Feb. 26, 2006

By Adam Lucas

If you were a Carolina basketball player, you'd be Mike Copeland.

You don't have to be a 6-foot-7 bruiser with a mean rebounding streak to be Copeland. You just have to have a sense of wonder.

Imagine you walk into the locker room deep within the Smith Center and find a crisp white jersey with Carolina blue argyle running down the side. It's hanging in a locker, and you can't help but rub it between your fingers. Then you flip it over. It's got your name on the back.

What would you do? What would you say?

You'd sound a lot like this:

"Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I'll be sitting there and I'll say, `Wow, I'm a North Carolina basketball player.'"

That's Mike Copeland talking about the experience of playing Carolina basketball. That's a true Tar Heel describing what it's like to officially be a Tar Heel.

He knows what it means. His grandmother, Bertha Copeland, used to demand complete silence in her house when the Heels were on television. If the game was on TV, no talking until the final buzzer. If the game wasn't televised, she was listening to Woody Durham on the radio.

She taped almost every game of the 1993 championship season and would watch the tapes endlessly, rejoicing with every Donald Williams 3-pointer and cracking a broad smile with every Eric Montross hook shot.

Her grandson had scholarship offers from Utah, East Carolina, and LaSalle. He was polite with those suitors, but truthful. He wanted to be a Tar Heel. He'd grown up pretending to be a series of great Tar Heel players while shooting hoops in the driveway, and he wanted the chance to attempt the real thing.

This would be a nice story even if Copeland just sat on the bench, smiled a lot, and enjoyed his time in Chapel Hill. Here's what makes it a better story: when he's on the floor, he contributes.

The stat sheet can tell you he scored 5 points, grabbed 4 rebounds, and didn't have a turnover in Carolina's 81-57 thumping of Maryland Sunday night. But the stat sheet doesn't measure energy. The stat sheet doesn't measure the way that Copeland comes into the game and instantly ups the intensity level. He may not be as physically gifted as some of the opponents he's facing in his occasional spot minutes. But he has a way of making sure they compete every second, lest they find the ball ripped away from them.

Isn't that how you would play? Wouldn't you dive on the floor and go to the offensive glass when you were in the game and then break into a wide smile when you returned to the bench just because of the sheer joy of being a Tar Heel?

"He's done some nice things offensively," Roy Williams said. "He got an offensive rebound and scored inside. I don't think we lost anything during that substitution and he gave Tyler a break."

For the record, it's true that the Heels didn't lose anything during Copeland's first-half minutes. In fact, they gained ground, stretching an 8-point advantage to an 11-point lead during his stint on the floor.

"I just go out there and play hard," Copeland said. "I want to work as hard as I possibly can."

This isn't to say that he's going to be essential to Carolina's eventual postseason run. He's unlikely to play double-digit minutes in any of those games. But he's essential to the vibe this team has perfected over the past month. More than perhaps any Carolina team in recent memory, they seem to enjoy each other's company. There are no outcasts and everyone feels comfortable hanging out with everyone else. There are no cliques.

In almost every situation, the players near Copeland on any given day are wearing broad smiles (and not just because he can say "What's up?" faster and with more repetitions than anyone in recorded history, a fact immortalized on Sunday night's radio postgame show). Do yourself a favor: Wednesday night before the Virginia game, just before tipoff, take a moment to look over at the Tar Heel bench. That's where you'll spot Copeland with his constant megawatt smile, bobbing his head to the music and whispering something to his buddies on the bench that makes them laugh. They joke about everything, from the facial expressions of an opponent to even, yes, their head coach (Although Copeland is quick to note, "I'm not really laughing at that stuff, I'm just laughing at how much fun it is that I get to do this." Way to make sure you avoid that extra practice running, Mike).

While recounting watching games with his grandmother, who passed away in 1996, Copeland said the following: "I watched all the tapes that year they won the championship."

It was pointed out to him that he no longer had to say "they." Now, he could say "we." He's a Tar Heel. He's entitled.

He broke into a wide grin and drew in his breath. He shook his head just a little, one of those I-can't-believe-this gestures you used to see when Bob Barker revealed the final showcase and it featured not one, but two cars.

"I can't put into words how great that feels," he said. "I'm actually here."

It's OK that he can't put it into words.

After all, you understand exactly how he feels.

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.