UNC Basketball History

Some Tar Heel Hoop History (Don't let the title of the link fool you)
"McCrary Mills [ in Asheboro] ... sponsored a basketball team, and on December 1, 1956, the UNC Tar Heels came to the McCrary Recreation Center to play an exhibition game. A crowd of 1500 turned out. I was one of the 1500. With less than eight minutes to go in the game, the Eagles led 61 to 59, but in the end, the Tar Heels won 84 to 70. And as everybody remembers the 56-57 Tar Heels went on to win 32 straight games and the NCAA Championship. Following that magical season, I remember hearing UNC Head Coach Frank McGuire make a speech to the Asheboro Lions Club and he said, “…we were really 33 and 0. We beat the McCrary Eagles to start the season.”

 
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"Michael Jordan and the Rise of Global Capitalism." There are people who are global - infamous ones to be sure like trump and Hitler and Bin Laden for whom the simple sound of their name conjures strong sentiments - historically sensible ones of disgust (to all but those who follow their cult). And there are others who tend to stir positive feelings like Malala, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dolly Parton (though for even these figures detractors can always be found).

Michael Jordan tends toward that second category (though I am certainly aware there are those who find things about his life distasteful) for his competitiveness and athletic artistry. Of course I revere him for bringing Coach Smith his first championship and his allegiance to our shared Alma Mater.

He is international and seemingly quite timeless - in a second season (2022) episode of award-winning comedy-drama ‘The Bear’ Jordan’s name came up in a conversation between two chefs in Copenhagen (a great show marred only by a subtheme that focuses on a coach from category #1 above). Over the years I’ve had many conversations in Guatemala about ‘Miguel Yordan’ as well - dating back to the days of The Dream Team though to my eternal chagrin almost never is the Tar Heel connection even known there.

Over twenty years ago now (2002), Walter Lefebre published ‘Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism’ in which the author posits, Jordan as “the supreme example of how American corporations have used technology in a brave, massively wired new world to sell their products in every corner of the globe.” (Amazon.com) [Quote from Reviewer Douglas Brinkley] Certainly in the years since #23 has been challenged for such an accolade but nevertheless the 63 year old remains in the picture even 22 years since he last laced up his Air Jordans.


A note in personal observations made in Spain is that the Chicago Bulls jersey of #23 is still everywhere - almost rivaling the “on the field” and currently active Argentinian Global Soccer Star, Lionel Messi. My greatest related wish would be that Jordan’s Carolina Blue Tar Heel jersey was more prominent than the Red and Black of Los Toros! I understand though - the NBA is truly, and increasingly so - a global league while college sports remain primarily regional and shrinking in import with every season - university basketball suffering the most precipitous decline as One-and-Dones and the Portal strip loyalty and rivalry from the contests.


Indeed, three of the five chosen for the 2024-25 NBA All-Pro First Team are foreigners (Gilgeous-Alexander (Can), Jokić (Serbia), and Antetokounmpo (Greece) - notably, Luka Dončić was absent from the All-NBA team due to not meeting the 65-game minimum). I’m glad just the same to see Jordan among the all-time names even though the Windy City identification pales for me to the ‘Southern Part of Heaven’ one.


Oh — one other wish while I’m at it - the ubiquitousness of the New York Yankees gear - enough of that already. (PS - of course that’s not MJ in the photo)
 
donbosco said:
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"Michael Jordan and the Rise of Global Capitalism." There are people who are global - infamous ones to be sure like trump and Hitler and Bin Laden for whom the simple sound of their name conjures strong sentiments - historically sensible ones of disgust (to all but those who follow their cult). And there are others who tend to stir positive feelings like Malala, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dolly Parton (though for even these figures detractors can always be found).

Michael Jordan tends toward that second category (though I am certainly aware there are those who find things about his life distasteful) for his competitiveness and athletic artistry. Of course I revere him for bringing Coach Smith his first championship and his allegiance to our shared Alma Mater.

He is international and seemingly quite timeless - in a second season (2022) episode of award-winning comedy-drama ‘The Bear’ Jordan’s name came up in a conversation between two chefs in Copenhagen (a great show marred only by a subtheme that focuses on a coach from category #1 above). Over the years I’ve had many conversations in Guatemala about ‘Miguel Yordan’ as well - dating back to the days of The Dream Team though to my eternal chagrin almost never is the Tar Heel connection even known there.

Over twenty years ago now (2002), Walter Lefebre published ‘Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism’ in which the author posits, Jordan as “the supreme example of how American corporations have used technology in a brave, massively wired new world to sell their products in every corner of the globe.” (Amazon.com) [Quote from Reviewer Douglas Brinkley] Certainly in the years since #23 has been challenged for such an accolade but nevertheless the 63 year old remains in the picture even 22 years since he last laced up his Air Jordans.


A note in personal observations made in Spain is that the Chicago Bulls jersey of #23 is still everywhere - almost rivaling the “on the field” and currently active Argentinian Global Soccer Star, Lionel Messi. My greatest related wish would be that Jordan’s Carolina Blue Tar Heel jersey was more prominent than the Red and Black of Los Toros! I understand though - the NBA is truly, and increasingly so - a global league while college sports remain primarily regional and shrinking in import with every season - university basketball suffering the most precipitous decline as One-and-Dones and the Portal strip loyalty and rivalry from the contests.


Indeed, three of the five chosen for the 2024-25 NBA All-Pro First Team are foreigners (Gilgeous-Alexander (Can), Jokić (Serbia), and Antetokounmpo (Greece) - notably, Luka Dončić was absent from the All-NBA team due to not meeting the 65-game minimum). I’m glad just the same to see Jordan among the all-time names even though the Windy City identification pales for me to the ‘Southern Part of Heaven’ one.


Oh — one other wish while I’m at it - the ubiquitousness of the New York Yankees gear - enough of that already. (PS - of course that’s not MJ in the photo)
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I lived in Europe for 7 years 1985-1991 (the early years Jordan was in the NBA). For about a month in my first year there, I was in Leiden, Netherlands and I was Jonesin’ to play some hoops. I noticed an outdoor basketball goal at a neighborhood park. I went to what was a Dutch version of a department store and found a basketball (cheap, rubber, but serviceable). It was Carolina Blue and White with some sort of UNC or TarHeel emblem and Dean Smith’s name on it. I freaked out and bought immediately. Went to the park and shot lights out pretending to be Jordan or Worthy hitting last second shots to win the game.

Later, in 1989, I travelled home for the Holidays and went to an NBA game in Atlanta. Saw the Hawks vs the Bulls. Sitting in the first row on the end line. I had Dominique Wilkins dunking in my face in the first half, and then Jordan dunking in my face in the second. After the game I went to the concession stands and purchased a $100 Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls jersey. The authentic NBA sanctioned kind. Top quality, top money.
I travelled back to Zürich Switzerland where I was living that year and proudly wore my new NBA souvenir. I dare say I may have been the first to wear that jersey while walking around in Europe.

Now, as you point it, it can be found all over the world. But make no mistake, UNC and a Carolina Blue basketball was also found overseas as well.

And fuck the Yankees. I dislike them almost as much as I hate d00k.

Have fun in Barcelona!
 
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What I most remember was that he floated and traveled unlikely distances across the court at great heights. With an arm outstretched, ball balanced in the palm of his hand, he deftly rolled it off his fingertips into the net-bedecked hoop. This was the stuff of super-heroes - and he was both super, and a hero.

Bill Chamberlain and his crew of Dennis Wuycik, Steve Previs, and George Karl - bolstered in 1971 by Lee Dedmon and Dave Chadwick and in 1972 by Robert McAdoo and Bobby Jones - drew me into the game that has ever since been nigh on spiritual. Baseball had me before 1971 but by March of 1971 Chamberlain and The National Invitational Tournament Tar Heels had put basketball firmly in a place unassailable and beyond mere sport.

I was 13 when this conversion transpired and for several years forward a basketball was my totem. I probably admired #13 Steve Previs the most for his all-out daredevil hustling defense and then Karl for his cool, command of the floor - and they were guards and so was I. The frontcourt was more awe-inspiring for the ‘in the paint’ prowess they exhibited. And of course, Chamberlain, while Wuycik was a mainly earthbound bull, and McAdoo ranged just out of reach with his jumpers, like an eagle Chamberlain flew above them all.

What I didn’t know about Chamberlain in those days was his backstory. He was from Harlem but by high school had come under the tutelage of the Reverend Ed Visscher at Long Island Lutheran where he was tabbed a college ‘get’ - and he was. Looking back at his clipping from those pre-Carolina days he did it all for Lutheran. Ironically, his biggest local rival for headlines was a 6-9 post man out of Oyster Bay named Tom Riker, who would go on to star for Frank McGuire’s University of Sub Carolina Gamethugs, then also in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Chamberlain said that the academic prep school experience at Lutheran was formative for him and so too was student government where he served. Tuned into what C.D. Chesley brought us on television by way of ‘Sailing With The Pilot’ and on The Tar Heel (radio) Sports Network on the many nights when Carolina didn’t make it on TV (it was like that in those days) we weren’t dialed into campus happenings.

But campuses across the nation were hot houses of democracy during Bill Chamberlain’s Tar Heel matriculation. He was in Chapel Hill from late Summer 1968 until he graduated in late Spring 1972. While Vietnam War protests roiled colleges nigh everywhere and 1970 saw the Government shoot down students at Kent State and Jackson State, in contrast the reverberations of 1967’s Summer of Love were being felt by a generation coming of age.

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Part too of that awakening was the recognition that racism was systemic, ingrained, and historically based. In late 1968 and throughout 1969 at Carolina the Black Student Movement (BSM) joined with the Cafeteria Workers to strike for equal treatment and pay on campus. In his assisted autobiography, ‘A Coach’s Life,’ Dean Smith recounts the moment when, as a sophomore still working to establish himself on the varsity and win court time, Bill Chamberlain came to him requesting to miss practice in order to attend a campus rally in support of the striking cafeteria workers. He had been asked to speak. Coach Smith gave his permission and Chamberlain lent his voice to that of the BSM and allied students in the cause of labor reform and Civil Rights, something rare among college athletes at the time and even more remarkable for an African American student at a southern university.

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Reading about that years ago in Coach Smith’s book but having been clueless in those actual times brought that super-hero of my youth down to earth in a way. Today however, knowing that while #31 was engaged in sport at the same time he was fighting for human rights in his community he seems to soar even higher and farther.

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R.I.P. Tar Heel.

Bill Chamberlain (1949-2025)
 
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So much more that could be said about Chamberlain: Second African American Scholarship Basketball player - NIT MVP - ABA/NBA - freak Zamboni accident in GSO…
 
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Here's a long ago summer team photo to go with the one over on Hot Stove of the 2025-26 team. Can you name any of these guys?
 
donbosco said:
This will give it away - that is Ed Stahl.
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Stahl was 1971-1975.

Kupchak was 1972-1976…..first class with freshman eligibility. Mitch is not in that photo.

Donn Johnston is the tall red-headed guy near Stahl…..

Brad Hoffman is the guy who looks 11 or 12 with the long hair wearing a grayish tank-top with reddish trim……
 
donbosco said:
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Here's a long ago summer team photo to go with the one over on Hot Stove of the 2025-26 team. Can you name any of these guys?
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Darrell Elston, Bill Chambers, and Billy Chambers are in this photo as well as the aforementioned Ed Stahl , Donn Johnston, and Brad Hoffman.
 



Manek is playing for Los Leones de Ponce in the Puerto Rican Professional League.

He's averaging 14 ppg and 12 rpg.
 
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