Believing in Forever—Carolina's Championship

Being from Chicago, I had a lot on the line in the national championship against the Illini. Several of my close friends attend Illinois, so the 2005 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship took on the role of the biggest athletic event of my Carolina life.

Everybody was talking about this pair for the entire season. I avoided thinking about the possibility of a meeting in the national championship just to keep from stressing out. It isn’t easy to go to a basketball school precisely when your home-state school reaches its highest basketball potential in school history. I was a threatened Tar Heel.

My family must have seen it coming. My sister, Jaylyn, told me she would come to Chapel Hill all the way from Chicago if we made it to the Final Four. True to her word, we watched the Michigan State game together in the Dean E. Smith Center with thousands of other Carolina fans and celebrated on Franklin Street afterwards.

I couldn’t celebrate too much. Carolina’s pride was up against Illinois, a formidable foe no doubt. The championship seemed paramount. It’s funny how we take these things so seriously. It’s just a sport with a ball and two hoops, but it seemed that this would be a defining moment in my college experience.

My sister had to go back home, so I trudged down to the Dean Dome with my fellow Tar Heels. Despite a large lead at the half, I couldn’t bring myself to relax and enjoy the moment. I knew Illinois was going to make a run like they always do.

Sure enough, the Illini came storming back. I sunk into my seat. I began closing my eyes before every Illinois three-pointer. It wasn’t working. My friend Dani said she hadn’t seen me look like this since the Miami football game in the fall. She told me that it was more fun to believe.

More fun to believe? I remember believing that that Connor Barth kick was going to sail through the uprights. Against all odds, I had known that Carolina would pull off its biggest football upset in school history.

I just couldn’t get that feeling Monday. I also had the halfway ridiculous idea that if I didn’t believe it could happen, then it wouldn’t.

Enter a monster put-back by Sean May. The crowd reached a fever pitch. During a timeout, I ran out of my lower-level seat and onto the concourse. I was in search of a believer.

I found the Tar Heels I needed by the women’s bathroom.

“Do you think we’re going to win?” I asked.

Adrenaline-filled smiles spread across their faces.

“Yeah, oh yeah we’re going to win,” one of them said. “I know we’re going to win.”

Feeling slightly less nervous, I ran back to my seat just in time to see the inbounds pass. The game stayed tight, and another timeout was called. I ran out onto the concourse again to look for more Carolina faithful. And so it went for another six or seven play stoppages. Each time I felt more confident, and my friends got more and more worried about me. I just smiled.

“We’re going to win,” I said. “It’s going to come down to the last minute, but we are going to win.”

I don’t know why I didn’t ask my friends if they believed. It must have been the crowd that night. Something about 10,000 rabid Carolina fans made me want to connect with that nameless, crazy Tar Heel who just isn’t scared to be recklessly and perfectly hopeful.

Enter an Illinois foul. Raymond was on the line to put us up by five. He netted them both. I don’t remember a whole lot of what followed. I was jumping up and down, banging my shins against the seat in front of me and hugging my friend without letting go.

As the clock ticked down to zero, the place went Carolina crazy. Blue-clad fans surged onto the unfamiliar padded floor to celebrate.

I know why I was hesitant to believe in the first place. It seems that in college sports, just about any accomplishment can be taken away; a two-pointer is defeated with a three-pointer and conference regular-season champs get overshadowed by conference tournament champs.

I knew at the outset that this national title could not be eclipsed; it would last forever. An everlasting title seemed impossible, but now Carolina fans everywhere know it is not. Nobody can take this away from us. We are no longer in disbelief; we believe in forever.