The Chapel Hill News

November 3, 2000

Carolina basketball museum opens

Author: Randy B. Young; Correspondent

Edition: Final
Page: B1

CHAPEL HILL -- Opening today, a slice of the "southern part of heaven" is now available a few miles north of the UNC campus.

Blue Heaven is a new North Carolina men's basketball museum opening in northern Chapel Hill. Visitors will be greeted by Carolina-blue scaffolding hanging from the ceiling and the smells of fresh popcorn.

"You're even going to hear some crowd noise," Blue Heaven owner David Daly said. "You'll just get this arena feeling when you walk in."

While Blue Heaven will not offer the heart-stopping action found on the Tar Heels' home court, it will provide a glimpse of all that Carolina basketball has been and has become.

The museum is located north of Airport and Weaver Dairy roads. It shares a building with Blockbuster Video, and it is scheduled to open today.

A large plaque just inside the entrance to the 3,100-square-foot hall of memorabilia lists the names of every men's basketball letterman. Included in the list, along with other senior members of the national champion 1982 team, is Daly's name.

Daly is a former team manager. He has remained close to those in the Carolina basketball program since his graduation.

"Over the years," Daly said, "I've done a lot of projects with Carolina. I produced Coach (Bill) Guthridge's and Coach (Dean) Smith's TV shows (with John Kilgo). I've written a book and did a video, and I've just stayed a part of the program."

A small memorabilia room dedicated to many of Carolina's sporting achievements exists in the Smith Center, but Daly noticed that the small space allotted does not provide enough for the fans.

"When I was doing the TV show, our editing office was in the back of the Smith Center's own memorabilia room," Daly said. "A lot of people would stick their heads in the door and ask if there was more, if there was going to be more, or where the rest of it was.

"One day, a light bulb went off. I said, 'You know? I could do that.' We're able to set up many more display cases than could be in (the Smith Center), and I think what we offer is accessibility."

Daly also said that space wasn't the only disadvantage faced by the Smith Center's exhibit room.

"Being a state-run facility, it's only able to stay open certain hours," he said. "(Blue Heaven's) going to be run like a small business - open 10 a.m. until 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and we'll run some afternoon hours on Sundays."

Daly also said that his hours may change depending on demand and game times.

"We're going to let the public determine it," he said. "If there's a four o'clock game some day, we'll probably stay open for a couple hours after that."

Daly's timing may work out perfectly.

UNC Senior Associate Athletic Director Jeff Elliot said that the Smith Center memorabilia room temporarily will become even less accessible because it will also be used as a media center for home games.

"Our media room got moved because the weight room (has been relocated) into the old media room," Elliot explained. "We're going to renovate the weight room for next year, and then we'll move the media room back to where it was."

Elliot added that, while there are plans to expand the Smith Center facility, nothing will likely transpire in the foreseeable future.

"We're talking about it," he said. "If we're creating some new space here in a long-range plan, we may try to build a bigger facility. But all of that's still up in the air right now as part of a bigger project."

Nevertheless, Daly insists that he isn't trying to steal away interest in UNC's displays.

"We're not competing with the Smith Center or Carmichael," he said, "but we want to complement them, just giving the fans another place to go and view some things.

"I think what we really offer is size. I mean, we've got the original scoreboard from Carmichael Auditorium, and that would never fit in the memorabilia room."

Daly touched base with UNC sports administrators for their advice and blessing on his project, just to be sure.

"I'd talked with coach Smith about it," Daly said. "Now, if he'd said, 'David, I don't think you should do that,' then I wouldn't have done it. But way back when, he said he thought it was a good idea - 'It had merit' were the words he always liked to use.

"But he also wanted me to be cognizant of the financial risks, which I am. But any business is a risk."

Daly also stressed that Blue Heaven will be neither a "Dean Smith Museum" nor a "Michael Jordan Museum."

One reason for this is the fact that Jordan's items - particularly those from his days at UNC - are hard to get.

"He doesn't have a lot of Carolina items left," Daly said. "Over the 16-plus years that he's been gone, whatever he doesn't have in his home, or in one of his restaurants, he either wears or he's given away.

"We feel lucky that we've got a practice jersey and a couple of other smaller things. It's simply a Carolina basketball museum. We're taking a team approach to it. We're starting with 1911 and moving forward."

While many of the displays will conjure memories of teams from long ago, the technology on display will be state of the art.

"We're going to have some video screens in here with some highlights playing and some old film that we came across that we've had transferred to DVD," he said.

"We're going to be here, not only to help preserve the past and to help people relive old memories, but to help celebrate the new era that's going on as well."

There is a scorebook from the national champion 1924 team. (There was no NCAA tournament at the time. That team was voted champion.) There is a jersey from Lenny Rosenbluth, an All-American on the champion 1957 squad.

The new museum's description of the road the sport has taken from its birthplace in Springfield, Mass., to Chapel Hill is something that Daly hopes will appeal to all basketball fans.

"You'll walk in, and the first thing you'll see will be a peach basket and details on Carolina's direct lineage from (James) Naismith to Fogg Allen to Coach Smith," Daly said. "Even if you're not a Carolina fan, you'd have to appreciate that we're linked right to the beginnings."

All of this has not come cheaply, however. So there is a charge for admission and food at Blue Heaven.

"We're going to charge a $5 admission for adults and $3 for children, and we'll probably have to make a little money off the popcorn and drinks too," Daly said. "Rents in Chapel Hill are pretty high."

To recoup some revenues, Daly will have hats and T-shirts for sale, but he hopes to get greater financial support by booking the facility for banquets, reunions or cocktail parties.

Michael Manapol, the manager of The Season Ticket restaurant and sports museum in Durham, agreed that food is a big draw in this type of endeavor.

"A lot of the major-sports enthusiasts come here for the memorabilia, and then they'll eat," he said, "but the other half comes for the food, and (the museum's) just an added bonus."

Service Manager for Chapel Hill's new Michael Jordan's 23 Restaurant, Elizabeth Joyner, said the novelty of a sports motif has helped business there as well.

"Last year, the basketball season was really good," she said. "We're expecting that this year, it will be even better with the new coaching situation."

Michael Jordan's 23 Restaurant, while featuring a gift shop, offers little in the way of Michael's memorabilia, Joyner said.

"We have just some simple things like a letter Dean (Smith) wrote to him and a list of the classes he took in school here."

The theft of the retired Michael Jordan jersey banner from the rafters of the Smith Center a few years ago underlines both the demand for such items and the need for security where those items are displayed.

Both Manapol and Joyner said that their establishments boast a substantial security system, and Daly has been taking notes.

"We've got a pretty serious alarm system here," he said.

Daly is keeping his options open with regard to what Blue Heaven will offer in the future. He hopes there will be personal appearances by former athletes.

"At least once a month, we'd like to have former players in," he said.

Where fan interest is concerned, Daly doesn't mind dipping into the darker blue hues, as long as the teams are evenly matched.

"If we had a big Duke-Carolina game coming up, we'd like to have like a Jay Bilas and a Brad Daugherty in for one-on-one conversation to talk about the rivalry back then and what it meant to them.

"We'll stay mostly with former players who aren't bound by NCAA rules, but even the players playing now will be former players sooner or later."

Daly also said that he hopes someday to be as even-handed in his representation of Carolina's complete basketball programs as well.

"For now, it will be men's basketball only," he said, "but with a plan of including women somewhere down the line if we can get any bigger."

Daly said that he hopes first-time visitors will continue to return, as he will constantly be on the lookout to add to the growing Blue Heaven collection.

"The good thing about museums is that they're a work in progress," he said, "and we're not going to be finished on day one. We'll always be looking for more memorabilia, more displays and more things to put in. But I feel we've got a pretty good start with the things we have now, and I'm always on the phone."

In the meantime, Daly will be on the lookout for all things old, new, borrowed and, most importantly, Carolina blue.

The one exception is an item he's got his eyes on but has yet to acquire.

"I've yet to find one of the real old jerseys with the sleeves," Daly said. "Guys from that era didn't save their jerseys, and they didn't have that many of them.