Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back to realize that we are a pretty lucky bunch to be UNC fans. Not many fanbases in American sports can lay claim both to the amount of championship-level success that UNC has and to a rivalry as fierce as UNC-Duke in men’s basketball. If we didn’t have the banners, we’d still have ample fandom-defining memories of wins over Duke, many of which were covered in the text and comments of an earlier Question of the Day. And the reverse is of course also true; if the Duke rivalry didn’t matter
as much as it does, we’d still have plenty of championships to look back on as peaks of the fan experience: and, of course, in far more sports than men’s basketball. You’ve probably seen the statistic out there somewhere that every UNC graduating class since 1977 has seen at least one national championship — that’s simply absurd. Maybe you’ve got a special attachment to the Mia Hamm years, or the recent Erin Matson era, or perhaps you’re a big lacrosse fan; there’s potential for so many stories there. For example, I’ll forever remember the men’s basketball championship from 2017, my senior year at UNC, but I’ll also remember the absurd emotional high of winning men’s and women’s lacrosse championships on back-to-back days a month later.
But that’s not the question I’m asking today, either. Rather, I’m imagining both of those things not being what they are. My Question of the Day today is, when you take away rivalry wins and championships, what stands out as one of your happiest UNC sports memories? I’m hoping that this version of the question draws out some more unique memories than the answers we’d all rightfully expect to see in an unqualified version of it. Hopefully, it’s pointing at results or games or just plain moments that you have more of an individual relationship to, rather than the communal emotional stakes already built in to those big ones.
A few come to mind for me. I wasn’t yet following UNC football in the early 2000’s when the program recorded wins against top-10 Miami and FSU teams that still stand as probably the Heels’ most significant in living memory, so my favorite non-rivalry football memory is probably the 2016 win at #12 FSU, on a 54-yard field goal. There’s the obvious facts of it being such an improbable win, on the road against a ranked opponent (and with Nick Weiler kicking after he’d been unreliable from about 30 yards just a couple years prior), but it also stands out for being an inflection point in the season that made it feel at the time like there was really something brewing after the success of 2015, and, of course, the fact that it was the first big-deal win I’d covered as a writer here at THB.
As for others… Last fall’s volleyball win against a ranked Florida team was just a feel-good victory for a program that had to get rebuilt from the ground up; watching them play with the big dogs and come out on top just put a smile on my face. I also have a special place in my heart for the Diamond Heels’ win over Stetson in 2018 that sent them to Omaha; it was my first year really caring about baseball at all and getting to be at the Bosh to watch that dogpile was awesome. After the ugly way that the Sylvia Hatchell era at UNC ended and the weirdness of the 2019-2020 basketball season, there was something profoundly healing about Courtney Banghart mending the bridge and getting Stephanie Watts to come back to UNC — and Watts’ first superstar moment of the ‘21 season, a 21/12/6 performance against High Point, was that catharsis come to life. I did have to look up the opponent and stats, but I do remember that feeling.
What about you? What are the smaller wins, or even not-wins, that help define your relationship to UNC sports? What are your unique Tar Heel sports stories? Let us know in the comments — and even though I didn’t mention them, no picking N.C. State wins, either!
