As Easy As Falling

I wasn’t scared of heights, at least I didn’t think I was, until I reached the top of the ladder. It was the end of summer in North Carolina’s piedmont, still hotter than fish grease, but the days were noticeably growing shorter, and the remaining days of relative freedom were becoming more and more precious for their scarcity. Middle school loomed on the horizon, simultaneously threatening and inviting with promises of trials and triumphs and trips on a school bus. For the first time in my remembered

life, I was going to be attending a school I couldn’t walk to, one that was more than a five-minute drive from my childhood home. I was practically a grown-up.

I had spent a good chunk of the summer tagging along with a friend to his neighborhood’s pool, and I’d spent a good chunk of that good chunk of time stealing glances at the high dive, towering over the deep end of the pool, its long shadow stretching out towards me in the late afternoon light. The older kids made it look easy, heads breaking the surface already laughing, giddily celebrating their short-lived victory over gravity. I watched a high-schooler, practically middle-aged to my eye, turn a lazy flip off of the platform after subtly (he thought) making sure the nearby group of girls was watching. Effortlessly, easily, he over-rotated ever-so-slightly, hitting the water with a slap that made a nearby Actual Adult look up from his John Grisham novel and raise his eyebrows. The girls giggled; I remember feeling so very jealous.

It may as well have been a mountain. All summer, I had worked to psych myself up to make the jump. Each day — I told myself in his mom or dad’s car on the way to the pool — was going the be the day. I’m just going to go up there and do it. What’s the worst that could happen?

The worst that could happen suddenly seemed like the most likely to happen, as I looked down at the impossibly-small pool, my toes unconsciously clenching and unclenching in the damp pseudo-carpet at top of the ladder. Was it more breezy up here? How embarrassing would it be to turn around and climb back down? Were the high school girls watching? My knees were weak, and every step toward the precipice wobbled a bit more than the last. Before I knew it, and certainly before I was ready, my toes curled into empty air as I reached the edge of the platform. A few shaky breaths — is it better to keep your eyes open or screw them shut tight? — and an internal pep talk, nodding sagely at the advice I imagined myself getting in the moment. Then there was nothing but the empty air, and the husky form of a rising sixth grader hurtling through it.

The 2026 Tar Heel football season starts tomorrow on the other side of the Atlantic. All offseason, I have been stealing glances at this particular weekend on my calendar, simultaneously thrilled by the impending return of my favorite sport and sickened with worry that the season would be another disaster that would end with everyone pointing and laughing. Last season started with the highest-profile belly flop I’ve maybe ever seen, against the same team that will be taking the field in opposition to Carolina tomorrow at noon. Here we are, once again, back on the edge of the high dive.

The climb to get to this point hasn’t been without its own diversions and missteps. Michael Lombardi, typewriter aficionado, is still (at time of writing) on paid administrative leave, and still ostensibly collecting his salary as the highest-paid GM in college sports for doing — impossibly — even less for the program. The familiarly-named defensive coordinator for the Tar Heels is on administrative leave, and his once-caprine father refuses to answer straightforward questions about who will be calling the plays for the defense. Every shaky step of this past offseason has gotten us here, teetering on the brink of another college football season, looking down at unforgiving water and wondering whether or not the high schoolers are watching.

Still, there’s a certain thrill in the beginning of a football season. It’s the reason we watch, the reason we root for the Tar Heels regardless of predictions or promises. It’s the reason we finally step off of the high dive. The whistle of the wind in our ears, those few seconds of perceived weightlessness, the moment that the football hangs in the air just after the opening kick. Soon enough, the world will devolve into a swirl of bubbles and chaos, bracing against the impact with aching lungs. It’s anyone’s guess whether or not the world will be pointing and laughing at us when our heads finally break the surface again. They certainly were after last season’s opening drive, but that’s why they play the games. That’s why we climb back up that ladder. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

Deep breath in. Here we go.