tar Pit, the west end zone student section. Blue was just a few steps behind him and they were

“

“IT WAS FINE BY ME. IT’S LIKE GIVING MICHAEL JORDAN THE ROCK.” -GUNTER BREWER

lost in a sea of noise and pandemonium. The Tar Heels executed a two-point conversion, and the game ended after the ensuing kickoff, Carolina a 43-35 winner and mercifully ending a miserable five-year run of losses to the Wolfpack.

“I had my helmet on, ready to go out on offense,” Renner says. “Gio does that and I launch my helmet into the air. It was the best win I’ve ever been a part of. We got a five-year monkey off our back and we get a walk-off punt return after an electric game with both teams fighting and scrapping.”

“Wow, that was awesome,” Blue says. “I just remember jumping on Gio’s back and everyone else jumped on me. It was chaos after that.”

The Bernard touchdown immediately took its spot alongside Connor Barth’s field goal to beat Miami in 2004, Bracey Walker’s blocked punts in the 1993 Peach Bowl, Walter Davis’s last-second bank shot to force

overtime against Duke in 1974 and Michael Jordan’s jump shot versus Georgetown in 1982 as one of the most electrifying plays in Carolina sports history.

“It’s close to my heart, it’s something I know is in the history books,” Bernard says today. “When you’re a kid, you don’t really think about history, you’re just thinking about making the play. It’s like, ‘Hey, I just want to go out and play football.’ It was that way for me until a few years ago when I realized the impact that play had for Carolina football and what it meant. I always want to respect that. Respect the people involved in that play. The punt return people, the coaches.

“Yes, I was the guy who caught the punt and took it back, but there were a lot of guys who made it happen.”

This win over State in Fedora’s first season of his seven-year run as the

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“A PERFECT WALL. YOU CAN’T DRAW IT UP ANY BETTER.” -GIOVANI BERNARD

Tar Heels’ coach was predicated on his incessant emphasis on special teams. Even as the Tar Heels bolted to a 25-7 first quarter lead, even as State reeled off 28 unanswered points, Fedora preached it would come down to one play. And that could well be in the kicking game.

“I said no matter what the score is right now, it’s still going to come down to the last possession,“ Fedora said.

“We all took a lot of pride in special teams, and our unit gave Gio a shot,” Mangum says. “We picked up our blocks and made it happen. Everybody did their job and we had a nice formation develop. Everyone knew Gio was back there and that we had a shot at this.”

“Special teams were what Coach Fedora was really good at,” Bernard says. “He called the perfect play at the right time. It just opened it up for me. All I had to do was run as fast as I could. It still gives me chills, for sure.”

Ten years later, A.J. Blue looks at a schematic diagram of the punt return as drawn up in the play book. He looks at a video clip on his phone of the play unfolding.

“Hold your guy up, create the wall, then let Gio follow it,” he says. “It was the perfect wall. He didn’t have to make any cuts once he got around it. Everybody did their job. And then you had a one-of-a-kind guy with the ball in his hands.

“Certain people are just built for this type of stuff. If Gio had not torn his ACL his freshman year (in 2010), we would have heard about him

that much sooner. He was just one of those guys who knew how to play football, understood it, the physicality of it, everything. To be that size and still be in the NFL 10 years later, it’s unreal. Wow.”

When it was over, State fans stood in stunned silence. Bernard cried sitting on the bench. Barth sought out Baumann, both of them alumni of Wilmington’s Hoggard High School.

“I felt for him,” Barth says. “He’s a buddy and a good guy. We hugged it out and I told him to keep his head up. Sometimes you just hit it so well, you outkick your coverage. Those five yards make all the difference.”

Had Baumann struck a 40-yard punt with good hang time and forced a Carolina fair catch, Renner, the Tar Heel offense and Barth were ready to step in and save the day. But they were delighted to cede the spotlight to Giovani Bernard.

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“EVERYBODY DID THEIR JOB. AND THEN YOU HAD A ONE-OF-A-KIND GUY WITH THE BALL IN HIS HANDS.” -A.J. BLUE

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NO HE’S NOT YOUR STORIES YES HE IS

Perry & Kelly Collette // Chapel Hill, NC

We started our game day in Charlotte with our daughter Carly Collette ‘17, who was walking in a 2-day, 39-mile Avon breast cancer fundraiser. After her pre-dawn launch, we drove home to Chapel Hill for the State game. Our son, Bill Collette ‘15, was a football team videographer standing on the sideline with his camera just as Gio crossed the goal line. The photo of that moment with Gio includes Bill in the background. As soon as the game ended, we skipped celebrating and returned to Charlotte to rejoin Carly for the second day of the Avon event. Our family has had a great time over the years seeing video reruns of that punt return on TV and the many reprints of the photo in publications and at Kenan. Carly has never completely gotten over missing one of the most exciting games ever in Kenan.

Sandee Finerghty // Raleigh, NC

This game was so memorable for us in many ways – Oct 27, 2012! My sons were 6 and 3½ . I was holding my 3½-year-old (Ryan) at the time that Gio ran back this punt. I was cheering so loud and jumping up and down and dropped him! He fell into the bleacher in front of us (I don’t remember anyone being right in front of us at the time.) I took a quick peek to make sure he was OK and kept watching! (Not a proud Mom moment, but we laugh about it now!)

Will Moyer // Franklinton, NC

This was my second ever game at Kenan, and I went with my in-laws and wife who are all State grads. Obviously going down late my now wife and I were bickering as it was a frustrating game on both sides. We were sitting on the visitor side of the goal line that Gio crossed. I told everyone around me if they punt to him, he had a chance. As Gio made his way down the line, I started dancing on the bleachers with my wife wanting to knock me off. This sold me to buy season tickets after college was over and I’ve been hooked since. It wasn’t until we got home that I heard the radio call, but this will go down as one of if not the greatest sports memory I’ll ever witness.

Katie Walker // Chapel Hill, NC

I had my “Carolina Girls” (my core friend group from our time at UNC) in town that weekend for the game. I was pregnant with my second son, Coleman, at the time whom we decided THAT day to name Coleman Alexander after going into Julian’s and Alexander Julian telling us that “Alexander was a great name for a boy.” I literally did not leave my seat the ENTIRE game. Right before the kickoff, I saw Gio switch last minute and take his place in the backfield and looked at my friend Lauren and said, “We’ve got this … Gio is about to take this one to the house. He’s in position to receive.” When he caught the ball and started running, I don’t think I’ve ever screamed and wildly waved my arms towards the endzone so hard in my entire life. It was a game we will all never forget … and I called it!

Mike Soboeiro // Raleigh, NC

I was in the stands with my wife. I was 46 years old at the time. After Gio scored, the students all started running out of the stadium. Spontaneously, I just started running with them. I sprinted all the way to Franklin Street. When I got to Top of the Hill, I called my wife, who had no idea where I was, and said, “Hey honey, I got here early and got us a great table!”

Marc Ridgill // Liberty, NC

Season ticket holder since the 1989 season, and have been present at every home game since. In 1997, the new football center was opened and my seats were relocated to section 117. Gio’s return was not only the “loudest” I have experienced Kenan, but the only time I have felt that structure shake. Barth’s kick, TA not scoring, Dazz’s Miami catch were all loud. But in 2012, there was a “Gioquake” atop the Kenan Football Center.

Justin Morrow // North Wilkesboro, NC

I was a groomsman at a wedding of a huge Tar Heel fan in Huntersville. The game was on before the ceremony, and we watched from the clubhouse of a golf course. We knew Gio could do it, but it’s a long shot still – 1% chance? He scoops it and we see five Wolfpack swarming. Breaks right, puts on a burst to the edge where a key block knocks down another Pack player. Gio made it look easy, but he had afterburner speed! Room goes nuts, wedding went great, they named their daughter Paige but Gio would have worked too!

Steve Krasnow // Pittsboro, NC

What a memory! I hugged and jumped up and down with my seat mate Ned Clark. Unfortunately, my wife was between us. She had bruised ribs for at least a week. That same week, I purchased my new high end sea kayak. It is fast maneuverable and fast. I name all of my kayaks. I bet you can guess its name. GIO!

Tim Hayes // Raleigh, NC

I gave my tickets to my brother so he and his wife could take their daughter and a friend to the game. His daughter, a life-long UNC fan (as all of Hayeses are), did not get in to UNC, and she ended up going to State. Big State fan now. My son and I were on Franklin Street watching at the Library Bar. When it happened, it was like an earthquake had hit. It really seemed like the earth was shaking. We ran outside onto Franklin Street so we could hear the crowd roar. Aside from handing K his last losses, this was one of the biggest moments in Carolina sports in my life!

Darren Biehler // Davidson, NC

Gio’s touchdown is so memorable to me because I took both my brother and med school roommate to see the game. Both are NCSU grads. I could see the blocking set up and knew Gio was going to score. I turned to them before he even hit the 50 and said, “It’s over.” The look of defeat on their faces was priceless! To this day, I get goosebumps when I see the replay.

Terry McNeill // Wilkesboro, NC

What a day! I attended alone on my way home from a week of golf at Myrtle Beach. I had paid a scalper $100 for my ticket. My seat was on the north side around the 25-30 yard line on the Kenan Football Center end, and about 20 rows up. It had been a somewhat frustrating game, but I was very happy to see Gio go back for that punt. When he caught the ball and started to the right, I thought I saw an opening and my heart jumped, only to see that opening close down quickly.

Then suddenly there he was again running alone on the outside and I started screaming like everyone else around me. After he scored, I turned around to look at the NC State fans seated behind me. I’ll never forget the stunned look on their faces! Later when I heard Jones Angell’s call of the play, I thought, holy cow, he called it exactly as I had seen it! No he’s not! Yes he is! The greatest moment I have ever experienced at a live sporting event in all my 65 years!

Steve Zaytoun // Cary, NC

I took my best friend Tony and his daughter (both State grads) to the game and, of course, they are living it up as the Pack was winning near the end. And then … Gio explodes for his TD, and I turn to give it to them … and… they … are … gone … left me. (They had driven me over.) So I had to find my own ride home back to Cary! But to this day, I still send them the historic video of that awesome ending, especially focusing on Coach O’Brien’s mistake of punting to Gio in the first place.

Dave Olson // Creedmoor, NC

Literally, all I remember about the moment is the complete and utter pandemonium ... my wife and I screaming at the top of our lungs, and she was jumping up and down on top of the bleachers! It was one of those times in life that the emotions of the moment overwhelmed everything else. Still gives me “chills” to this day thinking about it.

Matt Nowell // Raleigh, NC

I had parked the car and my son, my future son-in-law and I were walking to Kenan Stadium. My son and I were fired up and had our game faces on. The future son-in-law, being from Georgia, did not understand the significance of the game yet seemed to be a little edgy. He pulled me aside and asked to speak to me for a minute. I was thinking what could be so important right now. He then asked for my daughter’s hand in marriage. I handled it the best I could at the time. I asked if he was sure they loved each other and that both were ready for that kind of commitment. He said that they were. I gave him my blessing and said come on, we need to get to the game. After the game he said that he was never so excited in his life to see Gio return that punt for a touchdown. He said he knew if we had lost I would have thought that he had hexed the Heels and never be invited to another Carolina game. I said no buddy, you are in for life!

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Cam

Kilby // Winston-Salem, NC

My wife and I were sitting in our seats watching the game with a large souvenir popcorn. Some NC State frat guys had settled in the seats behind us, and apparently they had tailgated pretty hard before the game and were quite “happy”. State had just taken the lead and they were letting everyone in our section know it. To beat all, when we stood up to watch a play, they would eat some of our popcorn! I turned and caught them eating the popcorn, and the State guys just laughed it off and high-fived each other. When Gio returned the punt for a touchdown, I turned back to the State fans, and said, “You keep the popcorn, and WE WILL TAKE THE WIN!” … and with that, they turned and walked up the Kenan steps, starting a nice trek back to Raleigh! Thank you Gio for giving us the last laugh that day.

Nick Ellis // Wilson, NC

My father-in-law, Bill Kuhn, played at UNC during the Choo Choo Justice years. My motherin-law, Jo Kuhn, went to UNC too, and was a tutor for Lennie Rosenbluth. My wife, Susan, went to UNC as well, and while I’m a Virginia Tech grad, I’ve always pulled for UNC. We went to football games for years with my in-laws and enjoyed every one of them. But, the last game we all went to together was the UNC game in 2012 when Gio Bernard ran the punt back. Right before the punt, my mother-in-law leans over to my wife and says, “We sure could use a runback for a touchdown.” Well, we all know how that turned out!

Lauren Sytz // Winston-Salem, NC

Gio’s punt return was my junior year of high school. My dad went to UNC, so I have been a Tar Heel since birth. I remember sitting in our living room. We both had our lucky chairs that we each sat in. Gio ran it back and next thing you know, my dad, my sisters, and I are jumping up and down cheering as loud as we can. To this day, I still pull up the Tar Heel Sports Network call whenever I am feeling down, and it immediately cheers me up. I have Jones Angell’s call engraved in my brain from here on out. My family now has three UNC grads: my dad, myself, my sister and one more graduating this spring. We are Tar Heels Born, Bred, and Dead.

Wade Hargrove // Raleigh, NC

At the time of the UNC-NC State football game, my wife Sandy and I, along with two other couples, were hiking in a remote area of Spain just south of the French border. We stopped in a small village, and I checked my iPad for the score of the big game. I learned State was ahead, and there were only 30 seconds left in the game. I figured we had lost so I took a nap. I checked the score again when I awoke to learn Gio had run back the ball on a punt return from State, and we won the game! I poured myself a glass of Sangria in celebration!

Jobe West // East Bend, NC

His favorite player on his actual birthday. Storybook. Pictured: Joshua West with Mr. “No He’s Not, Yes He Is” after the game.

Brent Woods // Lenexa, KS

Oh my gosh! I remember this game as if it was yesterday! The added pleasure was having my brother, Barry, attend this game with me along with some of my best college friends from Carolina. Barry lives in Raleigh and is a huge State fan … ever since we were little kids it was always Carolina vs State! As the game played out and into the 4th quarter, my brother was quite chirpy and smiling from ear to ear. Then … the moment hit! Gio taking it to the house and sprinting right past the State sideline … The crowd eruption was deafening. The only thing my brother could do was just stand there and take the abuse! I still remind him to this day about that game.

NO HE’S NOT...YES HE IS!

Will Overton // Jamestown, NC

After previously attending my first Carolina football game three weeks prior as a 14 year-old (a white-out victory over Virginia Tech), I officially had the Kenan Stadium itch. I couldn’t wait to get back in those old aluminum bleachers to see the Heels again. The morning of the State game in 2012 our house phone got a call around 8:30am. My twin brother and I were the only ones up (waiting to watch ESPN’s College Gameday, of course), but I recognized the number as my mom’s friend that had Carolina season tickets. I immediately answered, “Hey Mrs. Sprinkle, you got tickets for me today?” I ran upstairs to get my mom out of bed so she could drive me and my brother to Chapel Hill for a 12:30 kickoff.

The Sprinkles had great seats, section 224, row A. We got to our seats and I sat next to some late 20 year-old Tar Heels so my brother, a State fan, wouldn’t have to. After a great start from Bryn Renner and Carolina, Mike Glennon turned it on to bring State back and take control. I had noticed that Gio had stopped taking punt returns early in the game, and wasn’t quite his usual self at tailback either. (Remember, he had just rushed for a ridiculous 262 yards against VaTech three weeks ago.) With under a minute left, State lined up to punt, but Carolina called timeout (thanks, Larry). My brother noticed it first and said, “Oh no.” I said, “What? Y’all pretty much got this.” He said, “No we don’t. Gio just went back to take the punt. It’s over.” “No he’s not” (going to take the punt), I thought to myself … “Yes he is.”

Roy Collette // Kernersville, NC

This was my favorite moment in 53 years of games in Kenan. It was the final thrill of a three-hour roller coaster ride, and gave me the last word over the three drunken State fans sitting behind me. You could see the wall forming for Gio, and hear the crowd as they saw it too, and Tre Boston’s crushing block of two State defenders made us forget all about potential field goal position as Gio galloped into history. We were almost too stunned and delirious to comprehend the improvised two-point conversion and fumble recovery on the kickoff. After the game, we happened to share an elevator with Larry Fedora, who was leaving his press conference. I said, “So Coach, are you going to have Gio fitted for a superhero cape?” Coach replied, “Hell, he’s already got one!”

Darrell Shealy // Charlotte, NC

I was there with my wife and younger son, sitting on the visitor’s side on about the 20-yard line in the lower level. Our view of the play was perfect. Gio made the first couple guys miss, and the Red Sea parted. Even though Gio was still around midfield at this point, I just screamed at my wife: “He’s going to score.” It just opened up so beautifully. And the best part? A group of State fans were in the row right in front of us. Nice folks, and they had been cheering for their team loudly all day. But I had grown tired of seeing that Wolfpack sign they do with their hands … you know the one. Watching all those hands drop and the cheering stop as Gio raced down our side of the field right in front of us was a beautiful sight, and a deafening silence for that group.

Greg Cauley // Kinston, NC

The memories of that day are still quite vivid. We were fortunate enough to have seats on the second row of the Pope Box. One of our friends joined my aunt and Mom and me for that game. Unfortunately, my aunt was sitting next to an obviously very intoxicated fan of the red persuasion, who spent a lot of the game doing what those people do, much to our chagrin. As the clock wound down and the situation looked more and more bleak, hope still flickered. Listening to the radio broadcast (as usual), I recall that there was some surprise expressed (as well as among the fans at the game) that the visitors would actually kick the ball to Gio rather than sending the punt out of bounds to prevent a runback. Once the ball was in the air and the excitement began, it was cool to watch the kick return wall form from our high vantage point. The celebration in the box matched that in the main stadium bowl, with the exception of that lone red person sitting near us. He may have thought that his induced condition was causing hallucinations, but what he thought he saw, he actually saw.

Jim Phillips // Greensboro, NC

On the day that Gio “ran it back”, I was flying back to the U.S. from Paris after visiting my daughter, a junior at UNC who was doing her semester abroad there. Her mom stayed for an extra few days, so I was by myself. My flight landed in Charlotte, and as soon as I got in the car I turned on the radio and listened to the game. On my way back to Greensboro I stopped in Lexington, where I grew up, to visit my dad. When I walked into my dad’s house, where my dad was watching on TV, State was punting. I walked in, they punted and Gio “ran it back.” It was the only play of the game that I saw. And the only one I needed to see.

Don Shaw // High Point, NC

I attended the game with three college buddies. We all attended UNC, graduating in the early 80s. We had not all been together since graduation. Our seats were on the home side, just about even to where Gio fielded the punt. As most know, Gio had gotten dinged up a few plays earlier and originally wasn’t in the game to handle the punt return. The four of us noticed Gio pull the original return guy off the field. I remarked to my friends, “Wouldn’t it be incredible if he ran this back?” Then he did. I’ve attended a great many games in Kenan, both while in school and post-graduation. The crowd has never been as loud or as crazy as when Gio ran back that punt. Against our arch rival! It was the most memorable moment in Kenan, bar none!

Julian Rosemond // Douglasville, GA

I was sitting in the end zone and saw the punt. As Gio turned the corner, I said, “He just needs one block!” And when he turned the corner and passed the State bench, I started jumping around like I was 19 again (I was 59!), but it was worth it. The look on the Pack fan’s faces: PRICELESS!

Mitchell Jones // Columbia, SC

The Gio game will always be special for me as it was part of my bachelor party. We traveled up from Columbia, S.C. We had the most fun! All we could talk about for weeks is how it was the best game that we had ever been to. It’s crazy that it’s been 10 years! Still to this day, that game is my favorite.

Tim & Lisa Costner // Durham, NC

I was at the game with my wife Lisa. We were in our normal seats in the upper deck. I remember thinking, “State is going to punt the ball to Gio?!?” As he broke down the sideline, the closer he got to the end zone the louder the stadium got. Once he was in the end zone, I had never heard it so loud in Kenan. Plus the upper deck was swaying. Never experienced that before!

Lisa Werner // Raleigh, NC

Jeremy Rouse, NCSU class of 1998 and my brother-in-law, might have run faster than Gio that day. He was watching the punt return on the home side of the stadium, and when he realized that Gio was going to run it in, he decided Kenan Stadium was not where he wanted to be. He left. He ran right out of the stands. Surprisingly, he has never accepted our offer of coming with us to the UNC vs. NCSU game again.

I was a senior student manager for Carolina Football during the 2012 season, and had the privilege of being on the sideline to witness the win up close. We all know about the ignominious five-game skid which we were on at the time against the school from West Raleigh. Like Coach Roy Williams, I would unequivocally rather beat State than eat. During the week of practice leading up to the State game, Coach Fedora did an incredible job picking us up from the loss at Duke the weekend prior and getting us prepared to match and exceed State’s intensity. Everyone knows about the now-famous pre-game switch to the chrome helmets, but what a lot of folks may not know is that the specific punt return play – “The Wall” – that won the game for us was something that we’d practiced throughout training camp and for weeks leading up to the game, waiting for the right moment to use it.

As the punt was in the air, I was standing at about the 35-yard line near where Gio initially fielded the punt. As he secured the ball and started towards the NC State sideline, you could see The Wall forming as perfectly as it was practiced. Tre Boston essentially decleated two would-be Wolfpack tacklers with one block at around the 40-yard line, and when Gio turned the corner with The Wall fully formed, I knew he was gone because State’s punter – who was the lone man to beat – didn’t have a prayer of tackling him. Like so many others, I was running down the sideline, as fast as I could go, from the opposite 30 where Gio fielded the punt to the Tar Pit end zone. When Gio crossed the goal line, it was the most raucous, most cathartic, most incredible sports moment of which I’ve ever been part. I am pretty sure the entire Tar Heel sideline was out on the field (it’s probably a miracle that we didn’t get flagged) – and I may or may not have even aimed a few choice words towards the State sideline. The celebration was so chaotic- there were so many hugs and high fives and tears up and down the sideline – that many of us didn’t even realize that the botched-extra-point-turned-two-point-conversion had occurred. It was such an incredible release of emotion in Kenan that day after all that had transpired in the program and at the University over the previous difficult couple of years. Not to mention it was a dramatic end to State’s unthinkable win streak against us. Order had been restored in the Tar Heel state by the flagship!

Chris Ford // Cary, NC

AMONG

BY ANDREW STILWELL PHOTOS BY FSU PHOTO, UNC ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS, JEFFREY CAMARATI

At Carolina, the term “student-athlete” carries some additional weight. Not only do student-athletes for Carolina’s 28 varsity sports excel on the playing field, they also are faced with the rigorous academic course load that comes when you attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While many Carolina athletes excel in both realms, men’s track & field and cross country runner Will Coogan and men’s lacrosse midfielder PJ Zinsner can truly be considered “best of the best,” as two of Carolina’s most recent winners of the Elite 90 award.

In 2010, the NCAA established the award, which is given to recognize the true essence of the student-athlete. The award honors the individual who has reached the pinnacle of competition at the national championship level in their sport, while also achieving the highest academic standard among their peers. The Elite 90 is presented each year to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA’s 90 championships.

In practice, it’s the ideal award for a Carolina student-athlete to win, because not only does it focus on a championship pedigree, but also excellence in the classroom. Since the award’s inception, a Tar Heel has won the award 15 times, good for third most of any NCAA Division I athletic program, and more than double the total of any other ACC member institution.

For both Coogan, a junior majoring in biology, and Zinsner, a senior double majoring in economics and math, the commitment to academics comes with the territory of being a student athlete at Carolina.

“I think the great opportunity of coming to a school like Carolina humbled me a little bit and I want to take full advantage of that,” said Coogan. “I wanted to learn how to adjust my lifestyle, so I could continue to try to work hard, to accomplish some goals that I wanted to do in school.”

“I started really taking academics seriously in high school,” Zinsner added. “I knew that if I wanted to play for a top program like Carolina, I had to be prepared, and I carried that with me into college. There’s also a level of competitiveness that I have in academics where I want to be the best.”

That competitive drive may come naturally for Zinsner – he’s the third of four children, and all of his siblings played or currently compete in college athletics. His older brother and sister played golf and lacrosse at Yale, and his younger sister currently plays lacrosse at Holy Cross.

Both student-athletes credit their teammates and coaches for continuing to instill their drive and discipline in the classroom.

“I think I’ve heard a couple of our coaches say ‘how you do anything is how you do everything.’ It’s a pretty common catchphrase, but I kind of take it to heart a little bit,” said Zinsner, who boasts a 3.98 GPA. “It’s a matter of being consistent every day, knowing, in both school and lacrosse, that if you take a day off, take a practice off, or zone out in class and don’t absorb anything, it will hurt you down the line. Having that perspective has helped me really try to focus on what I’m doing every day.”

Coogan, whose GPA is just 1/100th of a point higher at 3.99, echoes the sentiments.

“The main thing is just being intentional with the time you have. That’s our whole team. Coach Miltenberg really wants us to be intentional and purposeful. Those are two of our biggest mottos,” he said. “I think having

CAROLINA’S ELITE 90 WINNERS

WINNER SPORT GPA YEAR

2010 KRISTI EVELAND WOMEN’S SOCCER 3.93

MEREDITH NEWTON WOMEN’S LACROSSE 3.893

BILL DWORSKY MEN’S SOCCER 4.0

2012 MARTA MALMBERG FIELD HOCKEY 3.933

2013 CAITLIN BALL WOMEN’S SOCCER 3.913

PAIGE HANSON WOMEN’S LACROSSE 3.801

LOREN SHEALY FIELD HOCKEY 4.0

LOREN SHEALY FIELD HOCKEY 4.0 2014

LOREN SHEALY FIELD HOCKEY 3.99 2015

FRANCES REULAND WOMEN’S SOCCER 4.0 2017

ALEX COMSIA MEN’S SOCCER 3.98

ABBY PITCAIRN FIELD HOCKEY 3.856 2020

NATALIE CHANDLER

2021 PJ ZINSNER

WOMEN’S SOCCER 4.0

MEN’S LACROSSE 3.98

2022 WILL COOGAN MEN’S TRACK & FIELD/XC 3.99

IT WAS JUST AFTER PRACTICE AT THE FINAL FOUR - WE WERE JUST TALKING AS A TEAM AND ALL OF A SUDDEN, MY NAME AND FACE WERE UP ON LIKE THE VIDEOBOARD IN THE STADIUM. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS HAPPENING. THEN, A FEW PEOPLE FROM THE NCAA TOLD ME THAT I HAD WON THE ELITE 90 AWARD IN FRONT OF THE TEAM. THE AMOUNT OF SUPPORT I GOT FROM MY TEAMMATES WAS AWESOME.”

-PJ ZINSNER

that attitude towards track and cross country seeps into my other aspects of life. It helps me take that mindset to academics, relationships, and other things that I want to apply that to.

Both student-athletes have similar schedules in their respective sports – morning practices and classes midday through the afternoon, freeing up the evenings for studying and coursework. But, according to Coogan, the “off time” is just as important for physical recovery.

“During the week, there’s less of those big chunks of time

during the week that I can use. I think using Saturday and Sunday efficiently is important,” he said. “A big thing with track and cross country is what you do outside of practice is just as important as what you do in practice. Getting recovered and things like that. So, it’s not too beneficial to stay up till midnight every night. I’ve had to make decisions before where it was, ‘Okay, I could stay up for another hour to study, but honestly might be better for me as a whole to just get good rest every night.’”

Because the Elite 90 award is presented during the NCAA Championships, the obvious athletic focus is on the competition. With that in mind, it’s funny to note that neither Zinsner or Coogan had any idea their award was Elite 90 award was coming – or that it even existed.

“They actually announced it at Cross Country Nationals after the race while they were going through all of the awards for the competitors. I didn’t know it was a thing, my team didn’t know it was a thing. I was just surprised as everybody!” Coogan recalled with a laugh. “I think my coach knew it was coming. So, while they were starting to announce it, he told us to all be quiet, which was surprising. After I got the award, the team was all congratulating me and poking a little fun at me. It was pretty funny on the way home.”

“I was actually caught completely surprised by it. I didn’t know what the Elite 90 award was, or that it existed,” Zinsner added. “It was just after practice at the Final Four - we were just talking as a team and all of a sudden, my name and face were up on like the videoboard in the stadium. I had no idea what was happening. Then, a few people from the NCAA told me that I had won the Elite 90 award in front of the team. The amount of support I got from my teammates was awesome.”

As Coogan and Zinsner both begin their 2022-2023 campaigns, the age-old question that plagues every college student was asked – “what do you hope to do after your time at Carolina comes to a close?” Both student-athletes were coy in their responses.

“I’m planning on taking advantage of my COVID year and using my extra year of lacrosse eligibility,” Zinsner said. “Beyond that, I’m definitely looking to get a job, and still kind of figuring out exactly what I want to do. I worked in real estate this past summer and enjoyed it, so potentially something along those lines in finance.”

“I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do after college. I would love to get the level of running where I could run farther after college. I’d also love to like keep trying new things while at Carolina,” said Coogan. “Outside of the classes for my bio major, I’m trying other classes too because I really don’t know what I want to do. I know that I am interested in biology classes which is a good starting point for sure, but I don’t know what I want to do when I graduate. Luckily, I’ve got some time to figure that out!”

No matter what they decide to do, it’s clear that the drive and discipline that led both Zinsner and Coogan to their Elite 90 awards will set them up well for the future.

“

Gil Hanse thought of every angle. Now it’s your turn.

Play Pinehurst No. 4.

It’s time to test your mettle on this rugged masterpiece. Renowned course architect Gil Hanse transformed what Donald Ross first carved out of the sand a century ago into 18 dramatic holes you’ll want to play again and again.

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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!

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) Cindy & Joe Xavier of Toronto, Canada, at the “post office” on Floreana Island in the Galapagos Islands; 2) Bob Ward & Al Ward of Chapel Hill at the “Where the Music Died” site near Clear Lake, IA; 3) David & Marian Bell of Raleigh, NC, at the Monument of the Discoveries in Lisbon, Portugal; 4) Terri & Burke Haywood of Raleigh, NC, in Rome, Italy; 5) Chancy & Keith Kapp of Raleigh, NC, in the Bernese Alps atop Pilatus near Luzern, Switzerland; 6) Evan Tsantes & Keith Tsantes of Marvin, NC, at the Ancient Olympia Museum in Olympia, Greece; 7) Lora McKinney of Irmo, SC, at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe; 8) Charlene & Leonard Edge of Charlotte, NC, at York Minster Church in York, England; 9) Mark, Terry & Grayson Gordon of Greer, SC, at Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole, WY; 10) Seth Taper & Caiden Carducci-Taper of Greensboro, NC, on the Outer Banks; 11) Steve White & Caroline White of Raleigh, NC, on the North Fork Quinault River in Washington; 12) Tim & Andrea Messer of Charlottesville, VA, in Howth, Dublin, Ireland; 13) Katie Dunlap, John & Lee Dunlap, & Jake Dunlap of Concord, NC on the original floor of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy; 14) Ranjan Sharma & Stacy Lawson of Chapel Hill ran into Lou Patalano & family in Edinburgh, Scotland; 15) Taylor & Scott Cromartie of Wilmington, NC, at Loch Ness in Scotland; 16) Amy Sawyer & Murray Sawyer of Wilmington, DE, at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya; 17) Polly & Rudy Mansfield of Leland, NC, at Arthur Ashe Stadium at the 2022 US Open in New York; 18) Debbie & Steve Bedford of Forest City, NC, at the Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence, Italy; 19) Linda & Roger Thuotte of Hillsborough, NC, at the observatory on Gornergrat Mountain near Zermatt, Switzerland; 20) Sandy Rasnake of Chapel Hill at Jackson Square in New Orleans, LA; 21) Paul & Ashley Watson of Oak Island, NC, in Alaska; 22) Pat & Sherrie McNamara of Lynchburg, VA, in San Gimignano, Italy; 23) Wes Eagle of Salisbury, NC, at Angels Landing in Zion National Park in Utah; 24) Jeff & E.A. Neelon of Winston-Salem, NC, at the Jokulsarlon Glacier & Diamond Beach in Iceland; 25) Alyana & Aljhun Escueta of Richlands, NC, in Batangas, Philippines; 26) Lynn Mueller of Chapel Hill at Walnut Canyon National Monument in Arizona; 27) Tucker Mann & Walt Sherlin of Raleigh, NC, at Glacier Bay in Alaska; 28) Carol Hazard & Winston Liao of Chapel Hill in Prince Christian Sound, Greenland; 29) Mark McKnight of Raleigh, NC, at Harvard in Cambridge, MA; 30) Tripp & Allie Gordon of Fuquay-Varina, NC, in Würzburg, Germany

More Than A Player

Acornerstone of a Carolina women’s basketball team that returns four starters for the 2022-2023 campaign, Deja Kelly almost wasn’t a Tar Heel.

“In 2019, I was sitting in a gym with a few coaches recruiting and said, ‘Oh, she’s really good.’ The coaches said, ‘Oh, you’re not going to get Deja Kelly,’” recalled women’s basketball head coach Courtney Banghart. “I asked, ‘Why not?’ and they told me, ‘Well, she’s been committed to Texas since the seventh grade. You think she’s just going to answer your call?’ and I told them we were going to find out.”

In a new era of college sports, Deja Kelly is the quintessential on- and off-court success story

By Andrew Stilwell // Photos by Jeffrey Camarati

While many student-athletes across the country are the sole beneficiaries of their own NIL deals, for Kelly, it was important to take her women’s basketball teammates along for the ride.

“None of my success would happen without my teammates,” Kelly said. “That’s just the reality of it. They have contributed a lot, and none of the NIL opportunities would be here without the team’s success. It’s very important to include them in anything that I have going on because they’re definitely a huge factor in my individual success.”

Thus began a recruiting courtship that Coach Banghart joked was “my first three months on the job, it was me and Deja Kelly, on my back porch, on FaceTime. Every day.” After a campus visit in the fall of 2019, Deja Kelly would become a Tar Heel. Like for many Tar Heels, Carolina just “felt like home” to the San Antonio native.

“Just the environment and family atmosphere that it gave off — that was something that I was looking for, especially coming from Texas,” Kelly said. “I just wanted to go somewhere and have it feel like a second home to me, and Carolina did that right away. I just knew that it was the place for me.”

A FACE OF THE NIL ERA

In July of 2021, when the world of college athletics entered new and uncharted territory as it related to

allowing student-athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness, thenrising-sophomore Kelly was ready.

“I’d heard talks about it, but there were always a lot of ifs, so I didn’t really expect it to come into play when I was in school,” she recalled. “But I think that I was already prepared for it. My mom really helped me carry myself as a brand all through high school when I was younger. She really emphasized the importance of making connections early. Once NIL came, I was already a few steps ahead.”

Soon after, the connections would lead to NIL deals. Considered by many to be a “face of the NIL era,” Kelly signed with an agency, and inked partnerships with multiple companies including Dunkin Donuts, Outback Steakhouse, Beats by Dre, Actively Black sportswear, and Barcode Sports Drink.

There’s no finer example of Kelly looking out for her teammates than with an off-season team dinner this past summer. Following the dinner, Kelly had one more surprise for teammates and coaching staff: a pair of custom Carolina Blue and White Beats by Dre headphones, each personalized with her teammates’ jersey numbers with a special message engraved inside.

“A small thank you to my sisters I go to war with every day,” the headphones were inscribed. “Let’s finish strong.”

The gesture wasn’t lost on Kelly’s head coach.

“I think as women, we have to lift as we rise. Those are words we use directly to the team,” Banghart said. “I think for Deja, she’s such a competitor that it’s not lost on her that this is not a solo enterprise –the better her team is, the better she can be. The better her team is, the more she can win. I think she comes by it honestly. It’s not something she thought through,

but it’s something she felt through.”

EDUCATING FOR THE FUTURE Kelly’s teammates and coaching staff aren’t the only ones the point guard looks after – she’s also eager to provide inspiration and assistance to the next generation of future women’s basketball players. With the change in NIL rules, it also allowed Kelly to host her own basketball camp – the DK25 EmPOWERment Camp — at Texas’ Duncanville High School, where just two years ago, she graduated as a McDonald’s All-American.

“I think it was definitely important to take it back to Texas just because that’s where I’m from. That was my foundation, everything, and a lot of my success came in Texas. It started in San Antonio and in Dallas,” Kelly said. “It was super important to show where I came from and start there with this being my first camp. I think it was only right to bring it back to the city where I came from and where I played, and where I had a lot of success in high school.”

The EmPOWERment camp wasn’t the traditional basketball skills camp that you remember from your youth. In addition to basketball skills, Kelly’s camp, with an elementary school session and a middle and high school session – both free to attend, also focused on business skills and life skills – both of which Kelly was eager to impart on her campers.

“It’s important have those skills and knowledge because the ball stops bouncing at some point. You cannot play basketball forever, that’s just a given. To be able to have that other side, the business side, the life skills facts about recruiting, I think all of that is very important for other success outside of the basketball court if you really want to be an all-around successful human being,” said Kelly. “I think it was

really important and just being able to empower the young girls with knowledge that I’ve received over the years from a lot of influential people in my life.

“You don’t see a lot of people really teaching those things at [a basketball] camp,” she continued. “It’s typically all about basketball, which is great, but I wanted to be more real with the campers and really show them the real world and give them real world examples just from my life, from the camp coaches I had there as well. It was great being able to show them all aspects of it.”

upcoming season, Kelly led with, of course, a goal for the team.

“We want to make it past the Sweet 16, that’s obviously the first goal. Further down the line, our main goal is to make it to the Final Four and to win a national championship,” she said. “We know what we’re capable of and we know with the run we had this past year that it’s very possible.”

Individually, Kelly has goals of her own – an eventual successful WNBA career, followed by a career as a broadcast journalist – a career she’s already working towards.

“I developed a passion for broadcasting in high school just from watching so many WNBA and NBA games,” she said. “Watching Maria Taylor, Holly Rowe, Rebecca Lobo, Kara Lawson, really seeing how much fun they were having with their job and just being able to talk about the sport you love in a way that keeps you tied to the game, I think is really exciting and it’s really something that I wanted to do.”

DRIVEN TO SUCCEED

The ball isn’t going to stop bouncing for Kelly anytime soon – she has a clear set of goals that she’s been working towards her entire life. Kelly has had a vision board since elementary school, and is constantly setting new goals each season and off-season.

“What drives me is knowing that I’m working towards something, knowing that those are goals that I desperately want to reach and attain,” Kelly said. “I think that’s something that really drives me every day because I know that I’m working toward a better me.”

When asked about the goals for the

“UNC has one of the top media and journalism schools in the country, and that topped it off even more,” Kelly, a broadcast journalism major, continued. “My passion keeps growing for broadcasting each day. I’m getting hands-on experience and it’s really making me more excited to pursue that career as well.”

Making the All-ACC first team as a sophomore, Kelly also has more shortterm aspirations to be named ACC Player of the Year, a goal she feels is attainable. But she remains, as expected, focused on her team.

“At the end of the day, I know a lot of that comes with winning as a team,” Kelly concluded. “Honestly, I know the individual accolades will come with how we perform as a team. I’m going to do whatever it takes, whatever my team needs me to do to win some games, and everything else will fall into place.”

“

“What drives me is knowing that I’m working towards something, knowing that those are goals that I desperately want to reach and attain. I think that’s something that really drives me every day because I know that I’m working toward a better me.”

-DEJA KELLY

A lifetime connection

II came to the University of North Carolina because I wanted to play basketball at the highest level.

I wanted to play for the best coaches in the game, with the best teammates, in the best facility, in front of the best fans. I knew that it would be an unforgettable experience.

But I got even more than I expected. Being a Tar Heel has provided a constant stream of opportunities for me. The basketball is great, of course. We were one rebound away from winning a national championship last season, and I’m spending every practice and every workout trying to make sure we get that rebound—and that title— this season.

That’s what you expect when you come to play at Carolina. You’re going to play on the biggest games on the biggest stages, and those games matter to thousands of people. Everywhere I go, people know Carolina Basketball. It’s a brand that stretches from coast to coast.

What you might not expect, though, is you’re going to get a best in class experience beyond the court. I knew Carolina was a good academic school. I didn’t fully appreciate how impactful it would be to go to class every day with some of the smartest students I’ve ever met, and how those relationships would shape my life. Every day in class I’m sitting next to people who will eventually be running their own companies. There are students everywhere on this campus who are the very best in the country at what they do, from the field hockey stadium to the computer lab. That type of energy inspires me to make more of this opportunity than just basketball.

Tar Heels make it easy to have those experiences. The Carolina Family is special in basketball, but it’s not just about basketball. It’s about the entire community. I’ve met Tar Heels who are in the financial world and the entertainment industry and through community service. None of them played basketball. But they treat me as an equal, because we all have that Carolina background. We all know what it’s like to walk down Franklin Street or hear a sold-out Smith Center crowd roar after a big win. It’s incredible to me that no matter when they graduated, every Tar Heel looks back on their time in Chapel Hill and wishes they could do it again.

That’s something that will be meaningful in my life long after I’m finished playing. I know that one day, I’m going to be that older guy who is telling the young ones about my time at Carolina. That’s part of why I’m back in school this year. I wasn’t ready for this to be over. I wasn’t ready to give up the time with my friends and the educational opportunities and the feeling of running out of the tunnel and looking up at those banners—where we hope to put another one soon—and hearing all of you cheer for us.

I wasn’t ready to move on from living life every day as a Tar Heel. It’s something that will stay with me forever. I’m very proud to say that I’m Armando Bacot, and I’m a Tar Heel.

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