Jan. 1, 2007

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The following story originally ran in the January 2007 issue of the magazine.

By Adam Lucas

Chills happen.

They do. It's one of the reasons everyone wants to work in sports. Somewhere between those 30-point blowouts and the sweltering training camp football practices, there are chills. It's a thrill people working normal jobs don't have, and it's so priceless because the moments are always so unexpected. In most cases, people who don't get chills don't get the game.

Some people say, "That game gave me chills." That's not true. Chills don't last for an entire two- or three-hour game. Split seconds, not games, give you chills. Chills are caused by a moment. It's there and then it's gone and you're wondering if it really just happened that way.

For some reason, the calendar year 2006 seemed to have an inordinate number of those chill-inducing moments for Carolina athletics.

March 4, 2006: Hansbrough and Noel hug

This turned out to be the capstone to an exhilarating 2005-06 season. When Tyler Hansbrough and David Noel hugged at center court at Cameron Indoor Stadium, it was confirmation that the improbable had really happened: the Tar Heels had really beaten Duke on senior night.

The win moved Noel to tears in the locker room.

March 11, 2006: Roy Williams's locker room speech

Even on videotape, this was a chill-inducing speech. Carolina had just lost 85-82 to Boston College in the ACC Tournament. Team videographer Ken Cleary slipped into the Tar Heel locker room to capture the postgame scene.

He found Williams addressing his team.

"David, how much have you put into this team," the head coach asked Noel.

The senior, exhausted, looked up from his seat.

"Everything," he replied.

The response nearly choked up Williams, who went on to tell his team how much he believed in them, individually telling every player he thought they had the potential for greatness.

April 11, 2006: Banquet video

The traditional end-of-season basketball banquet has improved markedly since Williams took over. Gone is the stuffy dinner; in its place is a lengthy season tribute video compiled by Cleary and Jones Angell.

This season, the video (the same one that was played at this season's Late Night with Roy Williams) was set to "100 Years" by Five for Fighting. It was the perfect song for the perfect team, and the video contained just the right mix of game highlights, off-the-court antics, and behind-the-scenes footage.

Even now, nine months after the last game, hearing the song on the radio brings back a flood of 2005-06 memories.

June 10, 2006: "Chad Flack just sent Carolina...to Omaha!"

Being in Tuscaloosa for this game was magical.

First, Flack hit a 3-run homer in the eighth inning to give Carolina a 5-4 lead, and the Tar Heels eventually stretched it to 6-4. Sheer joy.

But Alabama bounced back with a 3-run homer in the top of the ninth inning (a coin flip decided the home team) to take a temporary lead. At that point, one of the Crimson Tide radio broadcasters in the press box booth next to us was so emotional he began pounding the walls of the booth. Sheer depression.

In the bottom of the ninth, it was Flack again, this time a 2-run walk-off homer to right field that set off a wild on-field celebration.

Sheer joy. Again. Just writing about it gives me chills.

Almost as much fun as living through it at the stadium was returning to the team hotel and watching ESPN with the players and their families. Each time the Flack homer was shown, the lobby erupted with even louder cheers. The cheers even reached outside on the sidewalk, where Flack's father, Tripp, was desperately trying to make outgoing calls on his cell phone--but was unable to because voice mail messages were accumulating too fast.

Later, the chills would come again when the Kenan jumbotron showed a tribute to the 2006 Diamond Heels during halftime of the Virginia Tech game.

June 16, 2006: The dugout in Omaha

Maybe it's less special when it's not your first time. But standing in the dugout before Carolina's first game of the College World Series, the electricity was astounding. Players paced back and forth. Groundskeepers put a final shine on the immaculate grass.

Carolina's baseball program wants to reach the point that trips to the College World Series are regular occurrences. But those final minutes in the dugout before the first pitch will never be ordinary.

November 19, 2006: Jump Around

On the court, Carolina was playing Gardner-Webb. As usual, the Smith Center speakers blared Jump Around just before tipoff. Until this year, that song had always belonged to my daughter, McKay, who would bounce happily on my shoulders while the bass thumped. This year, as a 3-year-old, she was too busy drawing pictures with her friend Hannah to notice the song. Next year she'll probably be too busy talking to her boyfriend on the phone; the year after that she won't be able to get off work to attend the game with her old man.

Not that I'm upset about it.

With McKay otherwise occupied, my 20-month-old son, Asher, got a promotion. Up on the shoulders he went, bouncing happily and grinning while the song played.

Next year, he might be too big to enjoy it. This year, I'm going to relish it.

November 20, 2006: "Winning."

Butch Davis was answering a simple question: Given the competition for the entertainment dollar in the Triangle, what will distinguish a trip to Kenan Stadium in the Butch Davis era?

His answer was equally simple: "Winning."

That one word was chill-inducing in its simplicity and in its believability.

November 25, 2006: Wallace Wade

Sometimes, chills are a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Standing in close proximity to John Bunting after Carolina's 45-44 season-ending win over Duke, it was possible to see exactly what he saw as he walked over to the stadium stands to salute Tar Heel fans for the last time.

What he saw was this: packed stands and thousands of fans chanting his name.

It's that time of year when everyone issues their wishes for 2007. Let other people wish you happy new year, wish you good health, wish you whatever people wish for at this time of year.

Personally, I'm hoping for chills.

Adam Lucas's third book on Carolina basketball, The Best Game Ever, chronicles the 1957 national championship season and is available now. His previous books include Going Home Again, focusing on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.