February 2024 // In Flight

T H E

ISSUE XXXIV

O F F I C I A L

M A G A Z I N E

O F

T H E

R A M S

C L U B

IN FLIGHT

U LT I M A T E R I V A L R Y T A K E S O F F

P.O. BOX 2446 CHAPEL HILL, NC 27515 919.843.2000 @THERAMSCLUB

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR On Feb. 3, we’ll all spend the entire day stressed out about the most important game of the season. We’ll analyze the matchups. We’ll hang on every piece of news.

Those lucky enough to have a ticket will arrive early, scream themselves hoarse, and either celebrate wildly or agonize painfully. Those watching at home will scream at the television and high-five friends or — you probably know someone like this — watch completely alone, in a dark room, the better to have complete focus.

Carolina-Duke is a once in a lifetime sports experience. It’s just that it happens to be one Tar Heel fans get to do twice every basketball season. On Feb. 3, when Duke comes to the Smith Center, it will seem like the most critical, important game of the entire year…until five weeks later, when Hubert Davis takes his team down the road to Cameron Indoor Stadium.

By now, the best rivalry in sports has expanded to every sport in the athletic department. There’s just something different about playing the Blue Devils, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s basketball or lacrosse or wrestling.

Every Tar Heel and every fan has their own favorite memory of the rivalry. When we requested reader input for this issue (don’t forget to check your Rams Club emails and social media for a chance to be part of every issue), we were a little concerned that we’d simply receive a barrage of stories about the 2022 Final Four. And while we did get plenty of fun memories from New Orleans, it was gratifying to see that the games that are most imprinted in the minds of fans range broadly across the years, sports, and even outcomes. Sometimes — especially in the case of basketball, where attending a Carolina-Duke game has become a must-do lifetime opportunity — just being there is enough.

Eric Montross at an area parking lot the day of the Carolina-Duke game in Durham so we could ride together. Full transparency: I wasn’t very optimistic. The Devils had thumped the Tar Heels in the first meeting of the season, and it seemed likely they would do it again. It was also the culmination of a season-long Mike Krzyzewski lovefest/farewell tour.

Is it entirely healthy? Maybe not. Perhaps it’s not normal to take as much pleasure in ending someone’s career as we all did watching that Final Four game. There’s a chance that having our entire mood on Feb. 4 determined by whether a ball goes in the basket on Feb. 3 isn’t completely balanced. Or, maybe, that kind of intense emotion is the very definition of healthy.

That’s the kind of energy Eric would want all of us to have throughout the day on Feb. 3. It’s the highlight of the year and the most epic battle in sports.

Everyone has their thing. Maybe it’s opera or bird-watching or hiking. Carolina-Duke is ours. And if we’re lucky, it never leaves us.

Two years ago, Jones Angell and I were scheduled to meet

My gloomy mood changed upon Eric’s arrival at the parking lot. His seven-foot frame unfolded itself from his truck. He looked at both of us across the parking lot. And then—nearly 30 years after he last played against Duke—he crouched down into a power squat, clinched his fists, and roared, “Let’s gooooooo!”

It is, in other words, Carolina-Duke.

Adam Lucas Editor in Chief

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

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““The Smith Center is different when you play Duke. As a young athlete, it’s incredibly special to be in the middle of a place that becomes that electric.”

the

RIVALRY edition

ON THE COVER: Harrison Ingram will play in his first Carolina-Duke game on Feb. 3, but already has a unique perspective on the rivalry.

COVER PHOTO: MAGGIE HOBSON ABOVE: MAGGIE HOBSON AND UNC ATHLETICS OPPOSITE: JEFFREY CAMARATI

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BORN & BRED

— TYLER HANSBROUGH

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Harrison Ingram and his sister, Lauren, are viewing the Carolina-Duke rivalry from both sides

T H E R I VA L R Y

18 The Quintessential Comeback

Fifty years ago, Dean Smith and his Tar Heels orchestrated the signature rally in college basketball history

BY ADAM LUCAS

T H E R I VA L R Y

22 Bell Ringers

For three-quarters of a century, the football Tar Heels have competed for the most tangible symbol of the Carolina-Duke rivalry

BY LEE PACE

CAROLINA EVERYWEAR p. 26

TAR HEEL TICKER p. 6

14 Sibling Rivalry

BY ADAM LUCAS

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EDITOR’S LETTER p. 3

T H E R I VA L R Y

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28 Senior Superlatives T H E R I VA L R Y

Senior Day is always special; it’s even better when it includes a big performance against Duke

BY ANDREW STILWELL

34 The Ties That Bind T H E R I VA L R Y

The Carolina-Duke rivalry is complicated in the Overbeck family

BY ANDREW STILWELL

FIRST PERSON

38 Silent Nights

Playing in Carolina-Duke games is about being in the middle of a din, but the best moments come in complete silence

BY TYLER HANSBROUGH

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CORE MEMORIES

Rams Club members describe their favorite memories from the greatest rivalry in sports

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Lisa Ladd Bailey // Virginia Beach, VA After a disappointing Covid freshman year, my son Tanner was treated to not one but two trips to Franklin Street to celebrate victories over Duke basketball! As a UNC alum myself, I enjoy his exploits and his photos/videos from unlikely places! That is my son – the highest one up in the tree on Franklin Street. He sent me a video exclaiming he was having the time of his life! Here’s hoping he finally gets to watch the game in person in the Dean Dome. On January 18, 1986, I myself as a freshman attended the first game in the Dean Dome which was a victory over Duke. There is a symmetry to life.

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Allison George // Chapel Hill, NC I watched the UNC-Duke basketball game in April 2022 at Carolina Square. As soon as the game was over, the stairs were packed to go down to Franklin Street. A guy a flight in front of me tripped, fell on his face, slid down a few stairs, then got right back up and continued running down the steps like nothing happened. Once we got to Franklin Street, there was cheering, shoes on fire, people smiling and laughing and taking pictures.

That night was a core memory of my college experience and no game since has compared to that. (Except this past fall when we beat Duke in football, and I was on the front row).

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Betsy Fisher Crisafulli // Arlington, VA Back in 2007, my boyfriend at the time worked in the Duke athletic department while I was in grad school at UNCG (please forgive him, it was the job that was available that got him into the state of North Carolina). For the UNC basketball game at Duke that year, his assignment was to update the online ESPN stats in real time. Whoever did that sat up in the crow’s nest at Cameron, those few media spots way up in the rafters. He knew there was room for me up there too and convinced his manager to let me have a press pass for the game and sit up there with him. It was absolutely amazing to be up there, above everyone, watching this intense game that Carolina ultimately won. Of course, I took advantage of that press pass and waltzed into the post-game press conference after.

The one downside is that because I was there as press, I had to remain neutral. That meant no cheering and nothing on my person that indicated I was pulling for the Heels. After the game I was grinning ear to ear on the inside when a woman in the restroom tried to commiserate about what an awful game that had been.

With as straight a face as I could keep, I replied, “Oh yeah, it was terrible,” then walked out and just laughed. What an evening!

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Katherine Jolly // Albemarle, NC My roommates and I were in the student section (football vs.

Duke, 2023), and it was one of the most high-energy crowds I’d ever been a part of (and I have been going to football games since birth). I’ll never forget watching that incomplete two-point attempt, and before I could even react, my friends and I were sprinting down the stairs to storm the field! Easily one of my favorite games and memories ever.

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Terrence Mason // Concord, NC Nothing could be finer than celebrating another Carolina win over Duke on the field November 11, 2023, with grandson, Harrison Buckner, rising Hough HS sophomore, with aspirations of playing on that field one day!

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Lauren Sytz // Winston-Salem, NC I have two stories I would like to share.

1) My family had plans to go to the UNC/Duke game in February 2014, my senior year of high school. It was snowing pretty heavily, but we were going to make the trip from WinstonSalem because we had been dreaming of going to a UNC/Duke game for as long as we can remember. My sisters and I went out in the snow, in our UNC gear to take the picture shown here (from left to right : Allison Sytz c/o 2021, Lauren Sytz c/o 2018, Molly Sytz c/o 2023). We were praying they wouldn’t cancel the game.

It turns out, they ended up postponing the game, to become the infamous 8 miles, 8 days, 8 points game. While we knew this was a decision made with safety in mind, we were heartbroken.

My dad, who is a UNC grad, would not be able to make the rescheduled game because he had a business trip. He begged his boss to let him leave early. As he said, “It was like your kids going to the Olympics and you being stuck at home.” We ended up going to the game with a family friend, but it was bittersweet, not being able to attend the game with my dad. One of these days, I will be able to get tickets for all four of us to attend a UNC/Duke game together, because as fate would have it ... we are now ALL UNC grads.

2) The Coach K retirement game is one of the happiest memories I have of my dad. We watch nearly every game together and this one was no different. It was the Final Four and UNC made it with a brand new head coach. We were watching it in the living room and, when I tell you my dad was happier than a kid in a candy shop, I mean it. When the final buzzer went off my dad was jumping up and down, kicking his legs, throwing his fist in the air in excitement that we had just beaten Coach K, in the Final Four, of his final season. The joy that I saw on my dad’s face that night is what Carolina Basketball is all about, creating happiness and memories together.

Mary-Margaret Banner // Charlotte, NC Raised as a Tar Heel, it was a given I would raise my children as Tar Heels. In 2014, I decided it was time to take my 11-year-old son, Walker, to the greatest rivalry game of all time. The weather was terrible and we feared driving would be dangerous, so we boarded the Amtrak from Charlotte with plans to Uber the short distance from the Durham train station to the Dean Dome. Needless to say, there were no Ubers, taxis or cars of any type on the roads. After walking to the Marriott in Durham, where we sat in the lobby, waiting for the decision … all we could think about was how much money we paid for the tickets and how we were a mere nine miles from the game with NO TRANSPORTATION. Tears were shed.

After what felt like hours, the word was out, the game had been rescheduled. Whew! We would come back on 2/20/14 for what would prove to be one of the most amazing games in the history of the rivalry. Prior to tipoff, we walked down court side for the obligatory picture. We had NO IDEA we were being photo-bombed by the one and only Marcus Paige.

The entire experience will forever be etched in our memories. We are Tar Heels forever.

Simon Chao // Winston-Salem, NC My family moved to Chapel Hill in 1979, and my father has been a die-hard Tar Heel fan since. My siblings and I attended UNC and went to many UNC-Duke games, but my father had never been. I was thrilled that I was able to take him to his first UNC-Duke game in Feb ‘18. It was a cold and rainy night, and he almost didn’t go because he thought it wasn’t worth the trouble, but I convinced him that win or lose, the electricity and excitement of watching the greatest rivalry in sports was worth it. Well … we went, we watched, and we won! Watching him cheer and sharing this moment with him is one of my most cherished memories.

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Madeleine Berry Smith // Greensboro, NC Growing up in a Carolina born and bred family (dating back to the 1960s) … this rivalry meant everything. Staying up late as a child on school nights and the freedom to yell and scream at the TV, with zero consequences coming our way the following day.

My first memory of a really intense loathing for the Blue Devils has to be February 5, 1992, with Eric Montross’ stitches to the back of his head in the first half of the game, followed by the cut under his eye in the second half. Coupled with Laettner’s missed shots, this felt as strong as any rivalry could be.

But my best memory, hands down, is the first time I got to see the game up close and personal in the Dean Dome, on March 4, 2017. UNC went on to win the national championship that year and my family tradition continued on … letting the kids leave school early the day after the Heels win a championship and driving to Chapel Hill to welcome them back to the Dean Dome, and afterwards perusing Franklin Street for a victory tee at the Shrunken Head. A tradition I hope my daughter Eliza (pictured) will continue with her kids.

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Rob Jarrell // High Point, NC My first year at UNC was in 2016. We all know what happened there. During my (first) four years at Carolina, my friends and I stormed Franklin Street about six times. From my first year to senior year, UNC basketball had its best four-year NCAA seed average in history. It was quite the time to be a student. My camera roll had so many blurry pictures from Franklin Street after beating Duke during that era, but I think this is my favorite (well, least blurry) – taken after beating Duke in Cameron in 2019. It was one of the last times I stormed Franklin as an undergrad.

I graduated soon after and moved to DC. In 2020, with the tournament cancelled, I was almost relieved. But I couldn’t help but think about storming Franklin again. Would anyone be able to? Almost two years went by. Then I got a letter from UNC Law. I didn’t even wait for my DC lease to end before moving right back to Chapel Hill in 2022, arriving just in time to beat Duke in Cameron, and storm Franklin Street once again.

I’ll never forget my aunt calling me up after beating St. Peter’s. I was working remote during the week and spent my weekend evenings working at a grill on Franklin Street.

Which is where I was watching the game (working too, sort of), everyone was still celebrating when I got the call. She said, “Can you believe it? I’m getting us tickets to New Orleans, right now.” I turned to my boss and said, “I don’t care if you have to fire me, I’m not coming in next weekend.” We flew down. Beat Duke. And once again – as I’d done so many times during and after watching a UNC-Duke game with my aunt, my cousins, or my friends – I thought to myself: It really just doesn’t get better than this.

Go Heels.

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1 0 Dennis Goss // Chapel Hill, NC

One of my favorite memories of the Carolina-Duke rivalry is the March 8, 2009, men’s basketball matchup at the Smith Center. My daughter (Tina) had graduated from UNC ’08 and was in the middle of the nursing program at the lesser blue school in Durham.

My son (Jay) was a UNC freshman after declining an enrollment offer from his safety school (Duke). Tina felt compelled to represent both blues and went to the game with a two-tone face paint scheme. We all met up at halftime for a quick photo. The Heels won 79-71 in Tyler Hansbrough’s final home game, and went on to win the NCAA Tournament in one of the most dominant string of double-digit wins ever. And this was the first and last occurrence of the dual face paint!

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TA R H E E LT I C K E R 1 1 Tripp Gordon // Raleigh, NC

On March 9, 2003, I found my 10-year-old self in the Smith Center in the Duke section a few rows behind the Duke bench wearing Carolina blue. My grandfather, who had sent sons to both UNC and Duke, had offered me the tickets. I had debated for weeks whether I wanted to go.

The times were hard as a young Carolina fan in a family with State and Duke grads at the turn of the century. UNC had struggled all season, losing to both State and Wake Forest twice, and was completing yet another disappointing season. Heading into the matchup with #9 Duke all signs pointed to a loss.

But alas, I chose to go. How many opportunities would I have to be so close to the court at the Smith Center? And I’m so glad I did! I can remember making the Duke fans around me upset for booing Duke, seeing the Doherty-Collins fight develop right in front of me, being so worried that Dahntay Jones had got the shot off in time at the buzzer, and then seeing students rush the floor! It is undoubtedly the best game 11 I have ever attended.

It’s a testament to the Duke-UNC rivalry that the 2003 home matchup against Duke is often overlooked in the history of the rivalry. But I credit that game to being the spark that the team needed going forward into the Roy Williams era. Many of the same guys on the court that day would hold a national championship trophy in St. Louis two years later while I jumped around my childhood home in Burlington, N.C. Much to the chagrin of my Blue Devil and Wolfpack family members and to the joy of my Tar Heel mother, from that game onwards, I knew I would always be a Tar Heel, and I would make that dream a reality graduating from the best school in the world in 2015—and I’m proud to say that I myself got in one court storm in 2014!

1 2 Michael Carrier // Elon, NC

My five-year-old son Marcus and I went to nearly every home game of the 2023 field hockey season, including the national championship. As nerve-wracking as that final game was, I’d argue the UNC/Duke game on senior night was the most tense of the season.

The winner would claim the ACC regular season title and receive a first round bye in the ACC tournament. The Tar Heels dominated both shots and penalty corners, but the longer the game remained scoreless, the more emboldened the Duke fans got.

At the start of the fourth quarter, with the Tar Heels down a player after a dubious yellow card, Duke scored to take the first lead of the game. Marcus, who has been to dozens of Carolina games, both wins and losses, started bawling for the first and only time at a game. We tried to assure him there was still plenty of time left, hoping we weren’t offering false hope. Sure enough, less than a minute later in real time, Paityn Wirth took a shot off the Duke goalie and Sanne Hak scored on the rebound. Carolina scored again three minutes later and held on to win 2-1. We stayed through the postgame senior night festivities with a very celebratory crowd.

It wasn’t the biggest win of the season – that would come later – but beating Duke felt different, as it always does.

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1 3 Steve & Louise Coggins // Wilmington, NC

Before the game in our Carolina blue at our home at Figure Eight Island … Anticipation towards the end of the game! … Celebrating victory over Duke!

We bought four seats in the Dean Dome before it opened and have been to every Carolina -Duke game there since the beginning! We have been members of the Rams Club for at least 40 years.

1 4 Mira Wolf // Skokie, IL

We were super excited to see Carolina play Duke in the Final Four in 2022. We joined the Chicago Carolina Club at Joes on Weed Street. Being with all our fans was an amazing experience. The place rocked until the bitter end. We loved seeing the win to end Coach K’s career! Completely Acceptable.

Tommy Isenhour // Gastonia, NC The Carolina vs. Duke football game on November 11, 2023, was a thriller! It was the most nerve-wrecking and heartstopping football game that I have ever witnessed in Kenan! After the game ended, I wanted to jump down from the stadium onto the football field so badly but my partner was ready to go, as it was midnight. But instead, I just stood by the entryway, admiring the field, covered with Carolina football players, staff, students and fans. You could hardly see any turf, just a solid canvas of Carolina Blue!

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TA R H E E LT I C K E R 1 5 David Olson // Raleigh, NC

My freshman year, a big group of my friends from 5th floor Granville West miraculously/suspiciously scored tickets behind the basketball goal to the sold out #9 UNC vs. #1 Duke game on February 5, 1992. Not only did we get to witness the Heels hand Duke their first loss of the season 75-73 but the next year we found out the moment was captured in a two-page photo in Carolina Court Magazine 1992-93 with the article “Blue Blood Battle” by Art Chansky. My Dad would later contact the photographer and get a copy of the photo for me as a Christmas present that I have framed at home. Just an amazing game and incredible memory with friends. P.S.: I’m the blond kid waving his arms in the crowd directly under the net!

15 Philip Blatt // Chapel Hill, NC Story 1: I was working in Delaware in 2005. I broke my leg three days before the senior day game on March 6. With my newly casted leg, I flew to Chapel Hill with my friend Jack in his twin engine plane. Handicap seats were arranged at the Dean Smith Center. Marvin Williams’ legendary put back basket near game’s end produced the most fan noise that I have ever heard at the Smith Center. Coincidentally, at this time my leg pain improved! The entire experience was unforgettable.

Story 2: On February 24, 1979, my wife Paula and I watched the Duke vs. UNC game at the home of Gary and Gail who lived near us in the woods. The halftime score was Duke7 - UNC 0. We were in Four Corners for the entire half.

As I recall, Rich Yonakor took our first shot and missed the basket. The Duke student section all screamed “Air Ball, Air Ball” which I believe is the first time that phrase was used. At the end of the half, Paula stormed out to go home. In her anger, she unintentionally backed into a tree causing auto damage to her Cutlass Convertible. We joke about this now!

1 6 Dave & Julie Fowler // Asheboro, NC

Our youngest daughter is a senior at Carolina, and we have enjoyed being Rams Club members. It was on her 20th birthday (April 2, 2022) that my wife and I made the spontaneous decision to drive over and watch the national semifinal game vs. Duke in the Smith Center. The atmosphere in the Smith Center was electric, and we have never cheered more loudly during any sporting event. After such an exciting victory we did not want the evening to end so we rushed Franklin Street, along with thousands of others, and properly celebrated our daughter’s birthday with her.

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Scott Laws // Arden, NC Anytime UNC plays Duke it is a great event, but to be there is unforgettable. Especially if it’s a double OT thriller won by the Heels in 1995. It was my senior year at UNC and I had a family relative who happened to be a Duke contributor. I never dreamed he would take me to a game since he wouldn’t let me wear my UNC hat at his house! After a promise by me to control my enthusiasm and support for the Heels, we left for the game.

I had been to the Duke campus many times before for track and cross country meets as a UNC athlete, but as we entered campus I could feel the excitement. In a down year with Coach K out for back surgery, the two teams were headed in different directions – UNC for the Final Four and Duke for the bottom of the ACC. As we entered Cameron, I had never experienced anything like this and knew it was going to be something I would never forget. In person, the Crazies are even louder than you can imagine, and in that small gym with the heat turned up, it is an intimidating atmosphere. Carl and I headed to our seats mid court in the lower section of the upper deck. With heckles from the fans as UNC players were introduced, I could clearly feel the tension.

As UNC opened up a big lead, I had trouble restraining my excitement, for fear of losing my ride home! However, the second half showed a different story.

The overmatched Blue Devils, came back to take a lead and eventually sent the game to overtime. UNC took control in overtime and looked to have the game sealed with Serge Zwikker on the free throw line and a three-point lead. At this point, Carl decided the game was over and he was ready to go. I wanted to enjoy the victory amongst the enemy. As we got to the bottom of the stairs with Carl heading for the door, I watched as Serge missed the second free throw and Jeff Capel quickly pushed the ball up court for a desperate last attempt. I watched in disbelief as the ball swished the net and the place went nuts. I went to grab Carl to tell him there would be a second OT. The Heels prevailed in the second OT, and it was a quiet ride back to Carl’s house as I did not want to gloat too much . When I got to my car, I headed back to Chapel Hill. It was time to celebrate, and that was one of the best drives I can remember.

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TA R H E E LT I C K E R 1 7 Dean Kanipe //Marion, NC

I have submitted a shot I took on January 5, 1974, from a Duke-UNC game in Greensboro, N.C. This was part of the Big Four Tournament that was played yearly between UNC, Duke, Wake Forest and NC State. The shot is UNC’s Bobby Jones shooting over Bob Fleischer of Duke. UNC won the game 84-75. UNC beat Duke three times that season with one of them being the famous eight-point comeback in 17 seconds on March 2, 1974.

Johnny Carroll // Concord, NC I had been a lifetime Duke fan based upon childhood influences by my Grandma and others. However, on January 15, 1977 (during my sophomore year at Carolina), that loyalty to the dark blue was severely tested. I was in Carmichael seated in the student section bleachers. I sat three rows directly behind Coach Smith and his team as Carolina (Light) played Duke (Dark). Duke got off to a fast start and Coach Smith called a seldom-used first half timeout.

With my current allegiance, my initial reaction was to stand and cheer. Of course, I was the only Carolina student standing and cheering. As both teams returned to the court, I sat down and was immediately struck by an object a couple of rows behind me. As I turned to see the young lady who had hit me with her small purse, she was standing and shouting, “If you’re going to cheer for them, you’re not going to do it sitting there.” Within seconds, all the Carolina students around me stood and cheered for the young lady. I was extremely reserved the remainder of the game as Carolina came from behind to win 77-68.

As I exited Carmichael, I thought . . I just saw the Light. My allegiance to the Light Blue now runs much deeper than it ever did for the Dark Blue. We never know how/when external influences can/will impact us.

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1 8 Greg Cauley // Kinston, NC

These now 70-year-old eyes have soaked in just a few of the games contested in this rivalry, including all of them in Chapel Hill since 1975 (other than the one-year anomaly during Covid when fans weren’t allowed), a couple of times in Greensboro for the Big Four tournaments, three times (undefeated) in Cameron, and the fairly important meeting just a few years ago in New Orleans.

The 53-odd times have certainly been filled with memories, including the time during my years on the Hill in the mid 70s that a group of us took advantage of individual tickets being advertised for sale in the newspaper (imagine that today) for the game in Durham. Our seats were just above the floor location of the Duke pep band. They spent a lot of time watching and cussing our group of Tar Heels as we cheered our team to a win.

On another occasion I decided to drive my ‘56 Thunderbird to the game from Kinston. A tire blew out about halfway through the trip and after finally arriving and parking in the Craige Deck, my mom, Rena, and I were walking across the Bowles lot just after the game started. The roar of the crowd was palpable, even though we were still outside and a ways away from the action. The atmosphere is beyond anything that words can describe. Regardless of who occupies the benches along courtside, The Rivalry is unmatched in collegiate basketball.

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Roy Collette // Kernersville, NC Perhaps some other longtime UNC fans can confirm this memory from Phil Ford’s senior game in 1978. Late in the game, Phil was flawlessly running the Four Corners and was getting to the line a lot. Somehow the Duke cheerleaders were stationed under the basket where he was shooting. One of their male cheerleaders was making very effective use of his big megaphone, yelling through it and then pounding the floor with it just as Phil would shoot.

From my vantage point I could see an older man just above the action who was growing increasingly agitated by these antics. He was a big (and I mean REALLY BIG) Tar Heel supporter. When Phil finally missed a free throw, the guy had had enough. He came bounding down the steps, ripped away the megaphone and threw it halfway up into the crowd, then stared at the cheerleader, daring him to do anything about it. The poor kid was stunned but then took off after his property. By then, however, the megaphone had crowd-surfed its way to the exit. I don’t know if either of them was ever seen again. But I do know that Phil didn’t miss another free throw, and we know the happy conclusion of the story.

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THE RIVALRY

SIBLING RIVALRY

SIBLING

RIVALRY Harrison Ingram and his sister, Lauren, are viewing the Carolina-Duke rivalry from both sides

BY ADAM LUCAS

PHOTOS BY MAGGIE HOBSON & THE INGRAM FAMILY

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s Lauren Ingram finished her senior would enroll at his new home. year of high school in Dallas, Texas, “When I said hello to them during the she wasn’t expecting to find coaches visit, I made a joke about how it might from the University of North Carolina in be a little awkward,” she says with a her living room. laugh.

This was not especially a surprise.

A few days later, Harrison made it Lauren was an elite prep volleyball official by announcing his commitment player, and knew the routine of to the Tar Heels. The Ingrams would recruiting visits. She also knew her indeed be a split family. brother, Harrison, had played two years It’s a very unusual situation, but it’s at Stanford and was in the transfer not completely unprecedented. John portal, making him one of the most Henson was a three-year standout for highly sought-after college basketball the basketball Tar Heels from 2009transfers in the spring of 2023. Dozens 2012. During his junior year, his sister, -HARRISON INGRAM of schools had contacted him following Amber, enrolled at Duke, where she the announcement that he would transfer from Stanford, and the played basketball in 88 games over four years for the Blue Devils. family had scheduled in-home visits with a very limited group of In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise that suitors. members of the Ingram family would heavily weigh academics One of those was Carolina, where Hubert Davis and his coaching when choosing a college destination. As Tyrous and Vera Ingram staff had quickly prioritized Ingram as soon as he made known his raised their three children in Dallas, they had a very simple guideline transfer intentions. They had playing time available. They had a prior for making important family decisions: relationship with Ingram from his recruitment during high school.

“We placed a premium on academics,” Tyrous says. “We could never There was one unusual quirk in the recruiting process: Lauren be sure where athletics would take the kids or where they might end Ingram was committed to Duke to play volleyball and would be a up, so we wanted to make sure they had a good foundation. Once freshman in the fall of 2023, the same semester her older brother they had that foundation, they could take it wherever they needed

“THE FORMER PLAYERS COMING BACK AND THE FAMILY ATMOSPHERE IS THE NUMBER ONE THING TO ME. I GOT HERE THREE WEEKS BEHIND THE NEXT TO LAST PERSON, SO THE CURRENT TEAM ALREADY KNEW EACH OTHER. BUT WHEN I GOT HERE, I FELT LIKE I KNEW PEOPLE RIGHT AWAY.”

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THE RIVALRY to take it.”

Their oldest son, Will, played basketball at Middlebury College, one of the nation’s elite liberal arts colleges, from 2017-21. It made sense, then, that Harrison would commit to Stanford out of high school, and that Lauren would select Duke.

After a very successful two years with the Cardinal—Ingram was the first Stanford player in over 20 years to win Pac-12 Freshman of the Year—Harrison’s decision to pursue basketball elsewhere was a jarring one. Schools that pursued him included Kansas and Baylor. Both are recent national champions with a stellar basketball pedigree, but the academic world doesn’t see many transfers from Stanford to either of those institutions.

“This was the first time in our lives in our family dynamic that we made a decision that wasn’t led with academics,” Tyrous says. “It was uncomfortable. It helped that Carolina is an outstanding school.

But we made the decision that we wanted to support Harrison in his professional endeavors, so Carolina having a great basketball program was just as important as it being a great academic school.”

And soon, their youngest son was a Tar Heel, meaning he moved to Chapel Hill in late June. One month later, Lauren moved to Durham.

“The former players coming back and the family atmosphere is the number one thing to me,” Ingram said. “I got here three weeks behind the next to last person, so the current team already knew each other. But when I got here, I felt like I knew people right away.

There were former players playing pickup games with us at 12 a.m.

I got here and I was in the gym the next day playing pickup with Harrison Barnes and Cole Anthony. Having all those guys come back is something I hadn’t experienced before.”

Following children with divergent athletic paths was nothing new to the Ingram family. The hectic schedules of travel sports meant it wasn’t unusual for Vera to journey with Lauren to a volleyball tournament while Tyrous took Harrison to a basketball event in a different town or even a different state. The parents had been prepared to operate out of their Dallas home base and shuttle between the coasts, using the copious flights available from the giant Dallas airport to see as many basketball games as possible in Palo Alto and an equal number of volleyball games in Durham.

Now, though, one flight to RDU would allow them to see both Lauren and Harrison. It wasn’t a part of Harrison’s transfer decision, but it was a very nice benefit.

“We were prepared that we were going to travel from coast to coast,” Tyrous says. “And we could’ve done it. But this has been absolutely great to get on a plane for two hours, go east, and see both kids.”

Even greater: both kids have been happy in their new homes.

Lauren, a 6-foot-1 outside hitter, got her first two career kills in a Sept. 13 match at North Carolina Central. It was one of the very few matches her parents weren’t able to attend.

But in the stands was a boisterous Duke volleyball fan named

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BORN & BRED

Harrison Ingram, proudly taking video on his phone and celebrating the only way he knows how—loudly.

“You could hear the excitement in his voice for his sister,” Tyrous says. “The excitement he exhibited says it all as far as the support they give each other. And once basketball season started, Lauren has been to a good amount of Harrison’s games as well.”

Those games have seen Harrison find the exact fit for which he was searching. He’d been recruited by the Tar Heels out of high school, instead making the decision to follow the academics to Stanford. In Chapel Hill, he’s become an immediate starter and one of the emotional heartbeats of this year’s team.

His skill level and statistical contributions were easily predictable based on his success at Stanford. Less foreseeable was the degree of competitiveness he brought with him. Ingram is the type of player who not only will demonstrate his defender is “too small” after scoring on him in a game against another team; he’s been known to do it in practice against teammates, too.

“He is,” Lauren says, “very sassy. He’s very competitive. But at the end of the day, he’s always going to be there for the people he cares about.”

While growing up in Dallas, Lauren had a front row seat to that sassiness. Her room was directly next to the room that housed the family’s Xbox. And while she didn’t play often, she regularly was

SIBLING RIVALRY

treated to the video game battles—and the shouts that accompanied For Harrison, it’s pretty simple: he gets to play in the games, them—between Harrison and Will. “Based on what I heard,” she says, removed from the circus environment that often surrounds the “it almost came to blows a couple of times.” games on campus and in the stands. In the Smith Center, it will Now, though, the brothers talk on the be easy—Harrison can get tickets phone nearly every day. The Ingrams for everyone. It’s Lauren who has to are an extremely close family; Harrison consider conundrums such as where says he also talks to his dad every day, she’ll sit at Cameron Indoor Stadium and says he would talk to his mother when Carolina visits. and sister with the same frequency but Fortunately, team protocols solved adds, with a grin, “They don’t always the problem for her: Duke volleyball will answer their phones.” be in spring practice, so camping out for His newfound proximity to Lauren tickets isn’t permitted by the coaching has enabled the duo to grab dinner at staff. And Harrison receives just two least once per week, where he can offer tickets, so his parents will attend. advice on the new challenges she’s “I’ve thought a lot about how I’m facing as a Division I athlete from the going to watch that game,” she says. perspective of someone who was in the “A lot of my friends know my brother -LAUREN INGRAM same position just two years ago. plays at Carolina, but I’m not sure about Their relationship and unique place in the Carolina-Duke rivalry the Duke community as a whole. I don’t really take the rivalry that was largely unknown throughout the first semester of this academic seriously. I will probably go to the watch parties around campus. year, but both are aware that will change in the spring semester Maybe I will just wear white. when the Tar Heels and Blue Devils meet at least twice on the “Or, who knows, maybe I will show up to a watch party in a basketball court.

Carolina jersey.”

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“A LOT OF MY FRIENDS KNOW MY BROTHER PLAYS AT CAROLINA, BUT I’M NOT SURE ABOUT THE DUKE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE...MAYBE I WILL JUST WEAR WHITE. OR, WHO KNOWS, MAYBE I WILL SHOW UP TO A WATCH PARTY IN A CAROLINA JERSEY.”

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The Quintessential Comeback Fifty years ago, Dean Smith and his Tar Heels orchestrated the signature rally in college basketball history

By Adam Lucas Photos by UNC Athletics 18

BORN & BRED

March 2, 1974 North Carolina vs. Duke

THE QUINTESSENTIAL COMEBACK

Walter Davis was in the wrong place.

The 50th anniversary of Carolina’s incredible eight points in 17 Carolina within 86-80. Duke botched the inbounds pass, the Tar seconds comeback against Duke on March 2, 1974, is a celebration Heels recovered, and Kuester made a layup. The score was 86-82. of a perfectly orchestrated, completely improbable Tar Heel victory.

Thirteen seconds remained.

It’s a case study in Dean Smith’s late game management. It includes “The whole time the comeback was happening, Coach Smith was one of the most famous shots in the program’s history—Davis’ gamevery calm in the huddle,” says Ed Stahl, a member of the 1974 team. tying bank shot—described by one of the most famous radio calls “He’d say something like, ‘Now fellas, we need to steal the inbounds in Woody Durham’s archive, as the longtime voice of the Tar Heels pass, make a lay-up and call timeout.’ And of course, we always did shouted, “Un-bee-lee-va-ble!” after the ball banked through at the what Coach Smith said to do, so that’s what we did. end of regulation.

“He had an uncanny confidence in those situations. He would And it all happened only because Davis didn’t do exactly what he always say something like, ‘Isn’t this fun?’ And it was. When we broke was supposed to do. the huddle, we always had the belief Before that moment, though, Carolina that it would play out the way we had needed every possible factor to break in prepared for it to.” exactly the right way in order to make The Tar Heels again created defensive the comeback. They’d already beaten havoc, forcing another Blue Devil Duke once that season on what seemed turnover. In the scrum, Stahl missed a at the time like a miraculous finish; on shot, but Jones grabbed the rebound Jan. 19 at Cameron Indoor Stadium, with and scored. Carolina trailed by just two the score tied at 71, Bobby Jones stole a points with six seconds remaining.

Duke inbounds pass and hit a layup at Timeout, Tar Heels. The stream of the buzzer to give the fifth-ranked Heels Carolina fans that had started for the a 73-71 victory.

Carmichael exits started to reverse. Fans The Blue Devils were poised to get who had already left the building were revenge on March 2 at Carmichael. not allowed back inside unless they knew -Ed Stahl, 1974 They’d built an 86-78 lead with just 17 a friendly usher or made a break for it. seconds left. College basketball didn’t Inside, Smith was once again yet have the three-point line, and the clock didn’t stop after made explaining to his players what was about to unfold. baskets. The conditions, in other words, were not conducive to such “In that timeout,” Kuester says, “Coach Smith looked at us and said, a miraculous comeback.

‘Listen, guys, they’re probably going to get the ball in this time. We On the Tar Heel Sports Network, in fact, Woody Durham was have to foul immediately. When he misses, we’ll get the rebound and already going through some ACC Tournament scenarios in the event call timeout.’” of a Duke victory.

That’s what happened. Duke inbounded the ball to junior Pete During a timeout before Bobby Jones attempted two free throws with Kramer, an ostensibly safe choice. He had shot 82 percent from 17 seconds left, Smith began laying the foundation for the comeback. the free throw line as a sophomore, and would eventually shoot 82 “Coach Smith knew exactly what was going to happen in every percent as a senior. sequence that occurred,” says John Kuester, a member of the 1974 As a junior, though, he’d encountered some inexplicable struggles, team. “He told us, ‘We’re in a great spot. After Bobby makes the free and was hitting just 57.9 percent of his free throws. There was no throws, we’re going to steal the ball, get a layup, and call timeout.’ He double bonus in 1974, so Kramer had to convert a one-and-one. had an ability to save those timeouts and understand when to use He obligingly missed the front end. Stahl grabbed the rebound and them. And we used every single one in that situation.” signaled for a timeout with three seconds left.

Sure enough, Jones hit both ends of a one-and-one to draw In that final timeout, Smith drew up a play for Davis, a freshman

“

“The whole time the comeback was happening, Coach Smith was very calm in the huddle. He’d say something like, ‘Now fellas, we need to steal the inbounds pass, make a lay-up and call timeout.’ And of course, we always did what Coach Smith said to do, so that’s what we did.”

ramsclub.com 19

THE RIVALRY from Pineville who less than a year earlier had received his first recruiting letter from Carolina. Now, Smith was asking him to tie the game against a hated rival.

Mitch Kupchak threw the inbounds pass. Davis, who passed away on Nov. 2, 2023, talked about the sequence in 2020.

“I ran the wrong route,” he said. “I couldn’t see behind me, and I didn’t know if they had somebody following me. I was supposed to catch the ball on our side of the court. But I went all the way back closer to Kupchak because I thought a defender was behind me and would try to steal the ball. I went into the backcourt, took three quick dribbles, and shot it. A guy jumped at me, so I put more arc on it than I was accustomed to, and it banked in.”

And was the bank shot intentional?

“I was shooting,” Davis said with a grin, “for a swish.”

No matter what the intention, it went in, tying the game at 86 and sending a partially full Carmichael into a frenzy.

Duke took a temporary 92-89 lead in overtime, but Carolina scored the final seven points of the game to win, 96-92. Brad Hoffman scored four key points in the extra period, and Davis finished with a game-high 31. Twenty-four of those points came after halftime.

The performance is one of the most legendary in Carolina history, a fixture on any list of the program’s five biggest shots ever. It also forever cemented Smith as the master of the game’s final seconds.

“I was a sophomore on that team,” says Dave Hanners, who was eventually also a Carolina assistant coach. “At the first timeout, when we were down eight with 17 seconds left, Coach Smith’s first words were, ’Seventeen seconds is an eternity in college basketball.’ I wasn’t playing, so I was near the back of the huddle. I’m thinking to myself, ‘What is he talking about?’

“He tells us four things: we can steal the inbounds pass, we can take a charge before the ball is entered, we can get a five-second call, or we can foul the moment the ball comes inbounds. I’m thinking, ‘That’s easier said than done.’ And then bang, it happens.

“We score and come back to the bench and now I’m a step closer to the huddle. The same thing happens. We score and call timeout.

Now I’m in the middle of the huddle. I’m shouting, ‘Guys, we’re going to win the game!’”

Every Tar Heel who ever played for Smith is intimately familiar with that exact same sense of belief instilled by the coaching staff.

It’s that confidence that inspired numerous late-game rallies, and a constant fear from opponents that Carolina was never truly out of the game.

“We were in so many tight games in my Carolina career,” Kuester says. “The poise Coach Smith had in those situations was amazing.

He was pumped up, and you knew he was in the game, but he never got excited and could tell everyone exactly what needed to be done.

In my four years, we never thought we were out of a game. We always thought we had a chance—and that’s in large part because we had already come back from eight points in 17 seconds during

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my freshman year.”

Smith realized, of course, that it wasn’t some inherent brilliance that allowed his teams to make those comebacks. There were certain variables that he knew impacted any game, and he wanted his teams to understand they couldn’t control everything.

The day after the incredible comeback against the Blue Devils, the Tar Heels assembled at Carmichael for practice. The first order of business: Smith handed the ball to Kupchak on the baseline at the exact spot where he’d thrown the pass the previous day. He put the other four Tar Heels in their same locations on the court that had led to the game-tying basket. Morale was high. Momentum was strong.

His team was feeling indestructible, and he had a point to make.

“Run it again,” the head coach told his team. Kupchak threw the ball to Davis. With no one in the stands, no one on defense and no one watching on television, he caught the pass, took a couple dribbles, eyed the basket and let it fly.

It was an airball.

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THE RIVALRY

BELL RINGERS For three-quarters of a century, the football Tar Heels have competed for the most tangible symbol of the Carolina-Duke rivalry

BY LEE PACE

PHOTOS BY JEFFREY CAMARATI

I

t had been a torturous, murderous, fitful three-year stretch of losing football games to Duke. The Blue Devils had bounced the Tar Heels from 2016-18, the first of those in Durham against a No. 15 ranked Tar Heel squad. The Devils escaped by a 28-27 margin and the Tar Heels would not be ranked among the nation’s top 25 teams for another four years.

Which is why it was such a cause for celebration late the afternoon of Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Tar Heels thwarted Duke 20-17, Chazz Surratt intercepting a pass at the goal line at the end of the game.

Tar Heel coach Mack Brown beckoned one of the team managers to wheel the Victory Bell onto drop cloths sitting on the lawn surrounding the Bell Tower, just steps from Kenan Stadium. As spoils to the winning team, the Bell had been in Durham for three years and was suffocating and gasping for breath under coats of royal blue paint.

“Thank you, and congratulations for bringing the bell back to Chapel Hill,” Brown said, then introduced the 18 seniors who each took a turn at covering the royal blue with that lighter and infinitely more pleasing shade of blue.

Then each player vigorously rang the bell to the applause, hoots and hollers of his teammates.

“This was a special one for the team and the senior class,” said tight end Jake Bargas.

“The seniors, they’ve worked too hard to leave here without beating

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Mitch Mason

THE RIVALRY Duke,” quarterback Sam Howell added. “We knew how much this game and this rivalry meant to them. I’m just glad we were able to pull it out and bring the bell home.”

Since that day, the Victory Bell has resided in a hallway on the ground floor of Kenan Football Center, just outside the Tar Heel locker room.

There have been a couple of close calls, most notably November 2023 when Carolina needed a field goal from Noah Burnette on the last play of regulation to tie the game and send it to overtime, the Tar Heels eventually prevailing 47-45.

“It’s fairy tale ending,” Tar Heel QB Drake Maye said. “I’m glad it ended this way, I would’ve been heartbroken if had gone the other way. No better way against a rival, fans storming the field, senior night, the Victory Bell, a lot of emotions. That’s why I came to Carolina.”

Added senior linebacker Cedric Gray: “Since I’ve been here, we have never lost to Duke. Continuing the streak of holding the bell on this side is great.”

The Victory Bell has spawned that kind of emotion since 1948, when it first was christened as the prize to the winner of the Carolina vs. Duke game. Cheerleaders Norman Spear of Carolina and Loring Jones of Duke noted that schools like Minnesota and Wisconsin played for Paul Bunyan’s Axe, Purdue and Indiana for the Old Oaken Bucket and Ole Miss and Mississippi State for the Golden Egg. Spear found a bell from an old steam train, and Loring mounted it on a cart. The winning team would get possession of the bell and the right to paint it in its school colors.

Since then the bell has spawned a lot of intrigue and emotion and has spent most of its life in Chapel Hill as the Tar Heels have won 50 games and Duke 26. One of the few stretches when it spent multiple years in Durham was 1987-89—the years of coach Steve Spurrier’s tenure in Durham and Brown’s early years of his first stint at Carolina.

Tommy Thigpen was a freshman linebacker in 1989, when the Blue Devils steamrolled the Tar Heels 41-0, running a handful of gadget plays in the waning moments.

“We pledged walking off that field, we would never lose to Duke again,” he remembered after moving back to Chapel Hill in 2017 to join Larry Fedora’s coaching staff. “And it took them, what, 13 years to get the Victory Bell back?”

That’s exactly right, Carolina reeling off wins from 1990-2002. That last triumph capped a miserable season for the Tar Heels—three wins, nine losses with a walk-off field goal by Dan Orner for the win in Durham.

“We wanted to make sure the bell stays right there in our locker room,” lineman Jeb Terry said. “Our locker room would feel weird without it being there.”

Next year’s team figured that out. Carolina ended a 2-10 season in 2003 with a 30-22 loss in Kenan Stadium.

“It feels miserable to be the team that lost the bell,” defensive lineman Chase Page said.

Fortunately, the bell spent just one year in Durham as Carolina began an eight-year winning streak. Duke was 1-9 entering the final game of the

24 B O R N & B R E D

2007 season against Butch Davis’s first Tar Heel squad and was optimistic about its chances, but the Tar Heels prevailed 20-14 in overtime.

Later that evening, the Kenan Stadium maintenance crew was making its post-game rounds of the playing field and bench areas, picking up cups, tape and assorted other debris. Near the Blue Devil bench in a paper bag were more than a dozen cans of royal blue spray paint. Butch Williams of the UNC staff stowed the paint in the maintenance shed on the off-hand chance anyone in Chapel Hill needed royal blue spray paint in the coming millennium.

It was thrown out when the structure was dismantled in 2010 to make way for the Blue Zone.

The bell has lived mostly a quiet life of its three-quarters of a century existence, clanging away during home games of the possessing team and serving as a year-round reminder of the importance of the game.

The notable exception was a firestorm the week of the 2016 game.

Bubba Cunningham and Kevin White, the athletic directors at Carolina and Duke, respectively, agreed that henceforth the bell should be adorned with both Carolina blue and royal blue paint and each school’s logo and not be repainted when it changed hands. The reasoning was that, if the idea for the bell was patterned after buckets and axes and eggs, each of those symbols were mounted on a base of some sort with clear identification of each school.

Fans of both schools erupted, saying the redesign would make the Victory Bell look like a “participation trophy.” Tar Heel Nazair Jones wondered, “Should we not keep score either? Let’s run around for 60 minutes for no reason.”

Cunningham relented two days later, writing on his Twitter account: “Ok ok. I hear you loud and clear (as a bell). #PaintItUp.”

BELL RINGERS

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C A R O L I N A E V E R YWE A R Rams Club members like to wear their Carolina Blue, and they’ll wear it all over the US and the world. If you have a photo of you in your Carolina gear in front of notable landmarks in the US and abroad, send them our way to be a part of Carolina EveryWear!

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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).

SHOW US YOUR COLORS!

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1) Jason & Lindsey Walter of Wilmington, NC, Mary Jo & Lane Walter of Lumberton, NC, and Matt Emily Walter of Raleigh in Bora Bora; 2) Ed & Vicki Robins of WinstonSalem, Hager & Stephanie Rand of Durham, and Harold & Lydia Latta of WinstonSalem, at the Parthenon in Athens, Greece; 3) David & Martha Isaacs of Charlotte at Multnomah Falls, Bridal Veil, OR; 4) Tripp & Allie Gordon of Raleigh and Josh & Alyssa Kappert of Boston, MA, at Lake Louise in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada; 5) Lee & Rob Merrill of Asheville in Santorini, Greece; 6) Sheila & Zack Touloupas of Burlington, NC, at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece; 7) Pat & Chuck Ballow of West Falls, NY, at Stonehenge in England; 8) Brad Murr & Carter Murr of Charlotte at the Summit at Kilimanjaro; 9) Keith & Julia McCombs of Fuquay-Varina, NC, at the Louvre in Paris, France; 10) Brent, Luke & Beth Dixon of Wilmington, NC, at Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada; 11) Lindsay Kimbrell of Knightdale, NC, at Diamond Beach in Iceland; 12) Chris & Christy Holland of Clayton, NC, at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France; 13) Jason, Caroline, Erika & Charlotte Hawkins of Winston-Salem at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland; 14) Kelly & Lyn Keller of High Point at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota; 15) Lora McKinney of Irmo, SC, at the Cape of Good Hope in Cape Town, South Africa; 16) Laura Van Sant & Claude Piercy of Carrboro, NC, at Lake Tanganyika in Mahale National Park, Tanzania; 17) Lisa Fey of Atlanta in Luxor, Egypt; 18) Robert Moore of Zebulon in Hali’iMaile, Maui, HI; 19) Mary Fraley of Jamestown, NC, at the west rim of the Grand Canyon; 20) Lucas Searles of Fuquay-Varina, NC, in Puerto Rico; 21) Beth Harris Isenhour of Chapel Hill in Corfu, Greece; 22) Paula Thomas Zaleon & Jeff Zaleon of Concord, NC, in Corolla, NC; 23) Samuel Vaught of Atlanta on top of Säntis in the Alps of Switzerland

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THE RIVALRY

SENIOR

SUPERLATIVES

Senior Day is always special; it’s even better when it includes a big performance against Duke

BY ANDREW STILWELL // PHOTOS BY JIM BOUNDS/UNC ATHLETICS & JEFFREY CAMARATI

After a student-athlete spends four years donning Carolina blue, they’re often treated to a senior send-off in their final home game in Chapel Hill. While the nuances of scheduling across Carolina’s 28 sports don’t always align with a finale against the Blue Devils, on several occasions, the “Senior Day” or “Senior Night” festivities across the athletic department have coincided with a matchup against Duke, giving Carolina’s graduating student-athletes one final chance to make their mark in the greatest rivalry in college sports.

Let’s take a look at some of the more memorable senior sendoff performances against Duke this century.

2005: Men’s Basketball North Carolina 75 - Duke 73 A game fondly remembered as the “Marvin Williams Tip-In Game,” Carolina fans often remember this game more so for the freshman’s heroics than a senior’s performance. But for the senior trio of Jawad Williams, Melvin Scott, and Jackie Manuel, whose collective first years at Carolina were the infamous 8-20 season that included a 25-point loss to Duke, it was a full circle moment.

For Manuel specifically, the senior night was especially memorable, not only for his 12 points in the box score, but maybe more importantly for the defense that he played on Duke sharpshooter J.J. Redick, who was just 5-13 from the field, and held scoreless in the second half.

“You really appreciate the highs when you’ve been at the bottom and seen the worst. So, you really appreciate once you get to the top and you really enjoy it,” said Manuel following the game.

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SENIOR SUPERLATIVES

2007: Men’s Basketball North Carolina 86 - Duke 72 Looking at the box score, one might think that we’re going to talk about Reyshawn Terry’s (still very impressive) 15-point, eight-rebound performance against the Blue Devils. However, outside of the box score, we felt it was important to highlight perhaps the most important performance of the night came from Dewey Burke, whose role as “peacekeeper” between Tyler Hansbrough and Gerald Henderson following Henderson’s infamous elbow far outperformed Burke’s three minute, 0-1 from the field stat line.

2008: Women’s Basketball North Carolina 82 - Duke 51 En route to an undefeated regular season in the ACC, senior forwards Erlana Larkins and Laytoya Pringle capped their senior seasons at North Carolina with an 82-51 rout over No. 12 Duke. Both Larkins and Pringle scored 14 points, tied with freshman guard Ceterra DeGraffenreid as the game’s leading scorers. Larkins added 10 rebounds for a double-double, while Pringle grabbed eight boards of her own and blocked six shots.

“I was telling everybody, `I wouldn’t want to play us on Senior Night,”’ Pringle said following the game.

“It’s heart, and these guys right here,” added head coach Sylvia Hatchell, on Larkins and Pringle. “Everyone thought whenever Ivory [Latta] and Camille [Little] graduated that we were going to take a step down.

But in some ways, we’ve taken a step up because other people have opportunities.” ramsclub.com 29

THE RIVALRY

2011: Football North Carolina 37 - Duke 21 While Carolina football now typically ends its regular season against NC State, the Duke football game used to regularly serve as the season finale, and, more often than not, was a game that was won by the Tar Heels. Such was the case during Carolina’s final home game in 2011, where senior wide receiver Dwight Jones caught nearly half of the team’s completions, finishing his final game in Chapel Hill with 10 catches for 101 yards and three touchdowns. Jones would finish the 2011 campaign with 85 receptions for 1,196 yards and 12 touchdowns, which still rank as third, fourth, and tied-for-the-most in a season for Carolina football, respectively.

“We didn’t want to be the seniors with the bad legacy left, as the team that lost to Duke,” Jones said after the game. “To beat them was very special and we wanted to keep that legacy going.”

2013: Women’s Tennis North Carolina 4 - Duke 0 Taking the court against a short-handed Duke team, the No. 1-ranked Carolina women’s tennis’ made quick work of the Blue Devils on Senior Day 2013. Duke only had five healthy student-athletes, meaning they would forfeit one doubles match and one singles match. After winning the doubles match (8-1) needed to earn the doubles point, the Tar Heels’ two singles match wins were both earned in straight sets by seniors Lauren McHale (6-0, 6-1) and Zoe De Bruycker (6-3, 6-2), which gave Carolina the overall match win.

2017: Men’s Basketball North Carolina 90 - Duke 83 2017 marked the senior season for Kennedy Meeks, Nate Britt, Stilman White, and Kanler Coker, but the true “Senior Superlative” in the 2017 Duke-Carolina senior night game goes to Isaiah Hicks. After missing the first Duke game of the season with a strained hamstring, Hicks’ final game in the Smith Center might have been his second most memorable moment of the 2016-2017 Season.

(There was a national championship won just about a month later, after all.) With 21 points and nine rebounds in just 22 minutes, Hicks was 7-9 from the field, and 7-8 from the free throw line, trailing only Joel Berry II’s 28 points in the scoring column.

2021: Men’s Lacrosse North Carolina 15 - Duke 12 Behind the efforts of senior attackman Chris Gray and senior midfielder Justin Anderson, Carolina was able to avenge an early season loss to Duke by upsetting the No. 2 ranked Blue Devils, 15-12, to claim a share of the 2021 ACC men’s lacrosse championship, the team’s first since 2017. Both Gray and Anderson recorded a hat trick for the Tar Heels in their final home game, which was played in front of more than 4,000 fans inside Kenan Stadium.

Gray’s 91 total points during the 2021 campaign (49 goals, 42 assists) broke the program record of 81 from Bruce Ledwith, a record that had stood since 1973. Anderson ranks 34th all-time on the men’s lacrosse points list with 114.

2021: Field Hockey North Carolina 4 - Duke 3 - 2OT A game that needed multiple overtimes to decide, the senior day matchup between No. 1 Carolina and No. 15 Duke needed heroics from a senior to decide it. After Bryn Boylan was awarded a penalty stroke in the second additional period, the senior forward/ midfielder calmly stepped to the penalty spot and sent a shot into the bottom left corner of the cage past Duke goalkeeper Piper Hampsch to give the Tar Heels the win.

“I’m so proud we could get the win against Duke, on Senior Day,” said Carolina head coach Karen Shelton. “They always say you throw out the records when Duke plays Carolina and that was absolutely the case today. It was a great game by two teams that went at it. It was everything you could ask for.”

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SENIOR SUPERLATIVES

2022: Women’s Basketball North Carolina 74 - Duke 46 In front of a crowd of more than 5,200, graduate students Carlie Littlefield and Jaelynn Murray both had memorable performances in their final home game, which marked the first sweep for Carolina women’s basketball over Duke since 2013-14 and was the largest margin of victory in the series since 2016.

Littlefield, who started every game of the 2021-2022 season for the Tar Heels, finished with 10 points and a careerhigh 10 rebounds, her first (and only) double-double as a Tar Heel. After only appearing in 15 games during her final season, Murray came off the bench for Carolina, scoring a season-high seven points and grabbing seven rebounds in just seven minutes of action.

“There’s nothing more I could ask for on my Senior Day,” Littlefield said.

2022: Women’s Lacrosse North Carolina 18 - Duke 4 The 2022 senior class for Carolina women’s lacrosse was one of the most decorated in program history and headed into their senior day game against Duke with a 75-9 career record, three straight ACC championships, and three straight Final Fours. In dismantling Duke in their final home game, several members of that senior class (along with the graduate students) played major roles in the final box score.

Attackers Jamie Ortega (4 goals, 3 assists) and Scottie Rose Growney (5 goals, 2 assists) both carded seven points, while midfielder Ally Mastroianni tied her career high with four goals. Attacker Andie Aldave added two goals, while fellow attacker Sam Geiersbach added a pair of assists. Senior netminder Taylor Moreno finished with eight saves in her 63rd win in the cage for the Tar Heels.

While the senior day was special, the 2022 seniors continued their winning ways – winning the 2022 ACC Championship, their fourth consecutive, on the way to the program’s third national championship with a come-from-behind 12-11 win over No. 3 seed Boston College. ramsclub.com 31

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THE RIVALRY

34 B O R N & B R E D

THE TIES THAT BIND

THE TIES THAT BIND The Carolina-Duke rivalry is complicated in the Overbeck family

BY ANDREW STILWELL

PHOTOS BY JEFFREY CAMARATI

G

rowing up in Chapel Hill as a child of two Carolina alumni, it would only make sense that Carson Overbeck would consider Carolina her “dream school.” But what if we told you that, for a period of time, she was considering playing volleyball at a school eight miles down the road? It’s actually more conceivable and understandable than you might initially think.

“Actually, when I started getting recruited, I was looking at Duke, and also Wake Forest for a little bit,” the redshirt sophomore laughed. “Duke is a great school, and with my mom being a soccer coach [at Duke], I was always around her office, and I got to know some of the coaches over there. But I knew that if I committed to Duke, I knew there might be some problems where my mom’s old college teammates would give her some grief.”

If you’ve gotten this far and are wondering why the last name Overbeck sounds familiar, but haven’t quite placed it, it’s because Carson’s mom is Carolina women’s soccer (and United States Women’s National Team) alumna Carla Overbeck. During her time at Carolina from 1986-1989, the Tar Heels did not lose a game, tallying an 89-0-6 record, complete with four consecutive national championships. And since 1992, she has also been an assistant coach for the Duke women’s soccer team.

FOLLOWING IN HER MOM’S FOOTSTEPS

As might be expected when one of your parents was a soccer player, Carson grew up playing soccer from a very young age.

“I played soccer from about kindergarten through my freshman year of high school,” she recalled. “My whole childhood was pretty much soccer, and it was awesome. I was lucky enough to be coached by one of my mom’s old teammates on the national team, Cindy Cone, and I loved it.”

Carson knew that she wanted to play a sport in college, and always thought it would be soccer, but after accompanying a friend

to a volleyball tryout when she was a pre-teen, her preferred sport changed.

“I started to really like volleyball, and was playing both club soccer and club volleyball, and then school volleyball in high school, and it was a lot to do all at once, so I stopped playing soccer and focused on volleyball,” Carson said. “I thought my mom was going to be so mad at me, but she always said that it was a breath of fresh air for her.”

“I didn’t really care if my kids played soccer or not, but wanted them to be in a sport,” added Carla. “Watching Carson follow in my footsteps, as far as being a student-athlete at the University of North Carolina, it gives me a strong sense of pride.”

While the sports are certainly different, Carson notes the team aspects of both soccer and volleyball are not dissimilar, and advice that she’s gained by being the daughter of a coach has easily carried over between the two sports.

“I had never played any individual sports growing up, so I love that volleyball has a team aspect and I was really good at working as a team and communicating,” she said. “While everyone’s separated on the soccer field, on the volleyball court, everyone is close together and involved at the same time, and the communication is super connected.

“My mom has always tried to instill the values of leadership and making connections to me,” she continued. “Your teammates are going to remember the relationships they’ve formed in college rather than a win or a loss or a bad practice, so she’s taught me the importance of communication and being a great teammate.”

Most importantly, the switch to volleyball has been beneficial for both mother and daughter.

“I knew if I stuck with soccer, it would be really hard to fill my mom’s shoes, just because of how successful she was at Carolina.

It’s been cool for me to find my own path with volleyball and do

ramsclub.com 35

THE RIVALRY

something different,” Carson said.

“My mom has been around soccer her whole life, and kind of knew about volleyball, but didn’t know a ton. But she’s able to leave her job to watch me play volleyball, and it’s something completely new and different for her.

I think she’s actually a little bit happy that I went away from soccer.”

A DREAM SCHOOL

“AS SOON AS THEY REACHED OUT, I KNEW THAT NONE OF THE OTHER SCHOOLS MATTERED. I TALKED TO COACH SAGULA, AND HE TOLD ME THEY HAD A SPOT, AND I COULD TAKE MY TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT. I WAS READY TO ACCEPT ON THE SPOT, BUT TOOK A FEW DAYS, JUST WAITING FOR THE NEXT MOMENT I COULD CALL HIM AND TELL HIM THAT I WANTED TO COME HERE.”

While Carson knew deep down that she always wanted to attend North Carolina, UNC was one of the last schools to get involved in the recruiting the defensive specialist and libero during her sophomore year at Carrboro High School.

“I remember that one of my club coaches texted me and said ‘[Former UNC Volleyball head coach] Joe Sagula wants to organize a phone call with you,’ and it was then I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I might really be able to go to UNC,’” Carson said. “As soon as they reached out, I knew that none of the other schools mattered. I talked to

36 B O R N & B R E D

“

Coach Sagula, and he told me they had a spot, and I could take my time to think about it. I was ready to accept on the spot, but took a few days, just waiting for the next moment I could call him and tell him that I wanted to come here.

“Chapel Hill has always been my home, so it was the right moment to commit to UNC, and I took it.”

While Chapel Hill was (and still is) home for Carson, it didn’t necessarily mean she was as familiar with the campus as one might think.

“It was funny, it was the first day of class my first year, and I had no idea where any of the classes were,” she laughed. “All my teammates were like, ‘Carson, you’re from Chapel Hill, how do you not know where everything is?!’ Obviously, I knew the town and places like Franklin Street super well, but I never was on campus or in the quad!”

During the 2023 season, Carson appeared in 21 of Carolina’s 27 matches, and was on the floor for more than half of Carolina’s

THE TIES THAT BIND sets. Two of her favorite memories from her time on the volleyball court came against the two schools she almost attended, Duke and Wake Forest.

“This year, we played Wake twice and Duke twice,” Carson recalled. “The first time we played Wake, we were reverse swept by them in Chapel Hill. (For the uninitiated, reverse swept is when a team loses a match 3-2 after winning the first two sets.) The second time we played them, we reverse swept them in Winston-Salem, which was a fun moment of redemption for us.”

“Then, definitely our win against Duke this year was amazing,” she continued. “We had a play for match point that ended up on the SportsCenter Top 10, and we pulled out the match in five sets. It was an amazing feeling. Any win against Duke is always a notable win for us.”

HOUSE DIVIDED

In the Overbeck household, the Carolina-Duke rivalry is handled a little differently. While their fall seasons overlap, often making schedules difficult, Carla regularly makes the eight-mile journey down 15-501 to watch her daughter play volleyball.

“I’m really excited to watch Carson play, just being in the environment in Carmichael.” her mother said. “It’s a little difficult sometimes because fall is when both of our seasons take place, so I’m taking off my Duke stuff in the car and putting on my Carolina volleyball gear to come over to Chapel Hill to watch her play. It’s definitely divided, but it’s a healthy rivalry.”

“The rivalry is so fun because both of the schools are amazing, not just academically, but athletically as well,” Carson said. “I’d say my mom and I are a little more chill with the rivalry because we can realize that the academics and athletics are great at both schools.”

However, the “friendly” rivalry does not necessarily extend to every member of the Overbeck family.

“With my dad, it’s a little different. Duke basketball is his ultimate enemy in life,” Carson continued with a laugh. “My dad has made a vow to himself that he will never say ‘Go Duke.’ He’ll say, ‘Go Blue,’ or ‘Go Carla,’ but never ‘Go Duke!”

ramsclub.com 37

FIRST PERSON

Silent Nights

M

My very first time playing in the Carolina-Duke rivalry was

at the Smith Center in 2006. The energy leading up to that game was almost exhausting. I grew up watching college

basketball and watching Carolina-Duke games. As the game

won in Durham, we’d get to make that bus ride back to Chapel

Hill, and you just can’t wait to get back and see all your friends and celebrate on Franklin Street.

It’s weird for me to watch Carolina-Duke games now,

gets closer, you see the commercials on TV and you can feel

because Coach Williams and Coach Krzyzewski aren’t on the

part of something you have been watching all your life.

against him. I’m not sure it is even possible to feel the same

the energy around campus and you realize you’re about to be

Practice got a little tougher. My intensity definitely climbed

a little bit. We were a young team, and it was the first time

sideline. Jon Scheyer is Duke’s head coach now, and I played way about Jon Scheyer as we all felt about Coach K.

But I’m learning. I’m a fan now, and it’s a lot tougher than I

many of us were experiencing it. With the nerves and the

thought it would be. I’m hard to watch a game with, because

almost exhausted because I had put so much emotionally and

you that I get extremely into the games.

energy and the buildup, by the time we tipped off, I was physically into practice.

I remember walking out of the Smith Center that night,

and I was completely wiped out. Duke beat us, 87-83, and J.J. Redick had 35 points. I’d been banging with Shelden Williams all night, and I had never been in an atmosphere like that where people were going crazy for two full hours.

I didn’t enjoy the loss. But that game taught me how to

approach the Carolina-Duke rivalry. I learned how to avoid overdoing it in practice leading up to the game, and how to

conserve my energy emotionally and physically and be ready for tip off.

And I would say it worked. After that, I went 6-1 against

Duke. And as many people remember, our class went 4-0 at

I’m yelling and pulling for us, too. It probably doesn’t surprise And there is no game like Carolina-Duke. The players who

get to experience it this year are lucky. There is no better

arena and no louder arena than the Smith Center on the night we play Duke. When you run out of that tunnel, and you feel the energy and hear the band, there is nothing like it in the world.

It’s an experience you never forget, and one for which I’m very grateful.

And

I’m

especially

grateful for all those wins.

Cameron Indoor Stadium. That first win in Durham is still one

of my favorite wins. Very few people gave us a chance outside of our team. Cameron is a very, very loud environment. Being able to experience the entire place going silent — every single time we played there for four years — is very special to me.

Duke had an entire class that will never know what it feels

like to beat their biggest rival at home. I love thinking about

the fact that they never had that experience. Every time they walk into Cameron, they’ll have to think, “I wonder what it

might have been like to beat Carolina here.” And that’s all they can do — wonder. Because it never happened.

I can’t imagine missing out on that, because there was so

much energy on campus when we beat Duke. And when we

38 B O R N & B R E D

TYLER HANSBROUGH Men’s Basketball Illustration by Jason McCorkle

PRESENTED BY

L I S T E N

O N