"More Than a Game: The History and Significance of Carolina Basketball"

(Talk given at UNC-Chapel Hill, October 13, 2003. It is recommended that you print this web page to read the lecture.)
by Thad Williamson

I'm going to talk tonight about the history of North Carolina Tar Heel basketball, but also do a little bit more than that: Instead of just talking about all the on-court accomplishments, I want to discuss Carolina basketball as a social practice involving not only players and coaches but also campus administrators, faculty members, students, alumni, fans, the media, and so forth.  I'm also going to talk about Carolina basketball as it relates to the ideal of college sports as involving both athletic and educational purposes. In doing that, I want to show how some of the fierce controversies which have surrounded UNC basketball in recent years reflect competing understandings of both the purpose of college sports, as well as what North Carolina basketball in particular is and should be.

I come to this topic from a particular angle, and it will probably be helpful to lay that out explicitly at the start: I grew up in Chapel Hill as a faculty brat and like other family members and most of my childhood friends, was a huge fan of Carolina basketball. I even got a job working at the games for six years which allowed me to see home games from a courtside seat, and also attended Carolina basketball camp, and read and absorbed everything I could about Carolina basketball from about age 8 onward. I had the chance to interact periodically as a kid with one of the assistant coaches, Bill Guthridge, whose family was a member of our family's local church, and also met head coach Dean Smith and a number of players at various points. For the past 8 seasons, I have covered UNC basketball as a journalist and written several hundred articles for UNC-related websites and publications, and also produced the book "More Than a Game." If you haven't seen it, the book is a detailed examination of the habits and attitudes of North Carolina basketball fans that also explores some of the ethical issues raised in being a sports fan–for instance, how can one be a good fan without going overboard and letting one's life be governed by what happens on the court? Is being a sports fan a good thing, or a waste of time?

What I want to do this evening is a little different: whereas the book is targeted primarily at the hard core, highly engaged fan, I'm going to speak tonight on the assumption that many or most of you aren't fanatics steeped in the history of Carolina basketball, and start off by trying to speak to some basic questions like–what really is the big deal about Carolina basketball? How did people become sooo devoted to it? And what's the big deal about that Dean Smith guy anyway? Having some sense of the history of Carolina basketball is essential to understand where we are now, as well as in making sense of some of the difficult and painful events of the last few years since Coach Smith stepped down.

Historical Context

So--How did Carolina basketball get so big? To answer that question, we need to look first at four background factors, and then take a look at some more specific history and biographical information about UNC and especially Dean Smith. The first background factor has to do with "sports space" in the American South. Major league professional sports were very late coming to the South. In the immediate postwar era, the southern-most major league franchises were the Washington Redskins and Washington Senators. Even after Florida and  Atlanta got pro teams in the 1960s, huge geographical swaths in the southeast–including the atlantic coast states of the Carolinas and Virginia, as well as the Deep South states and Tennessee, lacked pro sports until the end of the 1980s and 1990s. Yet, the South remained as passionate about sports as any area of the country. Where did this passion go?
 
Into college sports, primarily, and secondarily, into the South's one indigenous professional sport, stock car racing. College sports have been far more important historically. In the deep south, college football became and remained a massive phenomenon in the postwar era, In the atlantic coast states, however, college basketball acquired equal and probably greater importance than football. In 1952, the Atlantic Coast Conference was formed by 7 schools which broke away from what is today called the Southeastern Conferences–North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, N.C. State, Maryland, Clemson, and South Carolina. Virginia joined shortly thereafter, and in subsequent years South Carolina dropped out but Georgia Tech and Florida State were added. The most important thing the ACC did was to establish a post-season basketball conference tournament–the ACC Tournament–with the winner qualifying for the NCAA national tournament. This was the first conference tournament in the country, and because regular season success meant little if you lost in the tournament–in those days only one school per conference could go to the national tournament–these were extremely tense and exciting games, played between rival schools. Between 1953 and 1974 the ACC Tournament became by far the most important sporting event in the Carolinas and the Atlantic Coast region, and began attracting substantial national attention as well.

So the absence of pro sports in the south left a vacuum for college sports, and in particular college basketball, to fill. Especially after the rise of television, college sports in the South attracted significant fan attention from people not affiliated with universities–schools such as UNC began to acquire their own sports publics. And as that started to happen, loyalties formed within families to particular schools, which often got transmitted through the generations. About 70% of current Carolina fans expect and regard it as important that their children to grow up to be Carolina fans too and that probably would be true of many other schools as well.

The second background factor to mention is the prominent role played by large state universities in the development of the American South more generally–UNC is a prime example of this. For decades, UNC has been a leading producer of businessmen, lawyers, and politicians in North Carolina: at any given time, a very large percentage of the North Carolina state legislature and also usually the governor consists of UNC  graduates. UNC alumni, in short, helped constitute the power elite in the state of North Carolina for many decades, and continue to do so today. Many of these alumni came to take a special pride in UNC basketball, which has served as a unifying force for the UNC community; and, deep-pocketed UNC alums who had big successes in the business world have become leading boosters and underwriters of  North Carolina sports.

The third background factor to mention is the town of Chapel Hill itself. For decades, the most educated community in North Carolina, it also is generally regarded as the most progressive as well. A classic college town, most residents in the town historically had some sort of connection to the university, either directly or indirectly: the university employed thousands of people directly and served as the anchor for the local economy. In short the university lay at the heart of the town's identity; and the Tar Heel sports teams were the most visible part of that identity. So whereas the wide appeal of college basketball produced people who became fans via TV with no real connection to the university, and whereas alumni throughout the state also became a primary consituency for Carolina basketball, the town too produced highly devoted Carolina fans who saw the Tar Heels as their hometown team. And because of the specific qualities of Coach Dean Smith, many local Chapel Hillians came to regard Carolina basketball as reflecting the unique character and self-conception of the town itself: Moreover, as a relatively small town–50,000 or so residents when I grew up in the 80s, though it has grown considerably since then–many local residents had the experience of meeting either a Carolina coach or player, who were known to turn up at local school and community events from time to time. In research for my book, I found that over 90% of Carolina fans who are Chapel Hill residents had at least met a UNC player at some point and that over 40% reported personally knowing a player in an ongoing way, and that over 75% had at least met a current or former UNC coach.

The fourth background factor is geographic: namely, the close proximity of the 4 universities in North Carolina playing major college basketball. Chapel Hill is just 8 miles away from its arch-rival Duke, a private university funded historically by tobacco money which is regarded by many in Chapel Hill as the antithesis everything UNC stands for. 25 miles from Chapel Hill to the east is North Carolina State University, which historically has emphasized engineering and agriculture as opposed to the liberal arts, and which consequently has a rather different student and alumni base than UNC in sociological terms: State alumni tend to resent the perceived snobbiness of UNC and tend to have more conservative social and cultural attitudes. About 90 miles to the west of Chapel Hill is Wake Forest, another private university, that also regards Carolina as its archrival.

The close proximity of the Big 4, and especially Duke, State, and UNC, combined with the massive popularity of college basketball means that for residents of that area, being a fan or supporter of a particular school is a major statement of personal identity, and, in many cases also a statement of cultural values and social standing. Carolina fans, in short, like to think they are smarter and more sophisticated than State fans but not as arrogant and stuck-up as the fake Ivy League crowd at Duke. Fans of the other schools have less charitable characterizations of Carolina fans. There is no doubt, however, that college basketball allegiance is a major and at times dominant presence in everyday life in the Triangle area, penetrating not only the campuses but also workplaces, schools, and the like.  


Basketball in Chapel Hill, 1911-1961

With those 4 background factors in place–sports space in the South, the importance of public universities, the uniqueness of Chapel Hill as a town, and the close geographic proximity of rival schools--we can now look at some more specific history and biography to see just how Carolina basketball got so big. North Carolina began playing basketball in 1911 and had above-average success in the following 40 years, especially between 1922 and 1940, when UNC won the prestigious Southern Conference tournament (comprising teams now in the ACC, SEC, and present-day Southern Conference), 7 times, including one undefeated team in 1924 that was declared national champions:
 
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, Carolina was eclipsed locally by N.C. State and its brilliant coach Everett Case–State beat Carolina 15 times in a row between 1947 and 1952, which is an awful lot. North Carolina coach Tom Scott resigned after back-to-back losing seasons in 1952, and was replaced by St. John's coach Frank McGuire. McGuire, a classic, big-personality, slicked-back hair New Yorker,  used his New York connections to establish a pipeline of talent between the New York City era in Chapel Hill, headlined by Jewish forward Lennie Rosenbluth and feisty point guard Tommy Kearns, who arrived at UNC in the falls of 1953 and 1954, respectively.  Although McGuire's first team won its first game against State in a major upset to break the losing streak,  N.C. State continued to hold the upper hand locally and in the ACC through 1956. But Carolina broke through in a big way in 1957, Rosenbluth's senior year: UNC went 32-0 to win the national championship. To win the title, UNC had to survive a massive scare in a controversial game against Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament semifinals–a loss would have ended the season–then in had to beat both Michigan State and Kansas, led by Wilt Chamberlain,  in triple overtime games in the national semifinals and final.

The 1957 championship but Carolina basketball on the college basketball map for good, and was a galvanizing event for basketball on campus and in the area: many of the biggest boosters of Carolina basketball today, the folks who now sit in the plush first few rows at the Dean Dome, were students at UNC during that time. Equally important, the 1957 national title game was the first college basketball game televised in North Carolina–in the 1960s and into the 1970s, an increasing number of ACC games were shown on regional television, with an enormous impact on the sport's visibility and popularity.

After the 1957 title, Frank McGuire coached 4 more years in Chapel Hill, with Carolina finishing in the national top 15 in each of those years. In 1961, however, evidence of recruiting violations surfaced–McGuire was accused of spending too much money taking out recruits to dinner and the like-- and McGuire resigned to jump to the NBA. At the same time, there was a point-shaving scandal at N.C. State, and in response both schools got placed on internal probation by the state university system, with restrictions on games played and recruiting. In one of the most ironic moves in the history of college sports, Chancellor William Aycock decided to appoint McGuire's 30-year old assistant of 3 seasons, Dean Smith as head coach, in an effort to de-emphasize basketball at UNC. Smith was told simply to run a clean program and that he would be shielded from pressure resulting from the won-loss record.

The Smith Era

Dean Smith had played at Kansas on the national championship team of 1952 for Phog Allen, a Hall of Fame coach who himself had played under James Naismith at Kansas from 1905 to 1907. James Naismith, of course, was the person who invented basketball in Springfield, MA in 1892. Dean Smith was the son of a high school coach and a 3-sport high school athlete who decided at an early point he wanted to go into coaching and teaching as well. Unlike most coaches, however, Smith had wide ranging intellectual interests and active social concerns regarding political affairs. Smith was hired by McGuire in 1958 as an assistant at UNC, and as an assistant coach Smith helped integrate a well-known restaurant in Chapel Hill by walking in to eat with a black man.

Smith's teams struggled during his first 4 years as head coach while local rivals Duke enjoyed a period of ascendancy, and in 1965 the coach was hung in effigy outside Woolen Gym, then Carolina's home court. That incident marked a turning point of sorts–Smith's players, including future Hall of Famer Billy Cunnigham, rallied to Smith's defense, and Carolina beat highly rated Duke in the following game, then went on to finish 2nd in the ACC.  The following fall, an impressive 5 man recruiting class, including 6-10 center Rusty Clark, arrived on campus to ensure Carolina would be back among the elite and that Smith would be around for a while. Between 1967 and 1969, North Carolina under Smith won 3 straight ACC regular season titles, ACC Tournaments, and made 3 Final Four appearances, losing twice in the semifinals and once in the Final to Kareem and UCLA. In 1967-68, Carolina fielded the first big-time black basketball player in the ACC, guard Charles Scott marking a watershed in the development of the sport in the ACC area.

This success continued into the 1970s, and after briefly being overtaken by N.C. State and Maryland,  the arrival of star point guard Phil Ford in 1974-75 cemented Carolina's status as the top program in the ACC and one of the top powers in the nation. Carolina won the ACC Tournament 5 times between 1975 and 1982, and in 1975 began a record streak of 27 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. In 1976, Dean Smith coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in the Montreal summer Olympics–4 Carolina players were on the team, headlined by Ford. In 1982, Carolina won its first national title under Smith as freshman Michael Jordan hit a game-winning shot against Georgetown.

Carolina's success did not come simply in terms of wins and losses, however. First, Carolina developed a reputation for the way they played the game: Smith-coach teams played unselfishly and aimed to shoot a very high percentage, and became known for making the "extra" pass. Carolina was also known for a very aggressive form of a defense known as the "run and jump," which involved using 2 players to surprise a ballhandler into a trap, forcing either a bad pass and creating a fast break, or simply taking the opposition out of their normal rhythm. Smith's teams pioneered the use of foul line huddles in games, and developed the habit of pointing to the passer who delivered the assist after a made basket on the way down court. Most famously, Smith devised a delay offense known as the "Four Corners" which was used to salt away victories in close games (there was no shot clock in college basketball until 1986). When run by an outstanding point guard such as Ford, it was almost impossible for opponents to come from behind against the Four Corners.

Yet, at the same time, Carolina under Smith showed an incredible knack for winning close games or coming from behind themselves: in 1974, Carolina defeated Duke after trailing by 8 points with 17 seconds to play–in the day before the 3 point line! Carolina's success in such situations were a result of hyper-detailed practice planning and preparation for every conceivable situation: Carolina basketball practices were organized down to the minute. This was rationalization of sports to the ultimate degree–and it worked. Over time, North Carolina basketball developed a reputation for being well-coached, unselfish, displaying incredible teamwork, and incredible self-belief.

These traits reflected Smith's off-court philosophy: While Smith ran the program as a benign dictator, he developed a reputation for taking a sincere and serious interest in the well-being of his players, even long after they left Chapel Hill. Each player was treated equally, from stars to the walk-on at the end of the bench; indeed, the official team statistics for UNC listed the players in alphabetical order, rather than in order of scoring average, the normal practice at most schools. Smith spent many hours each week corresponding with former players and acting as an adviser on professional and personal matters,  and in the process began to create what became known as the "Carolina family," namely a network of ex-players united in loyalty to Smith and to his program. To take one example: throughout his NBA career, Michael Jordan wore a pair of UNC practice shorts underneath his uniform for the Bulls and Wizards as a way of holding on to his connection to UNC. The sense that ex-players never really went away became a defining trait of Carolina basketball. That loyalty in turn stemmed in appreciation for Smith's role as not only a teacher of basketball but as someone who imparted valuable life lessons: respect your teammates, being on time, playing unselfishly, learning how to criticize actions without criticizing people personally, working hard, being prepared.

The stability in the program did not consist only of Smith: Assistant Bill Guthridge, another Kansas native, joined the program from Kansas State in 1967 and remained for 31 years as assistant before taking over as head coach. Four other assistants–three former players plus former JV player Roy Williams-- had tenures lasting at least 10 years each. The office staff–secretaries–also remained in place for 20-plus years, with the secretaries playing the role of den mother to both current and former players.

At the same time, the "ethos" associated with Carolina basketball became internalized by large segments of the fan base: that is, for an increasing number of Carolina fans, what they appreciated most about the team was not just the winning, but the sense that in an often sordid business, Carolina represented the "good guys," or "the right way to do thing." Here was an elite program with a graduation rate of over 90%, with a Coach who did not cuss and did not berate his players in public, who taught his players an appreciation for detail and precise execution, and who obviously commanded tremendous loyalty from the people around him. Carolina basketball fans in all sincerity came to believe that a win for Carolina on the court symbolized a victory for class, integrity, and decency off the court.

For many fans, too, especially in Chapel Hill, appreciation of Smith had a political dimension as well. Smith in North Carolina during the 1970s, 80s, and 90s was first and foremost a coaching icon, but he was also a political icon–the state's best known liberal. Over the course of his career Smith had taken public stands against Vietnam, on behalf of a nuclear freeze, and against the death penalty–indeed,  Smith would conduct one practice every 3-4 seasons at a state prison, which he thought benefitted both the prisoners and the players. Smith became revered by Chapel Hill liberals as the antidote to reactionary senator Jesse Helms–and for a time Smith's named was floated as a possible Senate candidate. Moreover, and this is one of the hard things for outsiders to understand, in Chapel Hill and in the UNC community, Smith was not just revered as a coach by the kind of people who normally revere coaches–alumni, students, etc. He was also held in reverence and awe by most members of the UNC faculty, and was regarded not as just another jock coach, but as a teacher par excellence and as a moral leader, someone whose intelligence and opinions you took very seriously. When Dean Smith spoke in Chapel Hill, everyone listened.

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, then, Carolina basketball was one of the most stable and successful programs in American sports; it had a devoted fan base among alumni, Chapel Hill residents, and sports fans more generally; and it hard a strong and well-defined ethos, or sense of what the program was about. At the same time, however, the college game itself was undergoing an ever-increasing process of professionalization and commercialization, as evidenced most dramatically by the growing influence of television.

Carolina basketball itself evolved into a multi-million dollar operation, with fairly lavish recruiting budgets and coaching expense accounts–all of which remained affordable so long as Carolina kept winning and winning, and generating income from the NCAA Tournament, attendances, shoe contracts, and private donors. But more money and more exposure also meant, and continues to mean, ever-increasing levels of scrutiny for the program: today, in addition to the local newspaper and media coverage, there are two successful print publications exclusively devoted to Carolina sports, each of which also has large Internet sites, two additional web sites which cover UNC on a regular basis, as well as numerous recruiting publications which give reports on every development in recruiting. Yet, even amidst this growing commercialization and heightened scrutiny-- Smith's approach to teaching the game and maintaining a sense of family remained at the core of the operation, and he was able to maintain his way of doing things up until retirement in 1997.
 
Replacing a Legend: What Will Carolina Basketball Mean in the Post-Smith Era?

Since Smith's retirement, Carolina fans, using the Internet as well as other forms of the media to communicate with one another, have had numerous occasions to hold intense debates about what Carolina basketball really should be about. In my book, I uncovered strong evidence that many, many Carolina fans take extremely seriously the ethical values imputed to the program. But I also found evidence that some Carolina fans really don't care so much about these values as about winning itself. It's possible to construct a hierarchy of reasons one might be a Carolina fan:

--Winning

--How Carolina Plays the Game

--Loyalty to My Institution/Family/Community

--Ethos in the Program

–Identification with Smith's world view

I would say the majority of Carolina fans take some pride in the ethical aspects of the program, but probably only a minority value those aspects just as much as the winning and losing. However, that minority happens to include the people with the most proximity and power within the program as well as in the university community. In general–there are striking exceptions-- fans who have no connection with the university are most likely to see Carolina basketball as just another sports team and evaluate it accordingly, like they would the Mets or Red Sox; but fans who have connections with the university or with Chapel Hill as a town are more likely to have a rich appreciation for the ethical aspects of the program and to hold the belief that Carolina basketball must continue to do things "the right way" if it is to still be Carolina basketball.
 
Note that if one holds the view that respect for others is part of what makes Carolina basketball great, it also implies that fans should show respect and appreciation for players and coaches as ends in themselves, as opposed to valuing only what they can do for me in terms of providing vicarious pleasure. In this sense the ethos historically associated with Carolina basketball directly challenge the norms of dominant American sports culture, by which I mean the usual way in which sports are discussed in newspaper articles, television shows, and everyday water cooler talk. While sports culture tends to treat participants as commodities, an ethos which says college sports are supposed to have an educational focus and is serious about it cannot do that.

Rather, for college sports a conception of seeing the participants according to a logic of friendship is more appropriate: in other words, going to the game not with the idea that "I paid good money for these seats, now entertain me!" but an idea that I am there as a fan to encourage my fellow classmate to do their best, and be delighted when he succeeds and sad when he does not. And my sadness consists not in resentment that I was not entertained, but in sharing in the disappointment that my friend didn't play as well as he could, or did play as well he could but not well enough to get the reward of a victory.
 
In college sports you have a continual tension between these two conceptions--treating players like pieces of meat, and valuing them as human beings who are ends in themselves--which gets reflected in the divergent views in the fan base.

Now, this challenge to American sports culture–the idea that you want to treat people well AND win–is not really radical in nature. A truly radical challenge would say, we don't care whether we win or lose at all, we just want to be nice guys. The more moderate challenge is to say, we want to win AND be nice guys.

The North Carolina situation under Dean Smith was unique because for many years you didn't have to choose between winning and doing things the right way–in fact the reputation for doing things the right way helped attract great players; and the ability to get great players through legitimate means meant that Carolina didn't have to considering bending either NCAA rules or its own ethos in order to maintain competitive excellence. But the fact that winning and doing things the right way seemed to go hand in hand raised this question: which is really more important? After Dean Smith stepped down that question took on not just theoretical but practical significance.

When Dean Smith retired in 1997, long-time assistant Bill Guthridge took over, and by any reasonable standard had incredible success in the next 3 years, making 2 Final Fours and tying the all-time record for most wins by a head coach in his first 3 years with 80. But Guthridge encountered a lot of criticism his 3rd year due to some mid-season struggles and a disappointing regular season record. Moreover, unlike many college coaches today, Guthridge tended to sit patiently on the bench and analyze the game as it was played instead of storming up and down the sideline attracting attention to himself, a style which bothered some fans conditioned by more expressive coaches such as Rick Pitino. A fan employing the norms of dominant American sports culture might reason "well, maybe this coach isn't the best we can do, why don't we try to get someone better in there." Some Carolina fans said just that. But other Carolina fans took their cues from what they took to be the ethos associated with Carolina basketball, and replied with at least one of four arguments:

    1. First of all, Guthridge's record is just fine

    2. We believe in being loyal to the coach and institution no matter what

    3. We don't treat coaches like pieces of meat at Carolina, especially ones who have given 30-plus years to the institution, but
value them as ends in themselves

    4. Guthridge is a great teacher and does things the right way, treats people well, and hence we should be proud to have him.

Now, these last two arguments cut against the grain of dominant sports culture, but they make a great deal of sense from the standpoint of people who take seriously the notion that college sports' primary purpose is to provide an educational experience for the athletes. These last two arguments were, in fact, held strongly within the university community--Guthridge enjoyed strong support internally. Fans with less connection to the university were less likely to hold to arguments 3 and 4, or even to understand the nature of the arguments. In short, with the criticism of Guthridge, what emerged was a situation where the internal self-understanding of Carolina basketball as involving fundamentally respect for people and not as driven by short-term wins and loss considerations, conflicted with a dominant sports culture which preaches just the opposite.

In the most recent coaching controversy regarding Matt Doherty, the pattern of support for the coach flipped. Doherty fit the mold of telegenic young coaches like Rick Pitino, and enjoyed wide support in the media and among casual fans. He had far less support from within the university community and was ultimately dismissed because of increasing evidence that he did not provide a positive learning climate as a teacher: players and their families lodged complaints about being personally disrespected by Doherty and numerous observers worried that he was more concerned about looking good himself than about teaching others. In this situation, many of the same fans who vigorously defended Guthridge because of his known qualities as a teacher were now adamantly opposed to Doherty because of his shortcomings in that area. Ultimately, university officials took the side of this camp and moved to dismiss Doherty, although it is unclear to what degree they were motivated by purely ethical concerns and what degree they were motivated by more functional concerns–namely, the likelihood that unhappy players would have transferred and recruiting would have been decimated if they had not acted proactively. Both kinds of concerns had a role in the decision, but only university officials themselves know how much weight was given to each.

The Future of Carolina Basketball

Going forward, it will be interesting to see whether Roy Williams inaugurates a new era of stability  in which the different values fans associated with Carolina basketball come into less tension with one another: if he does things "the right way" AND wins and wins pretty big, those tensions should subside; loyalty to the institution, loyalty to the coach, loyalty to an ethic would not conflict with one another nor with the desire to derive pleasure from wins and losses.  Most Carolina fans hope and assume that will be the case, but it remains to be seen–in the cutthroat world of today's recruiting and with the difficulty of retaining stars before they go to the NBA, it is substantially harder to do things "the right way" and be as consistent on the court as Carolina is accustomed to being. And if Williams does not succeed at a high level both on and off the court, then those tensions will flare up again--just as they will in any collegiate situation in which fans and administrators must make value-driven choices about whether to support a coach who does well off the court but struggles on it–or conversely, whether to support a coach who does fine on the court but creates problems off of it.

What makes the Carolina example interesting and unusual is that here is a case where many fans and most in the university community really do care about how players are treated, and aren't willing to adopt a win at all costs approach. That situation inevitably creates value conflicts even when things go well, and full blown controversies when they do not.  In many ways, however, these occasional controversies are simply the price of success, on and off the court: For the reason that people feel so passionately about Carolina basketball and have so much invested in it is directly connected to this fact: that Carolina basketball for so many years exemplified an ideal of what college sports can be at its best.              

Hopefully, it will do so again, starting this Friday night.

-----------
Thad Williamson (thad@uncbasketball.com), a doctoral student in the Department of Government at Harvard, is author of More Than a Game: Why North Carolina Basketball Means So Much to So Many, available at www.dollarsandsense.org./bookstore.html