By Frank Heath
You wake up on a beautiful Tuesday morning, but the power remains out in half of Chapel Hill, and 33 people are still dead on the campus of Virginia Tech.
Sometimes we make sports out to be as important as the things that go on in real life; but they’re not. Sports become like wallpaper on a day like Monday, April 16th.
What’s funny is that when sports fade a bit from our focus, that’s when they may actually provide a more meaningful framework for understanding the significant events and relationships of our lives.
Like many people, I’ve been captivated by sports since I can remember, both as a participant and observer. My recollections reach back to UNC basketball games starred in by Larry Miller and Charlie Scott, and Joe Namath’s miracle victory in the Super Bowl.
I have been present, either in body or in spirit, at nearly every Carolina football or basketball game since the very early ‘70s – perhaps a dubious distinction when you start thinking about how many hours it’s gobbled up.
Yet, although this Tar Heel fan has attended (and paid attention to) far fewer “non-revenue†sporting events during my time on the planet, some of my best-remembered and fondest moments actually have derived from these experiences at off-the-beaten-track locations around campus, such as Fetzer Field, Boshamer Stadium or the Navy Field astroturf.
I watched in wonder with my “big brother†Jim Bailey and maybe a hundred other people as lacrosse wizard Bert Fett slung goals over his shoulder and from behind the net past an incredulous opposing keeper. My real brother, seven years my elder, played lacrosse at a prep school in Maryland, and I proudly wore to that game his #44 jersey with the big red letters.
I studied the elegant strokes of tennis All-American Fred McNair as he mowed down an opponent from Duke on the clay courts that were located at the time right smack in the center of the UNC campus. My father, a fine tennis player in his own right, pointed out how important footwork and follow-through were to McNair’s powerful game.
I sat on the grass bank beside Boshamer Stadium on hot summer nights with my mom and our neighbors the Fullers, and we ran after foul balls that went down the line. Once we took the grand-nephew of another neighbor, Mrs. Gardner, who was visiting from Nebraska, along with us to the game. He talked about how the Nebraska football coach was so great people there wanted him to run for president.
I along with what seemed like half of the town saw Tony Waldrop run a sub 4-minute mile on UNC’s less-than-state-of-the-art track, with a cold, in his final home race.
These games, matches, events happened perhaps during the same six-month period, or over the course of half-a-dozen years; I’m not sure. But they stand up in my memory just as tall as the hundred basketball games at Carmichael, the dozens of football afternoons at Kenan, spent just wishing the Tar Heels would win.
Do yourself a favor and take your kid, or a friend, to a baseball game or a tennis or lacrosse match this year if you can. Chances are you won’t regret it.