By far my deepest sports-related involvement has been with North Carolina basketball. As a kid growing up in Chapel Hill I operated the manual scoreboard which used to be located at the end of the Carolina bench. Since 1995, I have written about Carolina basketball as a journalist, principally for Inside Carolina magazine, producing hundreds of game stories, game analyses, interviews, features, and commentaries. The peak of my involvement with the magazine came between the 1996-97 and 1999-2000 seasons, encompassing Dean Smith's final season and Bill Guthridge's three years as head coach. I was (and am) a firm defender of Guthridge and his tenure as head coach at UNC, and the run of his previously beleaguered 2000 Tar Heels to the Final Four was without doubt my most cathartic experience as a sports fan.
Awareness of the fissures which began to develop in the Carolina fan base after Dean Smith's retirement, as well as the broader sports fan problematics noted above and sincere sociological curiosity, inspired me to research and write the book More Than a Game: Why North Carolina Basketball Means So Much to So Many. The book combines autobiography, journalism, and sociological evidence–including a detailed survey of over 600 fans and fan diaries kept by 15 Tar Heel supporters over the course of the 2000-01 season–to describe the impact Dean Smith and Carolina basketball has had on fans' lives–not just in providing entertainment and vicarious triumph, but as a source of moral inspiration. I also argue in the book that what makes Carolina basketball most special and distinctive is not the proud record of winning, but the special focus Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge put on the well-being of the players as human beings and on treating players and others the right way.
I have continued to write about Carolina basketball since the publication of the book, though not as frequently. Most notably, I contributed to Inside Carolina a number of articles and commentaries pertaining to the end of Matt Doherty's tenure as head coach in Chapel Hill in 2003 and the arrival of Roy Williams. Having come reluctantly to the view that off the court problems made a coaching change necessary, I supported the university's controversial decision to remove Doherty in April 2003, for reasons spelled out here. Like all Carolina fans I continue to wish Coach Doherty well in his future endeavors. The set of events which unfolded during the 2002-03 year, still poorly understood by many outsiders, was deeply painful both for those directly involved and for all who care about Carolina basketball. I am delighted to see the program on the right track with Roy Williams and the current team, especially veterans Melvin Scott, Jawad Williams, and Jackie Manuel, once again enjoying the game of basketball.
Click here to see a (very partial!) archive of my writings about Carolina basketball; click here to see reviews of More Than a Game.
Last but certainly not least, click here to see a tribute to the late Burgess McSwainthe long-time academic adviser and den mother to the Carolina basketball team, whom I was fortunate to get to know well during the last year of her life. Burgess was what Carolina basketball is all about.
