PETER ST. ONGE, Staff Writer
CHAPEL HILL - There are, Susan Worley says, five stages of dealing with a North Carolina Tar Heels basketball defeat. You begin with Questioning the Point of Life. You end with Rationalization. In the middle comes all manner of annoyance, guilt and denial.
But now, on a couch at a coffee shop in Chapel Hill, the 48-year-old social worker is contemplating a new kind of Tar Heel blue. “This year I'm in a whole different stage,” she says. “It’s just this bizarre, surreal world.”
It’s called, simply, losing.
Things are different these days for North Carolina’s defining institutions. Jesse Helms isn’t returning to the U.S. Senate. Billy Graham is giving the reins of his ministry to his son. Even the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse got moved. So perhaps it is inevitable the state’s longtime athletic bellwether, the Tar Heels, have become a bad basketball team.
Certainly, that’s true by UNC standards. The Tar Heels, now at 6-11, are pointing toward their first non-tournament season in 36 years, their first losing record in 40. Tonight brings rival Duke, which also happens to be the best college basketball team in the country, visiting Chapel Hill (9 p.m., WBTV, Channel 3) to remind the home fans what success looks like – and how far away it seems.
For the Tar Heels, the problems run deep. They are not particularly quick or particularly big -- deficiencies laid bare by the second-worst shooting percentage in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The result: Each week slaps fans with a notable low -- most UNC losses at home in a season (six so far); most points given up (112 at Maryland); worst loss at the Smith Center (22 points to Wake Forest).
“The Tar Heels have been so consistent for so long that people have been able to depend on it,” says Thad Williamson, a Chapel Hill native and Harvard doctoral student who recently wrote “More than a Game,” a book on UNC basketball and the effect it has on its hundreds of thousands of fans. “It’s almost an emotional prop,” Williamson says.
Now fans across the state find themselves speaking in hopeful platitudes about moral victories. They’re turning games off early or thinking the drive to Chapel Hill suddenly seems kind of long. Worse yet, they're taking joy in wins against programs they used to flick aside like lint.
“I always thought God created basketball to help you get through the winter,” Worley says. “That’s what’s been missing this year -- the Tar Heels always have been such a source of joy.”
Instead, the joy comes from fans of Tar Heels rivals, who see this season as more fun than a bug, a magnifying glass and a sunny summer day. “It’s fun to watch and it’s pitiful to watch,” says Charlotte architect Jeff Yelton, a 1988 N.C. State grad. “Tar Heel fans are the most obnoxious fans when they’re winning -- and they disappear when they’re losing.”
All of which UNC backers consider a test of their patience -- but more important, their morality. “Fans have really seen Carolina basketball as an example of how you can be successful and ethical,” Williamson says. “Is the ethical more important than the winning? For so long, Carolina fans haven’t had to choose.”
First, some perspective from The Rest of the Sports World: Teams lose.
Even the most storied college programs -- Alabama and Notre Dame football, UCLA and Kentucky basketball -- battle the occasional stretch of ordinary. So why the wailing from Tar Heels supporters?
“It’s just a strong belief that if you do things the right way, that you will be rewarded,” says Worley. “We were constantly rewarded with victories. You can’t escape that message.”
Few loves are like a fan’s -- largely powerless yet undeniably powerful. At UNC, the relationship is not unlike other schools; fans talk family and community along with victories and losses. But Tar Heels supporters believe they share something greater with their team.
Such talk begins with Dean Smith, who coached UNC for 36 years before retiring in 1997. Smith not only won two national titles and appeared in 11 NCAA Final Fours, but did so with an integrity that fans believe separates the UNC program from most others. “It’s the loyalty Smith gave to his coaching staff and players and former players,” Williamson says. “That's certainly in contrast to the employer-employee relationship we see in the corporate world today. It’s also the idea that everyone on the team is equally important in a moral sense. That’s an appealing idea to most folks.”
Now those values are being challenged. It’s easy to be devoted when disappointment is quantified by when you depart the NCAA tournament. But this season, the Tar Heels are offering fans a sort of Eastern philosophical reckoning -- can they understand the purity of loyalty that comes only when you root for a train wreck of a team?
Thus far, the returns are mixed. In-state television ratings of UNC games are similar to last year, says Ken Haines, chief operating officer of Raycom Sports, which produces ACC telecasts. Haines, however, doesn’t see the numbers necessarily illustrating Tar Heels loyalty.
“With the intensity of rivalries in North Carolina, we’re drawing fans from the other schools because they’re the favorite now,” he says.
Apparel companies also offer conflicting news. The UNC brand is still the No. 1 national seller for Atlanta-based College Licensing Co., an apparel intermediary for most major colleges and universities. But, says CLC official Joe Hutchinson: “Basketball will have some sort of impact. We just won’t know for several months.”
Across the state and beyond, the struggle is more visible.
“It’s just painful,” says Concord’s Del McAdams, Class of ‘83. “Right now, we’re not even competing. That’s the disappointing thing.”
Says Kyle Buffkin, a ‘91 alum from North Myrtle Beach: “With the way we’re playing now, and as bad as we’re losing, it’s almost not worth going up there for games.”
In Chapel Hill, even game days have become somewhat placid affairs. On Jan. 23 against N.C. State, enough tickets found their way to Wolfpack supporters that the Smith Center roiled with bobbing seas of red.
“I think there’s a raised eyebrow with what’s going on,” says David Daly, director of Chapel Hill’s Blue Heaven Museum, where the past provides a softer landing for the present. Attendance is down at the museum, says Daly, a former Charlottean and producer for WBTV.
“People come in and see the 1982 championship display or the 1993 display, and they say, ‘I’ll be glad to get back to this,’ or ‘I wish we had James Worthy on this team.’”
On campus, the tone can get decidedly less diplomatic. “Fans will leave halfway through a game,” says senior Jason Mills, an economics major from Raleigh. “The next day everyone is complaining or making obscene comments about coaching.”
Williamson wonders whether the difference in tone is generational. The further UNC gets from the Smith era, the more danger there is of fans losing touch with his values. Maintaining that connection is critical, he says. “I think it may be the fans themselves who are the ones responsible for holding up the values in the years to come,” he says. “If fans say we want to see things done with integrity, that could have an impact.”
Says Mills, who was a freshman when Smith assistant Bill Guthridge took over as UNC coach: “I don't know a whole lot about Coach Smith. I heard he was a great guy.”
Mills believes second-year coach Matt Doherty -- a frequent target of talk show callers and Internet chatters -- is good for UNC basketball. Most older fans, who grumbled at first about Doherty purging Guthridge’s assistants -- and also about the new coach cussing during games -- are encouraged by his graceful handling of losses.
Optimists also point to next year’s impressive Tar Heels recruiting class, although some warn against expectations -- UNC will lose its top two players, Jason Capel and Kris Lang, from this year’s team.
“If we go two years in a row like this, it will be very interesting,” says alum Buffkin. “Even if we have an NIT-caliber team, I don’t know how the fans will react. I think we get more upset with mediocrity at Carolina than we do with absolute failure.”
What’s heartening, says Susan Worley, is watching fans dutifully fill the Smith Center, as well as Michael Jordan's “23” restaurant for Doherty’s radio show. “There are plenty of examples of programs who have had bad years and didn’t handle it with class and grace,” she says. “I’ve been really impressed that people are sticking with them.”
It is, she says, what Tar Heels fans represent -- even in defeat.
This year, they’re getting a lot of practice.
Peter St. Onge: (704) 358-5029; pstonge@charlotteobserver.com.
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