Rambling about Bonlee, basketball, and good breezes. When I was 3 our house in #Bonlee burned to the ground. It was 1961. I have a memory of it but realize it is probably just one that I created from hearing the stories of that day. I’ve never even seen a photograph of that house but know it was a classic two story wooden late 19th century design the likes of which so many were built up in lumber-rich #DeepChatham. It must have had a front porch for afternoon and evening sitting in the coolness of a Piedmont spring or fall. Maybe there was a bench swing. Hand fans like the ones at church would have been mandatory for summer sitting. Front porches in Bonlee were for meeting and greeting as well as just gathering to sit. The purposes to which that part of the home were dedicated are myriad and complex. When we built back — a brick ranch style model — our car port served much the same functions as the front porch and then some.
Bonlee has always had a ‘Good Breeze.’ Indeed, the legend that I was ‘taught’ that is Bonlee meant ‘Good Breeze’ in French but it turns out that isn’t true. French for “Good Breeze” would be ‘Bonne Brise.” A traveling salesman named Glazebrook is given credit with coming up with the name, for which he won a barrel of “White Daisy Flour” from the general store of Mr. Isaac Brooks (presumably the same store that eventually was owned by my Deddy). Perhaps Glazebrook was a linguistic bricoleur and took the French word ‘Bon,’ which does indeed mean ‘Good,’ and combined it with either ‘lee,’ which means a side sheltered from the wind, or ‘lea,’ which means ‘arable land.’ There is also the possibility that Mr. Glazebrook simply told Bonlee folks that “Bonlee” meant “Good Breeze” and it sounded so appropriate that no one ever inquired further. It is interesting that The Bonlee and Western Railroad was chartered in 1908 and Bonlee did not change its name until at least 1910, and itself was not chartered by that name until 1913. The newspapers were still sometimes using the name ‘Causey’ until into 1910. That Bonlee folks are tale tellers is always a good thing to remember when dealing with one. I’ve got to wonder, and probably will really never know, exactly where the name came from and what it means. Still, that breeze was a good and temperate one through the spring and into the late fall and folks, everybody, spent a goodly amount of time outdoors in porches, car ports, and yards.
A basketball goal hung on the side of the car port and the front yard made for a good baseball diamond, at least when I was a little guy and plastic bats and balls were the equipment. My first sports love was baseball. Bob Gibson and Lou Brock of the Cardinals were heroes I clearly remember. By the time I started Little League I was a third baseman and my idol was #BrooksRobinson and my team, the #BaltimoreOrioles — that pairing remains a strong constant in my life. My Deddy was a bigger basketball fan. The same went for my mother. From my earliest years I remember riding through the dark, wintry countryside - returning home at what seemed like impossibly late hours from evenings spent in cacophonously loud, sweaty, smelly of popcorn gymnasiums, where we watched and cheered on the Chatham Central Bears boys AND girls teams. It is important to mention that where I grew up the girls played the game hard, and fast, and with great skill. There was a tradition of great female hoopsters going back into the late forties in #Chatham. Those girls, the Lady Bears, were actually better, to my remembering, at the game than were the boys. I know they won far more of their games.
I think basketball was my family’s favorite exactly for those evenings out. Things do slow down a bit in the winter, or they once did, in a place where agricultural rhythms and good, warm, breezes, rule the calendar. Those games were community events and were church-like in their emotional investment. Deddy had that kind of feeling about Carolina basketball too. I suspect that sentiment was somewhat centered on New York City Frank McGuire and his 1957 NCAA championship squad at Carolina. TV sports pioneer C.D. Chesley brought the Big Four (UNC, NC State, Wake Forest, Duke) into North Carolina living rooms after 1957 and by the late 1960s the lyrics to “Sail With The Pilot” (the theme song for Jefferson Pilot Insurance-THE main sponsor for Atlantic Coast Conference games) bound us — race, gender, religion, or even team allegiance notwithstanding — like no other sound. I suspect it still might for my generation’s survivors.
went with Carolina even when McGuire turned the team over to his unknown assistant Dean Smith in 1961. By the time I turned my own playing attention from baseball fully to basketball, around 1970, we were a very firm Carolina family. Even though the former UNC Coach, McGuire, was at rival South Carolina by then, the new guy in Chapel Hill had managed to keep us firmly on the front porch. Deddy clearly liked Coach Smith. The pass first, pressing defense style was appealing to him and dedication to collective team play touched base with his New Deal allegiances. It appealed to me too as I dove into the game, imagining myself a point guard, calling plays, finding my teammates open in their favorite spot, and scrambling around the court after every loose ball. The 1970-71 Tar Heels won the NIT (a very big thing in the days of a 32 team NCAA tourney) and I think I went a bit crazy. Crazy over the game and eventually crazy over Coach Smith’s worldview.
In the years following, I played out my own rather uneventful high school career, entered Carolina where I tried out for the JV Team and was cut (by no less than Roy Williams, then one of Coach Smith’s assistants), player-coached some good Chapel Hill City League teams, and even played and coached in Guatemala. I always tried to apply the team-centered, “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” winning strategies of Coach Smith. The more that I learned about his coaching - and life - philosophy, the more I found admirable and imitable about it. Coach Smith, whether watching how his teams performed or listening to interviews or following his stances in favor of equal and civil rights, against nuclear proliferation and needless war - all in all, his thoughtful, Christian liberal wisdom and opposition to ‘modern conservatism’ - has been a role model and yes, I have often asked myself, when confronted with challenges, what would Coach Smith think and do.
Coach Smith once said of athletics and the university that they served as the Front Porch in getting folks to gather to come inside. I owe a great deal to my twice-over Alma Mater UNC — The education, my livelihood, friends, experiences. The institution has its faults, as well as some powerful enemies, and as an alum I plan on continuing to demand that it rise rather than sink, progress rather than lurch backward. Carolina has indeed had moments when it has done the right - the ethical - thing, but like so many public entities in a Constitutional Democratic Republic it takes a gathering of wills to push it forward. Strong forces constantly conspire to pull it to the negative. From 1961 to 1997 Coach Smith gathered a lot of us on the Front Porch to meet and greet. I’m thankful for the way I’ve been exposed to a bigger picture through that original invite to come and sit down.
I remember this day 27 years ago very well. I don’t mind saying that I wept to hear Coach’s good-bye. He had been a constant source of inspiration and guidance in my life for over 30 years. He continues to be by way of memories and his writings (here I have to recommend, ‘A Coach’s Life: My 40 Years in College Basketball’ in which a lot of Dean Smith’s worldview is explained:
https://www.amazon.com/Coachs-Life-Years-College-Basketball/dp/0375758801).
On October 9, 1997 Coach Dean Smith unexpectedly retired as Head Coach of Men’s Basketball at the University of North Carolina. He coached 879 wins to 254 losses with 2 National, 13 ACC Tournament, & 17 regular season ACC Championships. He also coached the USA to an Olympic Gold Medal. Over 96% of his players graduated.
