John Shearer: Attending A North Carolina Basketball Game – Or Two!

For the last three or four years, I thought it would be fun to go to a basketball game at some tradition-rich college like Indiana or North Carolina.
 
I finally followed through with it this year, and decided to go to the Tulane at UNC men’s game Wednesday night in the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill. OK, so that is not exactly like Duke at North Carolina, but it was fun nonetheless for me.
 
While there, I also attended the North Carolina women’s game against USC-Upstate that afternoon at the older – but renovated -- Carmichael Arena/Auditorium, where the men played until the Smith Center opened in 1986.
 
Both games were fun to attend, and I am still relishing the experiences.
 
As is probably typical of men, I ordered the tickets and then later told my wife, Laura, about it – or at least the vague generalities regarding it. As it turned out, she already had some appointments related to her work scheduled for that day. She was probably relieved she could not go, since she is not a big basketball fan, particularly if the game is more than five hours away. As a result, I ended up heading up there on my own early Wednesday morning.
 
But I was still like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning as I excitedly climbed in my car before 8 a.m. and headed east. I arrived in beautiful Chapel Hill before 1:30 p.m. and was able to check into the neat and historic Carolina Inn adjacent to the campus. I then headed down to Franklin Street, the restaurant strip.
 
Laura and I had actually visited both UNC and Duke one summer weekend in 2012, so this was actually my second visit to Chapel Hill. I had enjoyed the uniqueness of the Mediterranean Deli then, so I headed to that restaurant again. Since it was an hour or more past my normal lunchtime, I heartily ordered a chicken gyro and a Greek salad that were both so big I mistakenly feared I had ordered a family pack.
 
I topped it all off with a chocolate cheesecake, which was not quite as good as the gyro and salad.
 
My food appetite had been mostly satisfied temporarily, but my appetite for a fun college- and sports-oriented day was just beginning to be whetted. After stopping by my room again just a few hundred yards away, I walked back over through the campus, said hello to the landmark “Old Well,” and then walked to the UNC Student Stores shop in a mid-20th century modernist style building.
 
If this University of Georgia alumnus was going to be a diehard North Carolina Tar Heel fan for a day, I was going to do it right. So I bought a North Carolina sweatshirt to wear at the two games and a T-shirt to have for jogging on warm days.
 
I now have sweatshirts from so many colleges that someone who does not know me might have trouble figuring out which school I attended. But I enjoy wearing sweatshirts for comfort around the house on cold winter nights, so I cannot have too many!
 
After going back to my hotel room again about 300 yards away, I then made my way back across the same campus path to Carmichael Auditorium to see the UNC women’s game against South Carolina-Upstate. But first I passed historic Woollen Gymnasium next door.
 
It was built in 1937, so I decided to stick my head inside quickly. It was like a journey back in time. It had several rows of courts, probably for recreation and exercise science classes, and I could easily picture some college men, and maybe even women, from the 1940s or 1950s running up and down the court.
 
Although it has been remodeled, this was also where the North Carolina men played for years and was their home court during their undefeated 1957 national championship season.
 
It was then back to the present when I walked into Carmichael Arena. Although its entrance and hallway appear to have been updated, and some plastic seats were added at some point, overall it looked much as it apparently did when it served as the home court for the men’s team from 1965-85.
 
This was where coach Dean Smith roamed the sidelines, where Michael Jordan played during his entire Tar Heel career, and where the Tar Heels lost a total of only 20 games in more than 20 seasons. This was also where Baylor School graduate Jimmy Braddock played when he was a Tar Heel from 1979-83.
 
It was once a loud arena when the men played there and it had a seating capacity of only about 10,000 or less, but when I arrived on Wednesday, the arena was pretty quiet.  With most of the students gone for the holidays and an opponent not named Duke, it looked like only about 500-1,000 people were there.
 
It was probably a lot less than what the Tennessee Lady Vols would have drawn in a similar scenario. There were a good number of older couples there, which is typical of the Lady Vols’ games, too.
 
A few students were also there, and I sat next to the pep band. I could tell they were a very knowledgeable pep band, maybe more so than an SEC basketball pep band at somewhere other than Kentucky, because one of the band members was giving the poor USC-Upstate free throw shooters a hard time.
 
“Please miss it,” he shouted sarcastically in the mostly quiet arena. “Thank you,” he shouted back with an equally sarcastic tone when someone did.
 
Needless to say, the more talented North Carolina women were a little too up-tempo for Upstate, and they won 80-40. This is not a great UNC women’s team, as it is 7-5. But Coach Sylvia Hatchell – who went to Carson-Newman College and was the junior varsity coach for Tennessee in 1974-75 during Pat Summitt’s first year with the Lady Vols – has had some good years, including a national championship in 1994.
 
She has been at the school since 1986 and received a hearty applause when she was introduced before the start of the game. She had to sit out the 2013-14 season while battling cancer.
 
Although my view of her was blocked by the backboard in front of me, Coach Hatchell seemed less demonstrative than either former coach Summitt or current coach Holly Warlick at Tennessee.
 
Overall, I enjoyed the game and the laid-back atmosphere. I also enjoyed the popcorn in a UNC-decorated box along with a Coca-Cola in a Carolina blue plastic cup.
 
At the end of the game, I quickly showed I was a diehard UNC fan imposter. They started playing the alma mater and everyone started swaying back and forth, and I became completely lost trying to follow them. Hopefully no one saw me or asked me to leave.
 
Actually, I found all the fans and workers at both arenas nice and down to earth.
 
After walking out of the girls’ game about 6 p.m., I decided to head up early to the 7 p.m. men’s game. As I began walking toward the front corner of Carmichael Arena just a few feet from the entrance area, I noticed a nice, late-model Mercedes-Benz with a personalized North Carolina license plate that read, “UNC WBB.”
 
That could only stand for UNC women’s basketball. A sign in front of it that said “reserved for coach Hatchell” quickly gave away whose car it was.
 
As I began walking in the general direction of where I thought the Dean Dome was, I started trying to look at a campus map I had. But without my eyeglasses and the Carolina blue sky turning black as night arrived, I was having trouble.
 
But not long after I passed the Kenan Memorial football stadium, I saw a number of people walking in the same direction. They could only be headed to one place – the Dean Dome. As a result, I obviously no longer needed my map.
 
I also looked a few hundred yards off in the distance and saw a dome-like building with four Carolina blue lights shining on top of it. In contrast to the lightly attended women’s game, the men’s game was going to be a major happening, I deduced.
 
I arrived and purchased a hot dog and then tried to find my seat a third of the way up in the upper deck with the help of an usher.
 
The arena looked a lot like Thompson-Boling Arena at Tennessee in shape, but maybe it was slightly bigger in dimensions, even though its seating is now about the same. But unlike Thompson-Boling, it has no skyboxes. And everything is light blue, too.
 
I soaked up the atmosphere waiting for the game to start, and then realized I needed to soak up a little more food! This time I decided to try a North Carolina barbecue sandwich, which was quite tasty and moist, even though it had no sauce. It also had some good cole slaw with it.
 
When the players came out to warm up, veteran coach Roy Williams soon followed them, and he was treated to some applause by the fans. He, in turn, showed his appreciation by waving back to them in several directions as he walked in with a slower gait than when he was an assistant there 30 and more years ago.
 
When he later came back out for the game, he had about four rolled up T-shirts in his hands and he tossed them to the students sitting on one end. That seemed like a nice gesture.
 
I realized Tulane was playing UNC probably because Shammond Williams, a former UNC star from the 1990s, is now an assistant at Tulane. Ironically, current Tar Heel Marcus Paige just broke his career 3-point shooting total, so a brief ceremony was held before the game.
 
The announcer congratulated Mr. Paige and welcomed back coach Williams. I could quickly tell that UNC warmly embraces its rich men’s basketball past. They showed this several times, including when some videos were shown and former players said a quick line about being a Tar Heel. Some of them, like recent star Tyler Hansbrough and former great Michael Jordan, received extra loud applause.
 
Also, numerous players’ jerseys hang in the rafters along with the numerous banners from championship years, and pictures of each team adorn the walls around the concourse. I found the picture from 1982-83 when Jimmy Braddock was the starter and team captain, so I took a picture of it from below.
 
It looked like North Carolina has a pretty good team, and I could tell some of their players could dunk well and make moves with the ball that I do not always see when watching teams like Georgia or Tennessee play. 
 
I also enjoyed watching the fans that seemed to fill the 21,000-seat arena to about a 60 percent capacity on this night. They were laid back and appreciative, not brash. I also noticed all types of fans, including groups of women over 25 years old to families with small children. At some college games, middle-aged males seem to rule the fan base.
 
Like the UNC women, the men easily won by a score of 96-72. In a nice gesture, coach Williams emptied his bench late, and the fans tried to cheer on the less-talented reserves to score a basket or two.
 
When the game ended, this time I did not stay around for the playing of the alma mater, but quickly headed out the doors with the other fans. Although I had about three quarters of a mile back to my hotel, I was glad I was not in a car fighting the traffic trying to get out.
 
Since it was a mild night, I later walked back down to Franklin Street and purchased a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream cone to continue enjoying the evening. Still wearing my Carolina sweatshirt, I walked back to the inn via the historic McCorkle Place part of campus.
 
And the next morning I arose early and, trying to beat the rain, also took a jog through the campus to continue relishing my visit just a little longer.
 
It was then time to begin the long drive back to Tennessee through the rain.
 
I will probably try to visit a different college with a rich history for a basketball game next time, but I greatly enjoyed this nice break and fun time in Chapel Hill.
 
And, as singer James Taylor used to say in the popular song, I will no doubt continue “going to Carolina in my mind” whenever I need a warm memory.
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net