The Bookends of 1963 Marked me as a Heel Forever

It is a fun thing, having one’s very own blog, in essence a platform,  to rattle and prattle about with, to spout off on, opine on, observe with and basically, within the bounds of elastic decency and reasonable good manners, write about whatever might come to mind, whatever might be a subject of the day, whatever is recalled as important. The latter is today’s calling.

There is nothing terribly weighty or profound about what follows here today except to me it is as deep within me as the ink of a Turkish tattoo souk.

There were two events, moments in time that were bookends if you will to that year when I became, of course by label only, a ‘teenager’ and a damned awkward one of that. I had all the style and grace of Bullwinkle The Moose. I was tubby, spoiled, afraid of my own shadow and flinched at every shadow. I constantly ‘ate my feelings’. No six pack of Coca-Colas or box of Oreos was safe if within my grubby reach. Go outside and play? Ha! Get inside and eat!

I turned 13 on January 10, 1963. (And now, as the younger ones exclaim, OMG! I’m on the cusp of wrapping up 72!) As I recall, there was nothing memorable about that day. It wasn’t as though I had crossed the International Date Line or been cast above the gravitational pull of earth. But, just a few days before while I was tail ending my 12th year, I had begun the very memorable metamorphosis of evolving into one baptized in the waters of Carolina Blue.

Now before this immersion began, I was a sports fan though mostly and at best, a random, wandering sort. My little brother Paul was a true athlete, a jack rabbit. I was basically slack jawed and brought up the end of the parade with the shovel and broom. I had loved the Braves and Hank Aaron since 1956 and always pulled for the Redskins-they were the only game shown by WFMY out of Greensboro-and boy, were they a sad sack outfit back then. (Well, Ok, the more things change, the more they stay the same…). There was no ubiquitous cable, no ESPN. Notre Dame was the regularly featured college gridiron offering with the rare exceptions of Texas-Oklahoma, Army-Navy and Ohio State-Michigan.

And little Wake Forest College had built a brand new campus just a few blocks away from our house (Paul and I would ride our bikes down to the site and watch them move dirt and build buildings) and it opened for business in 1956 and we pulled for them from time to time. We saw Brian Piccolo play. He was good!

But nothing really stuck.

Saturday, January 5, 1963 was a cold and windy and big flakes, wet snow, gray day. Paul and I had chicken pox and were bundled in robes and slathered in Pepto-Bismol pink calamine lotion. We were sequestered in our cinder block walls, concrete floor ‘play room’ in the basement with a gigantic black and white television set the size of a box car. The room was basically a repository for the summer’s heavy iron porch furniture and all the accompanying pillows and cushions for same. ‘Bare’ would be the correct descriptive word.

Even though we had one of those doo-hickies that could spin the antenna on the roof to the direction of the station you hoped you could receive, the picture was fuzzy and jumped about from time to time but if we squinted and sat close to the screen on the aforementioned cushions, we could see pretty good. And the sound was tip-top so we turned it up as loud as it would go because surely that would enhance the picture.

The University of North Carolina was playing The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana in basketball. We were watching intently as there was nothing else to watch. I recall we were both uncomfortable, itchy and feverish. The Tar Heels coach was a very composed head coach, a relatively unknown fellow named Dean Smith. The game was being played in what pretty much was a small, band-box gym; The ACC (Their Athletic and Convocation Center) was a long way from becoming a reality. The game was on WFMY and as I recall, all the play by play and color commentary was being done by the memorable, long-time sportscaster, Charlie Harville. (Was Jim Thacker along for the ride? I just cannot remember.)

It was a nip and tuck affair and when The Fighting Irish would score, the home crowd would broadly and loudly cheer. And in a weird, fascinating part of all this, there was one Tar Heel fan in the building, sitting right in front of Harville, whose lonely, singular but vociferous cheers would resonate across the snow-clouded air waves whenever the Heels would succeed. And we could flat-out hear the guy. It was explained somewhere along the way that the fellow was a Chapel Hill grad and doing some sort of post-grad, doctoral work at Notre Dame, hence his attendance.

Oh, and Carolina had a young player named Billy Cunningham…it was said he could jump out of the gym, had serious hops and had already, so early on, been tagged with the moniker, ‘The Kangaroo Kid’.

We got into it and forgot about our Chicken Pox. It was obvious the Heels were the underdogs but they kept fighting back, clawing and kicking. But it was getting late. This was the college game that had no shot clock and no three point shot. I think we were “Sailing With The Pilot’ but they were running out of rope and wind. There were just a few seconds left and I mean just a very few. The Heels were down by 2. They were going to have to inbound the ball from underneath the Irish basket. They were going to have to go the length of the court. It looked bleak and grim. I was having the sensation that I really liked these guys, that I was ‘For’ them. They  called their last time out and Coach Smith, with the home crowd roaring, calmly and deliberately drew up the play and sent his charges out to execute it.

The play was designed for the ball to be heaved by Charlie Shaffer to Cunningham who in turn, was to quickly fire it to Mike Cooke on the wing. Cooke, a fine sharpshooter, was then to take and make the shot, put the game into overtime and the Heels would go on to win. I learned all this much later when I was an alleged adult.

But, as we all know, life is what happens when we’re making plans.

On the edge of our seats, our eyes but a few inches from that flickering screen, we hoped fearfully for a miracle that seemed beyond remote.

Shaffer fired the ball to ‘The Kid’.

We held our breath.

‘The Kid’ snatched it out of the air and turned toward the basket. He was behind the center court line. Time was standing still but that was a lie. Time was dying off the clock.

He took two fast dribbles and then with the grace of Nureyev, launched a half-court shot that gently settled into the basket as the ‘game over’ horn sounded. But now, the game was not over.

The arena was suddenly silent, save for the Carolina players, the announcer and the grad student who went off as would fireworks in a closed room.

Paul and I began running around the basement like banshees, bouncing into each other, screaming and laughing.

The Heels went on to win it in overtime 76-68.

I had been baptized.

The year pounded forward. I was only months later headed to boarding school in Connecticut. I was still plenty lumpy but beginning to really play sports, not just play at them. I read a lot but was still an academic slug. 1963 was not at all memorable and then it was. And then the keystone was complete. And I had not given this much thought for years and years until this past summer when I was in a place in Wyoming called Brooks Lake, about 40 miles outside Jackson Hole.

It’s a gorgeous spot-built on the post road, early bus route from Yellowstone to Bozeman with a comfortable, old lodge with huge beams and fireplaces, good food and drink, very nice people and lots of nice, low key things to do. I walked around, did lots of writing, visited with folks from all over, read a lot, swam in the beautiful (and very cold!) lake and even rode a horse (no need to do that again…) I relaxed which for me is often not very obtainable.

It was a chance meeting with an employee, a lovely, smart young lady that helped complete this equation for me.

When we checked in and as I admired the place, I asked, “Who owns this pretty place?”

The helpful clerk replied, “Oh, a nice, well-to-do fellow, lives over in Jackson and also in Houston.”

There was nothing more to it.

Or so I thought.

Brooks Lake has a very nice practice of having her guests gather and mingle for a glass or two before dinner. It’s a swell way to meet new folks and have nice visits.

We are at the meet and greet and my traveling friend was in a happy, very animated conversation with a young lady.

I was being introduced to folks from Tallahassee and Richmond.

My friend called to me. “Please come over here and show her your arm.”

I dutifully did so and great excitement broke out.

“I love Carolina! So many people in my family went there! We love Carolina! My Daddy went to Carolina! Lots of my family went to Carolina!”

I asked, “Where do you live?”

“Oh sometimes in Jackson and sometimes in Houston.”

And the lightbulb flashed on. I knew. I don’t know how I knew but I knew.

I had been baptized in January of ‘63 and now as the year was ending, I was to be marked with the chrism oil to lock me up for good.

It was a terrible, sad, jolting day. President Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22nd.

The Carolina-Duke game, set for Saturday was obviously postponed. It might not have been played at all.

But the players voted to go ahead and play it and play it they did in Durham the following Thursday, Thanksgiving Day.

The winner would go to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville to play a very good Air Force team; the loser would go home.

Duke had a star running back, Jay Wilkinson, the son of the legendary Oklahoma Sooners’ coach, Bud Wilkinson.

Carolina had plenty of toughness and firepower too.

A bunch of us, spread out all over the place on the floor of my bedroom, listened to it on a table radio.

Of course, the volume was on ‘tilt’. The crowd at Wallace Wade was thunderous. Of course, we were anxious, nervous.

(It may have been televised; I have no memory of it. I presume if it had been, I’m sure we would have watched.)

The teams slugged it out. It was a grudging, tense, back and forth affair.

Very late in the game, Duke led 14-13.

Carolina drove haltingly but steadily close enough for a late field goal try.

We held our breath.

Our guy made the heroic field goal. The Heels thwarted Duke’s last thrust. Heels win 16-14 by the grace of a steady toe.

The Heels went on December 28th to the Gator Bowl and thrashed Air Force 35-0.

Our Daddy took us to the game. We flew down and flew back on the same day.  It was our Christmas present.

And it was the excited young lady from Brooks Lake-whom I meet 58 years later- It was her Daddy who booted the Heels onto Jacksonville.

Pretty neat, I’d say.

I close this reminiscence by noting that my love affair with Chapel Hill which began in 1963 has never faltered or abated. I joined the Rams Club in the fall of 1971, the beginning of my senior year. And yes, I do love all the sports but am very mindful that we help a lot of young people, male and female, have academic and life opportunities that otherwise might very well be unavailable to them.

And yes, I do give to the strictly academic side as well.

So I ask. What happened, when did it happen that your special loyalty burst into being?

I send my best. Keep reading. Stay safe!

Vernon